Denis Mahmic
4/8/14
Humanities
Paper II Topic: Reflection on Benedictine Stability
Stability: the quality or state of being stable. Many people have their own definition of what being stable means. Some people might think that being stable is to have enough money to support their family. Another might think that being stable is to live in one place for the rest of their life. Saint Benedict has his own thinking of what stability means in a monastery. Throughout my lifetime I have observed how stability has operated within my own life.
Stability for Saint Benedict inculpates the commitment to nest out the rest of someone’s life in a community that is in monastery in which they are introduced. In order to have stability no one moves away from the monastery to another monastery, or from one place to another place.
Stability refers to the significance of community and the significance of commitment in life. For a nun or monk it mentions the pledge to the monastery where they will live there for the rest of their lives. Since we are not a part of a monastic organization, we can make our oath of stability to our families, to our trust in our community, and to our global and local communities as well. We should even be stable to our fellow friends along the journey of faith. Our promise of stability also conveys to our current crisis in our environment. We need to be devoted to the earth and learn how to be good representative of that which God has given us.
The first text in which St. benedict talks about stability is through travel in 1:10-11, where he blames gyrovagues for “drifting from region to region” (1:10) “these wandering monks are always on the move, never settle down, and are slaves to their own wills and gross appeti...
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...h. Benedict would want someone to be a part of one church for the rest of their lives and not try and find a higher quality one. Happiness is in our fingertips and salvation is at hand if we practice stability. Through Tomaine’s aspect of stability I have realized that many of them operate within my own life. I need to live in the now and not in the past. I also realized that through my relationship with god, I have met challenges in life and have created great relationships on all accounts. I believe that I should not take great relationships for granted because they might crumble if I do. I also learned that through stability and perseverance I have hung on to life when it was doubtful. In modern times we need to live in a world of Stability and practice Benedict’s way of being stable. By doing this, the relationship with god and the world will be incredible.
Rodriguez makes a point of stating that there are tensions between the “brother religions”, religions that should be unified but instead are “united and divided by the masculine sense of faith”, still this same pattern is shown within the church (146). Rodriguez acknowledges the fact that the church is being divided each day due
Why Henry VIII Closed the Monasteries There were 800 monks and nuns in 1500s they had strict rules, The rule of St. Benedict for monks of the Benedictine order was prayer should take place eight times a day, all monks should sleep in separate beds, all monks must rise quickly when signal is given to attend the services and all monks must not grumble about the colour or rough material of their clothes. The rule of St. Augustine for the monks of the Augustine order was love god and your neighbour and monks should spend their time when not praying, coping books, looking after the poor and old, nursing the sick and crippled, teaching children and looking after travellers. Between 1536 and 1539 Henry V111 and Cromwell decided to close the monasteries because the monks are not flowing rules and take all the wealth to defend the country. In order to complete this essay I am going to explain below in detail why the monasteries were closed by Henry V111 between 1536 and 1539
In Conclusion, I personally liked this story it was a great biography of Benedict’s life; I barely knew anything! The main idea of this biography I think is that even if your put down don’t give up on what's right. To sum up I would definitely recommend this biography at this stage in history
One of the three basic pillars of the Roman Catholic Church is Tradition. The Church often uses this pillar of Tradition to validate its actions or to establish its own infallibility. One unspoken foundation that I feel is more essential, however, is that of Love. Love is what is taught in Scripture, another pillar of the Church, and should, therefore be the root of any traditions in the Catholic faith. By judging human actions or the spirit of God by cold laws enforced by the Church, we lose important insight into what our faith and our existence are truly about. Even the Church, in its humanness, sometimes forgets that love of God, others, and ourselves should be the core of every decision we make. The Church that many see as harsh and archaic could easily be refreshed and renewed, not by peppier music or stand-up comic priests, but by emphasis on the spirit of love rather than the letter of the law.
In his youth, St. Boniface encountered many priests or clerics who traveled from town to town. Through these spiritual conversations, it became evident to St. Boniface that he wanted to pursue a life with God. Eventually, after continuos begging and his fathers fatal sickness, he was sent to the care of the Monastery of Examchester. (Appleton) It is here, that St. Boniface expressed to the Abbot at the time, that he wanted to live a monastic life. The father of the monastery, after council, granted him his wish. Here is where the saint began to prove his love for God, and could begin his journey of the Christian life. After exceeding all expectations and surpassing the knowledge of his teachers, he moved to a neighboring monastery, called Nursling, whereby he studied under the influence of Abbot Winbert.(St. Boniface Church) Here he gained vast knowledge of scriptures and the spiritual exposition of the Bible. Here, he gained such a reputation that men and women from far and wide traveled to study scriptures under his guidance. At the age of 30 he was humbly ordained a priest and yet another branch of his life was fulfilled.
