But, Jesus himself said all vows/oaths come from Satan (see link to Mt. 5:33-37 above). So what you seem to be saying is there is no such thing as a Christian monk, in which case I was about as close as you can get these days.
MAEGLIN asked:
To which JMULLANEY answered:
Translation: “I just walked around and preached.”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that . . . .
Except I didn’t do any preaching. Some teaching if the subject came up. I’ve never been the preachy type really – more the eat, drink, and be merry type. But if you submit your will to God you never know what works he is doing through you.
Yeah, you never can tell what that creepy bugger’s gonna do. It’s always safest to keep an eye on ‘im and assume He’s up to no good.
So you basically wandered around, doing whatever you wanted, believing you were inspired by God?
How exactly does this parallel organized monasticism?
MR
If one’s will is not separate from God’s will, then you can still be doing what you want yet also be complying with what God asks of you. Even the RCC has contemplatives and actives and I may have been more of the first than the second. I did spend time with others who did preach and never turned away those who came to me for wisdom.
I’m not sure I understand the question. Do you not believe in the Holy Spirit? Can you not see it as an organizing priciple?
jmullaney,
From what you have posted in this thread, I’d say that you weren’t ever any more of a monk than I was. Let it go, man.
I just hate to see anyone who is called to the perfection of the Virtues to be misled into a practice, namely oath taking, forbidding by Jesus with good reason. Such a way is surely lost.
Now I’d hazard a guess that you were more in the “image” (or is it vice versa?) of a Dominican than Franciscan if only because the first so out numbered the second where ever I went – but I don’t want to sound judgemental, as Franciscan’s are known to have a bit of a superiority complex. Most of my comrades were of the Dominican sort and had perfectly good arguments in their defense, although I didn’t “buy” them, of course ;).
(I used to know a good light bulb joke about the orders, but can’t recall it exacly now.)
I’m glad we got to the bottom of this, Tymp. As a student and geniune admirer of all kinds of monastic culture, I just can’t see any fundie passing himself off as a member of a religious order because he says his will is in harmony with the Trinity.
That kind of lifestyle might work out great for jmullaney, but he doesn’t get written up in my big book of monks. That would trivialize monastic heroes who struggled, knowing how imperfect their own wills were.
jmullaney, read something by St. Anselm and perhaps the biography of St. Anthony by Athanasius. Then ask yourself if your will was in harmony with the Holy Spirit. It’s probably not as easy as you lead us to believe.
MR
No kidding. Me neither.
:eek: Oh, heck, you are talking about me aren’t you?
Well, I just can’t see how anyone taking an oath can pass themselves off as a Christian at all. That does not make me a “fundie” – the text is plainly written.
Of course the way of the lost is a way of constant struggle. Why am I not surprised?
Read something by [not a RCC St.] Marguerite Porete. Then ask yourself why you think it is so difficult.
As Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Are you high? You may have noticed that there are a lot of Catholics in the world that pass themselves off as Christians. They seem to have a great deal of respect for a few monastic orders. I would like to be amused by the idea of you claiming that those monks are not Christians, but I suspect you are not actually joking. Rather than amusement, I am left with a sense of incredulous bewilderment.
Help me out, man. What exactly do you mean by the text I have quoted?
You think I haven’t read the Mirror of Simple Souls? Beguine mysticism is a far, far cry from monasticism. What is difficult is understanding exactly what her oblivion really means. The Mirror is a fabulously difficult work. I would be interested in hearing your insights, actually.
Your understanding of the passage you referenced above misguided. You don’t swear to God or to Jerusalem when you take holy orders. Rather you agree to live by certain rules in observance of which you aspire for the vita apostolica. Oblivion is, crudely put, Marguerite Porete’s vita apostolica.
Her own mystic theology is the product of an extremely complicated religious expansion of the 12th century, which can only be truly understood in light of its time and place. Simply reading it, nodding, and agreeing with its pleasant transcendance also trivializes her work and everything she believed in.
I just don’t know what to say to this. You really are dismissing all of your superiors here, aren’t you?
MR
JMULLANEY – Surely your recognize how arrogant you sound in implying (no, flat-out stating) that you are confident your will and God’s will are the same. Setting aside the breathtaking conceit of such a statement, as well as such statements as how you magnanimously refrained from turning away those who came to you “for wisdom,” how could you possibly know the entireity of God’s will?
