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Are monks (nuns, etc.) who live in isolation cowards for hiding from the real world? originally appeared on Quora - the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Answer by Claire-Edith De la Croix, Catholic sister, on Quora:
Are monks (nuns, etc.) who live in isolation cowards for hiding from the real world?
(My reply deals with the Catholic monastic tradition, particularly my years as a Poor Clare before I became a hermit.)
Allow me to rephrase your question: Are monks and nuns cowards? Do they hide from the real world?
No.
First of all, living in close quarters day and night with the same seven or fifteen or twenty or even fifty other people for your whole life brings what I think you mean by “the real world” very close. We are human beings, not angels or ready-made saints. We have desires and dislikes and little tricks of speech or behavior and they come with us into the monastery.
The same people day and night. Older than you and younger. Maybe from different cultures. In my monastery at one point there were fifteen nuns from about half a dozen countries. During my novitiate, we were five postulants and novices from five different countries, four of us struggling to learn and live in a new language!
My point there is that constant and continuous close contact with other people brings out the best and the worst in us. There is no hiding. Even the strictest of enclosed nuns deal with social issues, scaled down but also intensified. We might keep silence most of the day. That just hones our perception.
We work, sometimes we make a mistake and then everyone knows about it. Sometimes we are in a position of being under a nun we don’t like or who we think isn’t very competent. We still have to carry out our duties to her satisfaction. What is different from “the real world” in that?
The other aspect, of course—to me the more important aspect by far—is our spiritual journey. Praying for at least six hours a day. Liturgical prayer. Meditation. Prayer from the heart. Reading the works of spiritual masters and then turning that light on ourselves. Spiritual warfare is real. Intercessory prayer with fasting, too, is not an afternoon at the beach. All this is hard work that is fueled by our love for the world and a burning desire to make it better. People come to talk to us about what weighs on their hearts, we read newspapers or hear the radio news. Our intercession is fueled by love and informed by today’s people and events along with age-old spiritual ills that have been with us since the Fall of our first parents.
In summary, no. We are not cowards and we do not hide from the world beyond our walls. We are fighters on the front lines.
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