why dont you ask them yourself ? :-)
here is the home page for the trappists:
http://www.ocistso.org/index.html#start
there is a list of email addresses, and any of the persons would be happy
to talk to you about your thoughts on this matter, i am sure....
gary
shank who-is-at duq.edu
ps. just as a teaser, here is the first part of the abbot general's 1999
yearly letter to the worldwide order, where he talks about culture....
ORDO CISTERCIENSIS S.O.
ABBAS GENERALIS
CIRCULAR LETTER OF 1999
Rome, January 26, 1999
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In my circular letter last year on the occasion of the Ninth Centenary of
the founding of C=EEteaux, I wrote you about our monastic identity as
Cistercians. I also invited the nuns of our Order to interpret and explain
the Cistercian charism from their own hearts, as women. And I also offered
you my vision of the world, the Church and of consecrated life at the
present time.
Now I write you again, just as we are about to leave the 20th Century.
=46irst I wish to present here a view of contemporary culture, although I
realize that my
vision is limited to the flow of culture in the western countries of the
North Atlantic. It seems to me, however, that in one way or another, the
present cultural changes in this part of the world are affecting the large
majority of local cultures. Due to the worldwide process of globalization,
different elements of this North Atlantic culture are now found everywhere,
either as friendly "guests" or as unfriendly "invaders". Everything
indicates that, in a not too distant future, this culture will tend to
replace many other forms of cultivating human life. It is destined to be
the existential framework in which we live. It will also be the context in
which we will have to develop what is the central theme of this present
letter, that is, the mystical dimension of our Cistercian life.
You have already heard me say, on many occasions, that our inculturated
spiritual renewal depends on three basic realities: our following of Jesus,
our formation as cenobites and our orientation to the Mystery. However,
these realities do not exist in a vacuum. They can only be real within a
specific cultural context. That is why it is so important for our
inculturated spiritual renewal to discern the world's cultural environment.
As Cistercian monks and nuns, we are following the poor Christ in
communities where communion is "totally oriented towards an experience of
the living God."
(GCh 1969, DCL). Translated into the language of our Constitutions, this
means that: Our "Order is a monastic institute wholly ordered to
contemplation" (C.2).
=46rom its very beginning, the Cistercian charism has been able to respond i=
n
an inculturated way to the needs of the Church and the world. The
phenomenal success of Cistercian life can only be explained by what was at
its very roots, that is, spiritual and mystical experience. The deepest
needs of the moment in which we are living are not too different from those
of the 12th Century, which explains why our medieval mystics turn out to be
so relevant to humanity today, to men and women who thirst for mystery and
experience. But it is not enough that they were mystics. We have to be,
too. We will be, if we open our heart to the work of the Spirit and
collaborate with him, knowing that:
This [mystical] way of thinking about God does not lie at the disposal of
the thinker. It is a gift of grace, bestowed by the Holy Spirit who
breathes where he chooses, when he chooses, how he chooses and upon whom he
chooses. Our part is continually to prepare our heart by ridding our will
of foreign attachments,
our reason or intellect of anxieties, our memory of idle, absorbing or even
sometimes necessary business. (Wm of St.Thierry, Golden Epistle, II,14)
So let us look at the panorama of today's changing culture and at the place
religious awakening has in it. Then we will understand more easily the
importance of mystical experience for mankind's future and the challenge
which this represents for us.
I. CULTURES
The reality of culture is always a subject of controversy, especially at
times of transition like our own. Nevertheless, it is absolutely necessary
to look at culture, especially when it is a question of making a diagnosis
of it. It helps to realize that the structure of reality is considered
today from three points of view. There is:
its Infrastructure: the economic dimension;
its Superstructure: the political dimension;
and its Omni-structure: the cultural dimension.
We can add something more: during the last 15 years the world has been
experiencing a downturn of the political dimension and an increase in the
cultural dimension. This return to culture is principally a return to
culture's religious dimension. The upswing applies to the great traditional
and historical religions as well as to the other innumerable manifestations
of mysticism and of the religious spirit. In the past, the different crises
of religion favored political activity, but now it is the reverse: the
political crises of our day favor religion.
All human beings - and monks and nuns are no exception - live, choose and
act in a particular cultural universe. Any change in this cultural world
causes changes of behavior, due to the change in one's general perception
of reality. The mass media of social communication have created a "cultural
industry", that is, they produces symbols, values and meanings which change
the way we see ourselves and how we relate to ourselves, to others, to the
Other and to other things.
We are all aware that we are living in a period of history which is not
only an epoch of changes, but also a change of epoch. Any such change of
epoch is
experienced in a complex fashion, since it is a process of unknown
implications without a timetable and without any foreseeable end-point.