And, since in your mind the taking of an oath renders one no Christian, I assume you read the rest of the NT so literally as well. So may I assume that you have given away all you have and rendered yourself free of possessions in order to follow Jesus, as He exhorted? Either you truly have no possessions and are following Christ, in which case good for you; or you have possessions and are, under your own strict definitions, a hypocrite; or you are no Christian, in which case your opinions on Christian monastic life are of no consequence.
The more I read of you on the subject of religion, the more confident I am that when you are called to judgment before the throne of God, your fist words to Him will be “I believe You’re in my chair.”
I finally reread it last week after all the religious thinking on this board got me thinking again. It is challenging.
How so?
Or by your head, etc. But Jesus clearly says not to swear at all. “Swear” being the active verb whose object is an oath or vow. Now you can try to twist that, but no matter – letting your yes mean yes and your no mean no is one thing and a vow is something beyond this.
Now, to answer Tmyp, I am just as surprised as anyone that Catholicism has such an obvious flaw, but as people have been pointing this out for nearly 800 years I can’t take any credit for my serundipity. Apparently oaths are particularily insidious. Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, never says hate or lust, etc., come from the Evil One – but reserves this extra strong caveat exclusively for this sin.
You were the one who said a monk is not a monk unless they take vows. I understand that different orders have different rules by which they live out those vows.
Hmmm. I’ll have to think about that one. Is that her sixth stage of the soul?
Er, 13th and 14th. She died in 1310. I think, however, that the work stands alone as much as any old text.
I agree.
Jesus said his way is easy; you say it is hard. Who am I to believe?
I’m rather certain I did not imply, nor state flat out, that this was ever the case in the way you are implying. God’s will, according to Christianity, is for us to keep his teachings as given by the Word Incarnate, his Son.
I understand. But it was never my wisdom, any more that Jesus’s words were his own either.
Those who keep Jesus’s teachings, and that is God’s will, are taught all things by the Holy Spirit (and by this Jesus means all things of Wisdom).
Of course I had done such a thing. That is the perfection of the virtue of charity, after all. That I have since fallen away is true.
I admit to being in a horrible spiritual state; a dog who has returned to his own vomit. But I don’t see why my opinions are not of value since egkelly specifically asked:
He did, as such, ask about the lifestyle, and I can answer him that at least the lifestyle I led does make you more wise and more at peace as the last few scriptures I quoted promise.
I really don’t know what you would have me do to make you happy!
JMULLANEY says:
You are correct. What you said was “if you submit your will to God you never know what works he is doing through you.” You submitted your will to God and he apparently did not tell you to preach (despite the myriad exhortations in the NT to spread the Word), but rather to “eat, drink, and be merry.” If you think you have submitted your will to God, but instead keep yourself and your ego paramount, you never know the evil you are doing in His name.
With respect, I do not need you to tell me God’s will, as I have invited neither your preaching nor your teaching. Suffice it to say I find this summation dangerously oversimplistic. We as Christians are bound to do far more than to “keep his teachings,” as a new sort of “law” superceding the old Judaic law. There is far more to it than that. Feel free to disagree with me; I do not hold myself out as an authority.
You are quite good at quoting the Bible to sidestep points. Jesus also said, “And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.” Would you then argue that no person has an earthly father, and that those of us who call the men who sired us “father” do so in sin? But such literalism as you practice is a two-edged sword.
On the most literal level, Jesus’s words were quite obviously His own, just as yours are yours. The difference is that He was an acknowledged messenger of His Father; you are not – unless you hold yourself out to be a prophet (which frankly would not surprise me). I do not ascribe your “wisdom,” which I find less than wise, to God, and I frankly find it a shade arrogant that you do. The very quote you posted state that the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, will teach us of the will of God. The last time I checked, you were neither.
So you admit that, under your own definitions, you are a hypocrite, and therefore to be avoided: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for you neither go in yourselves, neither suffer you them that are entering to go in.”
Your opinion is of no consequence in this context because you are not a former monk under anyone’s definition but your own. It is also of no consequence because you are not qualified to interpret the words of Christ because you are not a Christian. You, in your “horrible spiritual state,” do not keep the Lord’s chief commandment, which is “to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”
Mind you, I do not generally make it my business to pass judgment upon any individual’s religious beliefs (or lack thereof), but if you deny the Christianity of true monks, who have taken holy orders – which you clearly do by pronouncing “oath taking” to be “a way that is surely lost” – then you must allow others to judge your own actions just as harshly, literally and minutely. You are hoist on your own petard.