...le. This sovereignty emphasises an essential notion that differed the Cluniac rule to that of previous monasteries incorporating the Rule of St. Benedict with the alterations of Duke William I. The Cluniac monks became renowned for their prayers for the dead, which attracted more and more attention throughout the lay people gaining the monastery popularity and subsequently wealth. In the monasteries attempt at the monks living an isolated life with uncompromising respect for monastic purity, the attraction of lay people forced the monks to interact and become involved with temporal matters consequently contradicting entirely the Foundation Charter. The Cluniac Monastery attracted a lot of attention across the Kingdom of France and other European Kingdom’s, which greatly influenced the Foundation Charter’s expanding influence and therefore significance historically.
At the beginning of the sixteenth century church theologian, Martin Luther, wrote the 95 Theses questioning the corruption of the Roman Catholic Church. In this essay I will discuss: the practices of the Roman Catholic Church Martin Luther wanted to reform, what Martin’s specific criticism of the pope was, and the current practices Pope Francis I is interested in refining in the Roman Catholic Church today.
Martin Luther inspired another thinker of the time that questioned the Church’s beliefs. That man was John Calvin. The Catholic belief during the Renaissance and Reformation was that one’s good deeds hel...
The contemporary Church is so often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch-supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the Church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the Church's silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are.”
it can help us find the right path in our life’s. It can also keep us from the entire negative. In a website called somaweb.org it states, “The key ingredient to stability implies that individuality must be absent”. Now this is true, but if we take away individuality then we would be taking a great big part of us that defines us as a person. Brave New World is a great example of how social stability can affected different castes members and get them lost. Social stability could be an interesting way to live because we would have to follow all these type of rules. I think that if we start social stability now than we would ruin the world more as it
Many bishops and abbots (especially in countries where they were also territorial princes) bore themselves as secular rulers rather than as servants of the Church. Many members of cathedral chapters and other beneficed ecclesiastics were chiefly concerned with their income and how to increase it, especially by uniting several prebends (even episcopal sees) in the hands of one person, who thus enjoyed a larger income and greater power. Luxury prevailed widely among the higher clergy, while the lower clergy were often oppressed. The scientific and ascetic training of the clergy left much to be desired, the moral standard of many being very low, and the practice of celibacy not everywhere observed. Not less serious was the condition of many monasteries of men, and even of women (which were often homes for the unmarried daughte...
In Brave New World, Aldous Huxley deftly creates a society that is indeed quite stable. Although they are being mentally manipulated, the members of this world are content with their lives, and the presence of serious conflict is minimal, if not nonexistent. For the most part, the members of this society have complete respect and trust in their superiors, and those who don’t are dealt with in a peaceful manner as to keep both society and the heretic happy. Maintained by cultural values, mental conditioning, and segregation, the idea of social stability as demonstrated in Brave New World is, in my opinion, both insightful and intriguing.
...ore significant of an impact than it does now, if the heart of the Church doesn’t change. It’s stuck. At the same time, I can perceive in various people a certain movement that the conventional church fails to recognize because it’s not explicit doctrine. It involves personal responsibility, empathy, and most importantly, a humility in oneself concerning the fate of their own soul, in favor of the well-being of others. I believe the artists among them are doing powerful things, I believe that the whole world sees it, and I further believe that God works through them. In a world that mocks Christ, they unknowingly embrace him with open arms, more by the more.
The Roman Catholic Church had complete influence over the lives of everyone in medieval society, including their beliefs and values. The Church’s fame in power and wealth had provided them with the ability to make their own laws and follow their own social hierarchy. With strong political strength in hand, the Church could even determine holidays and festivals. It gained significant force in the arts, education, religion, politics as well as their capability to alter the feudal structure through their wealth and power. The Church was organised into a hierarchical system that sustained the Church’s stability and control over the people and lower clergy, by organising them into different groups.
Ullmann, Walter. A Short History of the Papacy in the Middle Ages. 2nd ed. New York City, NY: Routledge, 2003.