In the cycle of a monk life, and indeed an entire monastery s life, two dangers can occur, dangers that can make us forget Christ in our midst. They are opposite ends of the spectrum success, and struggle. Success in a monastery can be a dangerous thing financial comfort, a filled novitiate, splendid edifices can lead us to be presumptuous about God s favor. That assumption may be true the danger occurs when assumption becomes presumption. All of the sudden opinions, business dealings, worldly pursuits become divine revelation, becoming more important than prayer itself.
Vices always find a convenient excuse, decadence replaces piety, arrogance replaces compunction.
Struggle too has its dangers when every day seem to yield another disappointment, when every hope seems to be crushed before it can even sprout, when the all too human failings of our brethren become too much to bear. The day to day trials the truck that won t start, the postulant that decides to seek his salvation elsewhere, the CD Rom chewed up by the dog, all take on the proportions of martyrdom in the Coliseum. Both extremes forget the reason for the monastic life in the first place a reason that is there in good times and bad, despites trials and struggles, regardless of success and bounty the salvation of Christ, Christ in our midst, as he was to his mother Mary, as he is to the entire Church, as he will be in the kingdom of heaven. Monks, like ordinary people come in all types, some brilliant, some dull, most of us just average. Their devotion to Our Lady was inseparable from their devotion to Christ, as Mary Mother of God is inseparable from her Son, the savior of the world.