Your “lifestyle” was indistinguishable from that of a transient who contemplated God. And more power to you. But I refuse to take that alone as proof you were a “monk.” If you praise the lifestyle of the pious transient, fine with me, but I don’t think that was what the OP was asking.
There is nothing you could possibly do to make me happy or unhappy. I find you arrogant, intentionally or not, and always ready to wield Scripture to your own ends, but that does not impact my happiness one iota.
That would trivialize monastic heroes who struggled, knowing how imperfect their own wills were.
Of course the way of the lost is a way of constant struggle.
Jesus said his way is easy; you say it is hard. Who am I to believe?
I didn’t mean that to sound so harsh, but, to my mind, the conversation has gone something like this:
“I’d like to hear from a former monk.”
JM: “What exactly do we mean by a ‘monk’?”
Maeglin: “Someone who takes holy orders.”
JM: “Jesus says you shouldn’t take oaths, so the monks you think are true monks aren’t really, but are ‘lost.’ They did not follow Scriptures X,Y, and Z.” [From a person who professedly doesn’t follow scripture himself.]
And so on. It’s like someone asking what color the sky is, and someone replying “it depends what you mean by ‘blue.’” I just find that whole deconstructionist-at-every-opportunity answer a little aggravating.
Very much so. I don’t really think this is a fruitful line of discussion anymore, loathe as I am to stop talking about monasticism.
MR
Point taken. But I think it is required than one learn wisdom before one is ready to teach it. See Mary and her sister in the NT for an example. I did teach some towards the end, really I did, for all the good it did. But even then I only got the same argument – what makes you think you know anything? If I go back I will be better for what I have been learning here in the past several months that is for sure.
OK, I admit that there is a real will of God as present in the Holy Spirit, but I’m not certain what beyond Christ’s teachings Christians are to do.
You know, as long as you are going to accuse me of it anyway, I am going to go ahead and take a brief moment of pride in that statement. Thanks. 
Stop helping. This is from a passage talking about authority, and the proper respect due to it by Christ’s followers. Do not call anyone teacher, for you are all brothers, do not call anyone father for you are all children of God. Makes sense to me.
Let us just suppose, for a moment, that when Christ said that those who follow his teachings would be taught everything by the Holy Spirit. Now if there was ever such a person, do you think that were that person to fall away, God would then occlude what this person had learned? Surely, this must be partly so for if I truly knew the glory of God or the perils of hell I would not be living the life I am now.
Lately, I have taken up smoking cigarettes again. Now, I know smoking causes cancer. However, I smoke anyway, because even though I know better it has not sunk completely in. But if someone comes and asks me whether they should smoke or whether they should quit or whether smoking causes cancer, what would you expect me to say? Does my being a smoker make me a poor spokesperson? Of course. Does it mean that if I say that smoking is bad for you that I’m automatically a liar?
If you keep Christ’s teachings, this is so.
So, were I to resume my old life, how would your argument change then? First you say that in such a life I should be exhorted to preach. Now you are saying, apparently, such preaching then would not matter since everyone already knows the will of God.
I do not enter it myself, but I do what I am willing to in order to allow those who wish to enter the kingdom of heaven to enter it, by doing everything short of erecting a big neon sign over the gate. It is true my own sins detract for the glory of that kingdom, and the glory of God. But a little cognitive dissonace goes a long way.
The only difference between the life I lived and the life of a gyrovagi, which is a monk by the RCC’s definition, is that I did not utter a handful of these magic spells the Church calls vows. We have already established that there are other Churches which have monks and there must be a church which does not have these vows. A house divided against itself can not stand, and if there is no such house then Jesus failed in his mission.
But I was a Christian. Long before that I had a job as a filing clerk. Does that mean now I am supposed to no longer know the alphabet?
But of course. I am not a man of much pride in my failings. Bring it on.
I’m not sure what you think my own ends are in this matter.
As for how I see the conversation, it seems more like:
“Help! Is there a doctor in the house? This woman is choking!”
(man runs forward) “I can help.”
“Are you a doctor?”
“Well, I went to med school.”