Such an historical
transition, or change of epoch, explains why our culture at the end of the
20th Century is one of transition. Our moment in history marks the end of
modern culture and a passageway to... we know not what!
Perhaps we can characterize the present western culture of the North
Atlantic - and that of the rest of the world influenced by it in different
degrees - like this:
There is radical modernity in the scientific and technological sphere.
And, in the cultural sphere, a postmodernism which has no alternate goal in
view.
Before going any further, I should say a brief word about the facts of
modernity and postmodernism. The broad meaning of the term modernity is in
relation to the
last five centuries of western history. Modernity can be broken into
periods as follows: the 16th and 17th Centuries were preparatory; the
so-called "Enlightenment" in the 18th Century was central; followed by
increasing development in the 19th and 20th Centuries. Modernity in the
strict sense would run from the French Revolution up to the student
revolution of May 1968 or until the energy crisis of 1973. Among the causes
of modernity, the following should be pointed out:
- The geographical discoveries which put Europe into a global context.
- The Protestant Reformation, which favored the development of the personal
con-
science, with its defiance of the principle of authority alone.
- The Copernican and Galilean revolution, which removed us from the center
of the cosmos.
- The growth of the experimental sciences, which has led to modern technolog=
y.
- Reflexive philosophical thought, which questioned the accepted vision of
the relationship between the human person and material things.
- Capitalism as a rational means for producing goods.
In synthesis, the two main characteristics of modernity are the autonomy of
the person in relation to any form of subjection, and the use of reasoning
in opposition to any form of religiosity or faith. Though running the risk
of excessive simplification, we can describe the modern point of view with
five key words:
Reason: which was deified during the French Revolution.
Humanity: as something more than just the sum of all peoples, states or
nations.
History: that is, time lived as a unit of continual progress.
Emancipation: from ignorance, dogmas, authorities, powerlessness, and so
forth.
Progress: as an optimistic and limitless development in which utopias can
flourish.
Not everyone has lived this process of modernity as something personal, but
all have shared in it to the degree in which it has been exported by the
Western
countries of the North Atlantic. However, there still exist a few human
groups who are rooted in a type of pre-modernity. There are others who
"modernize" their culture without necessarily assimilating the spirit and
values of modern North Atlantic culture.
It is not easy to speak about postmodernism, for the simple reason that it
does not exist, but is in a state of becoming. Without yet being a fixed
point of view, postmodernism is a "mood", a frame of mind alive in the
average person, especially among the youth in western countries. It is a
mood which is gradually
expanding throughout the world. Here is a case which shows the truth in
what someone has said, that philosophers are simply notaries who have
arrived late on the scene and make official note of what has already
happened.
Some such commentators tell us that postmodernism is a worn out modernity
that has not been replaced. A worn out modernity means that it can neither
produce nor create anything new, since the principles which inspired it are
themselves worn out. But modernity has not been replaced, since
postmodernism still seems like modernity without the latter's great,
optimistic myths. Postmodernism would be a onesided reaction to modernity's
onesidedness, caused by a desire for light and stability after modernity's
relative fiasco.
Others are more nuanced in their analysis and distinguish three types of
postmodernism, namely:
- Neoconservative postmodernism, which is, above all, a defense reaction on
the part of the consumer-oriented production system in order to protect
itself in time of danger. It is the western capitalist system reacting
against its own crisis. The accent is put on economics: cleansing of the
economy, capitalization of companies, production increases or selling off
state-held companies. On the level of the man in the street, this type of
postmodernism is characterized by a set of slogans, such as, "Life consists
in elbowing through the crowd and pushing." "He who does not compete does
not succeed." "You have to get ahead in the world." "If work is not
productive, competitive and profitable, it serves no purpose." "Time is
money." "Professionalism means excellence." The postmodern heroes among the
neoconservatives are those who succeed by speculating on the stock market,
or the financiers who author books like, "In Praise of Benefits" or "An
Apology for Success".
- Contentious postmodernism would be a vast movement of deconstruction
governed by a rejection of any underlying ideal or any thought of
globalization. It is a
process of "unmaking" starting from a basic metaphysical doubt. It stresses
pluralism, decentralization, differences, happenings, breaking with the
past,
openendedness and immanence. The leaders of this postmodern trend are still
"rebels with a cause". Some of them describe their position in words like
this:
"Instead of uniformity, differentiation. Instead of absolute values, a
plurality of standards. Instead of efficiency, communication and, instead
of lasting
commitments, conditioned agreements."
