Has "walled About With God" Influenced Your Vocation?

[inperpetuity]

I am just reading this book for the first time and it is amazing.  Has anyone's vocation been influenced by this book?  There are some old threads that mention it, but nothing much about how or if it's really influenced anyone in their vocation except one person did mention that it did.

[inperpetuity]

Walled should be capitalized, sorry.

[nikita92]

Haven't heard of it before...

[OnlySunshine]

I've not heard of this book before, either. 

[Gabriela]

I ran across it in my research. Maybe a Poor Clare mentioned it, or maybe I just discovered it on Amazon. Anyway, it's been on my "To Buy" list at Amazon for over a year. Maybe it's time to buy it. :-)

 

Can you tell us more about it, InPerpetuity? What's so great about it?

[nikita92]

Christians are called to proclaim 'the glorious liberty of the children of God' to all men and women in the world. With this in mind, the enclosure of cloistered nuns, the apparent renunciation of personal freedom in order to live within the walls of a monastery for the rest of one's life, is often regarded as a sign of contradiction. How can such a life be justified in view of the Gospel, which invites Christians to become a light to the world and to proclaim the good news to all peoples? This unique book, written by cloistered nuns themselves, provides answers to this and many other questions. Far from being an invention of the Middle Ages which was imposed on women by a male-dominated Church and society, enclosure was in fact freely chosen by nuns themselves from the very beginning and only later became an object of canonical legislation. Drawing on the riches of Christian traditions, this book examines enclosure from a biblical, historical, spiritual and theological perspective, showing how it aids the prayer-life and mission of cloistered nuns. Dom Jean Prou (1911-1999) was fifth Abbot of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes and Abbot-President of the Solesmes Congregation from 1959 until his retirement in 1992. His high esteem for the vocation of enclosed nuns led to an invitation to oversee the international team of clostered Benedictine nuns from France, Canada and England who cooperated to write this book.

[Sr Mary Catharine OP]

It's a very good, scholarly and theological look at enclosure, not so much as the law but as the observance. People tend to just focus on the law of enclosure, what you can and can't do. But enclosure has to be lived as an observance, as a virtue. We used to say that there is really no point of saying you are cloistered if you pounce on the newspaper and read it from cover to cover before you line the trash can in the kitchen. Yes, reading the newspaper is OK, or checking the news on the internet but only what is necessary. The Church does say that it is necessary for contemplative nuns to be aware of what is going on in the world for our prayer and for our own human development. (The media is so biased that most of us keep to the headlines.)

I don't think there is anything else out there that covers this subject in this way. We Dominicans have done studies but those have been published just for the monasteries.

[inperpetuity]

I ran across it in my research. Maybe a Poor Clare mentioned it, or maybe I just discovered it on Amazon. Anyway, it's been on my "To Buy" list at Amazon for over a year. Maybe it's time to buy it. :-)

 

Can you tell us more about it, InPerpetuity? What's so great about it?

I have to emphasize that I am finding this book amazing, so to add what N92 quoted from the back of the book, I will quote a little bit from it. " From St. Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny from 1122 to 1157, whose mother became a nun there, and describes the perpetual enclosure of the monastery at Marcigny as a 'joyful and voluntary prison, a grace nearly unique and unheard of', and he noted the contrast between them and other nuns who freely roamed about on foot or horseback:  'Enclosed in this cloister of salvation, or rather, buried in this life-giving sepulcher, they awaited the exchange of their temporary prison for an eternal liberation, and for this tomb a blessed resurrection.'  Peter the Venerable records how one night flames threatened the very cells of the nuns .  The Archbishop of Lyons happened to be staying in the area.  After being told of the fire, he immediately went into the cloister and ordered the nuns to leave the enclosure.  A nun of the monastery replied:  My father, the fear of God and the command of our Abbot keep us enclosed within these limits until we die.  Under no pretext, in no circumstance, can we pass the bounds imposed by our penitence, unless he who enclosed us in the name of the Lord should himself permit it.  Therefore, order us not to do that which is forbidden; rather command the fire to draw back.  Meekly he stepped back and found the flames more amenable to his authority than the nuns."

 

"The reason for Marcigny's total enclosure maybe found in Cluny's own monastic theory and practice.  From its foundation, monasticism was seen to be a powerful means of the reform of the Church by its purity and its otherworldliness.  The monastic life consists in showing mankind what the Church actually is:  the holiness of God communicated to men.  It is for monks and nuns to go out from the world, to be strangers to it, to be separated from it, and to become as far as possible, given the limits of human frailty, dwellers in paradise and sharers in the angelic life of heaven.  St. Hugh would compare the nuns to sacred vessels with which only the priest comes into contact.  The intention was to prevent all preoccupation with mundane things and to avoid arousing desires for what had been left behind.  Otherworldliness, purity, and a total commitment to Christ were the elements that contributed to the spiritual climate of both monasteries of Cluny and Marcigny."

 

Then the book goes on to describe the flowering of the eremitic spirit between the 11th and 13th centuries to include all types of monasticism from the Carthusians  to the countless anchorites enclosed in their cells.  A document from Rome dating from around 1320 indicates the presence of 240 female recluses/anchorites  in this city of Toulouse of 413 churches.  In England, female anchorites seemed to have outnumbered the men by two to one.

 

This history of enclosure fascinates me and speaks to my heart.  It is giving me the opportunity to understand better the spirituality of enclosure, and of the Benedictine nuns of the congregation of Solesmes which has grown out of this history and who wrote this book . 

[inperpetuity]

I should add that I am only on page 68 out of 253 pages.

[Chiquitunga]

Heard of this book, but never read it. Great to hear about much you're getting out of it, thanks! Will have to check it out... I love monastic history! :bible:

[Golden Years]

Just bought it.  Thanks for posting!