- Disenchanted postmodernism emphasizes the reasons for its disappointment
with modernity. It points out that human reason has not opened to truth,
but rather
to knowledge for the sake of controlling others; progress has become
retrogression by going against human rights and natural laws; equality is
based on one-sided agreements which are broken for any reason; and the
happiness that was promised is late in coming: right now everything is
unhappiness. Most of these disenchanted postmoderns are "rebels with
nausea". One of them has said that, "In the world in which we live, there
is only one thing that keeps me going: my next vacation." Another one of
them said with a smile, "The goddess of reason wants to get me, but I run
faster than she does." A third one described the situation like this:
"Yesterday it was yoga, tarot cards and meditation. Today it is alcohol and
drugs. Tomorrow it will be aerobics and reincarnation."
We should be aware that our moment in history, like every time of change,
is a time of crisis. We are at a critical moment, similar to what the
Christian West
experienced during the 14th and 15th centuries. That period of the
"Renaissance" was, at one and the same time, the end of the Middle Ages and
the dawn of the
modern age. We are indeed living at a critical time, one open to a new
birth, but marked right now by a pervasive crisis of life, identity,
ideologies and models to live by.
=46rom the religious point of view, we are also experiencing a deep change
and a crisis of transition. Simplifying the situation to an extreme, we can
say that we are passing from a pathological conception of religion to a
therapeutic one. As we know, for some key representatives of modernity,
religion was either:
- a human disease, according to Nietzche,
- an abnormal social phenomenon, according to Marx,
- an immature psychological condition, according to Freud.
It is worth recalling the Freudian concept of religion and its influence on
his interpretation of spiritual, religious and mystical experience. It is
an approach which has deeply marked the twentieth century. Religion would
be the desire to return to the protection originally offered by one's
father in infancy. This desire is then projected onto an imagined God,
since that is the only God that exists. Mystics are therefore undervaluing
reality. They are deluded about the world they perceive, which they
unconditionally submit to as a result of grief flowing from their pain. In
other words, mystics suffer from psychic infantilism. All the more
surprising then, that in the context of postmodern culture, religion turns
out to be the best of therapies, which fact has thrown the Freudian
approach into crisis. Something similar is happening in relation to
Absolute Being, or God. Some spokespersons for modernity proclaimed in
different ways the disappearance of God:
God is dead: the death of God.
God is silent: the silence of God.
God is an ideology, either socialist or capitalist: the impersonal God.
God is progress: God only exists for those who think everything is going
wrong!
God does not exist: The result is that we are saints!
God is a game: Let's play God!
On the contrary, in postmodern thought we find that the divine has
reappeared, although accompanied by a deinstitutionalization of religion.
We can ask what the causes of this phenomenon are, and there are many
different answers:
- The recuperation of our traditional mystical heritage.
- The encounter of Western culture with cultures of the East.
- Exasperation with the dictatorship of mere reason.
- The need for mystery to counteract science's pretense of explaining
everything.
- The need for self-denial and self-giving to counteract the monopoly of
efficiency, consumerism, waste and violence against nature, mother earth
and the environment.
- Amazement at, and fear of human power, which can transform nature by
genetic engineering and atomic science, but cannot control the ongoing
consequences of this transformation.
Different sacralizing or "mystical" tendencies correspond to these causes
of postmodernism. Thus there is an ecological current of spirituality, a
sectarian current, an esoteric current, an eclectic current. Other forms of
a sacred secularity should also be mentioned, such as the sacralization of
a nation or race; the worship of, and fascination for musical experience as
in rock concerts; the weekend football liturgy; or turning the sanctuary of
the human body into a place of worshipful exposure. All of this is telling
us that, alongside the process of desacralization of religion, there is a
parallel process going on, which sacralizes nature and the secular world.
These two processes have different faces according to their geographic
location and local culture. It is hardly necessary to point out the
ambiguity which dominates
this whole field of attitudes and behavior.
In this new postmodern cultural environment, it is easy to understand and
accept the fact that a clinical experience of depth psychology cannot be
allowed to
determine what beings should or should not exist. Modern reason knows very
well that there is a serious error of method in jumping philosophically or
theologically from sense knowledge to abstract metaphysics or from what is
psychological to what is spiritual. A young psychiatrist once said, "What a
shame that Freud never had the chance to psychoanalyze a true mystic, and
it's also too bad that he is not living today to help all the little
scientific mystics we have."
Everything seems to show that the western culture of the North Atlantic,
marked as it is by the postmodern shift, is thirsting for mystery, wearied
of ideologies, moralisms, dogmatics and ritualism. Such a cultural context
lets us re-evaluate genuine religious experience. Faith needs the
experience of conversion and prayer so that it can produce a theology which
respects mystery. It knows that, when compared with the Mystery, all our
knowing is approximative and all our talking is a stutter. It is because of
this transcendence of the Mystery that we must avoid falling into a type of
mystical fideism, or heresy of feeling that all are already one without
conversion. That is also why we "are in duty bound to offer a generous
welcome and spiritual support to all those who, moved by a thirst for God
and a desire to live the demands of faith, turn" to us. (Vita Consecrata,
103)