“But you aren’t a doctor.”
“How do you define doctor?”
“A doctor has to be board certified by the state.”
“Well, I was once certified in a country you are not familiar with.”
“So you aren’t a doctor by anyone’s definition here”
“But, I can help the person who is choking.”
“Sorry, but this women needs a doctor. By your own admission, you aren’t a doctor anymore if you ever were and therefore could not possibly be able to help.”
So I think you are the one who is being deconstructionist.
JMULLANEY – Let’s not lose the thread of discussion here. EGKELLY asked to hear from former monks. You held yourself out as a sort of one. When asked to back that up, instead of sticking to why you consider yourself an authority on monk-dom, or a monk-like lifestyle, you went on the offensive to attack actual monks, who take holy orders, as not being true men of God – i.e., not Christian – because they do something you contend to be unholy because it violates a particular stricture from the Bible that you choose to interpret with strict literalism. That is what I object to. You hold yourself out as an authority on Biblical interpretation, Christianity, and holiness (or the lack thereof possessed by monks as that word is generally defined). I continue to find you arrogant to do so and further to find your questions (“what do you mean by ‘monk’?”) not conducive to moving any discussion forward.
“Stop helping”? I beg your pardon? I am fully aware of what the passage means and do not require you to interpret it for me. The point, which you apparently missed, is that if you interpret Jesus’s words on not taking oaths with strict literalism – which you do – you should be expected to interpret the rest of the NT with the same degree of strict literalism – which, apparently, you do not. You cannot get around the fact that the passage I quoted clearly says not to call anyone on earth “father,” yet you apparently prefer to abandon your strict literalism at this point. Why are you an authority on what passages can be interpreted metaphorically and what passages must be interpreted literally, let alone equipped to judge that those who do not join you in your literal interpretation are therefore unholy?
Let’s review again. No one has asked your opinion on Christianity or what constitutes holiness. You offered it, gratis, by taking a fairly straight-forward question about what it’s like to be a monk and veering it off into the woods. You are a poor spokesperson for Christianity not because you do not practice it but because you interpret scripture with selective literalism and because you concentrate on minutiae – monks are not holy because they take vows, which the Bible (in your opinion) says we should not – as opposed to the bigger picture – monks may well be holy, and more often than not are, because they attempt to live lives dedicated to God, in a way that most of us cannot or will not.
I have never said that everyone already knows the will of God. To the contrary, I have said that no one truly knows the word of God – not even people that in my opinion post as if they think they do. But certainly I do not believe that anyone should preach a doctrine or belief they do not personally believe it, nor can I imagine why anyone would want to. I personally believe preaching should be down by those who feel they are called to preach and that the rest of us should refrain. I also feel that simply because a person truly believes he or she is called to preach, I am not required to agree (like the “God Hates Fags” people, whom I believe do not spread the message of God, regardless of the fact that they apparently think they do).
My point regarding hypocricy, which you also apparently missed, was that your brand of strict literal interpretation of scripture indicates that if you yourself do not follow EVERY SINGLE ONE of the scriptural strictures EXACTLY, you are a hypocrite and (according to the Bible) should be avoided. That is what I meant by “hoist on your own petard”. The point is not that you are or are not a hypocrite, or to be avoided, but that if you interpret the Bible literally (which you do, if selectively) but you do not literally follow it yourself (which you do not), why should we listen to you?
If we accept a definition of “monk” that includes “the taking of holy orders,” and you did not take holy orders, then you are a priori not a monk. If you wish to interpret “monk” differently, I have no problem with that. My problem is with you going beyond expanding the definition to attacking traditional monks because they don’t strictly follow the Bible as you choose to interpret it.
Are you aware of such a church? I am not. Evangelical itinerant preachers of the early 19th century would meet your definition of Gyrovagi, but none of them would dream of calling themselves a monk. (In fact, being mostly pretty firmly anti-Catholic, they would have been horrified by the very idea that they were monks.) Again, my problem with your posts sprang not from your expansive definition of “monk” but from your moving beyond that to attack those who legitimately may claim that title or vocation.
A singularly inapt analogy, since no one was requesting your assistance, but rather was merely seeking opinions from those qualified to give them. I recognize you felt yourself so qualified, and maybe you are, but you went beyond that to asserting that those who obviously are qualified – i.e., actual monks – are really not qualified because they do not meet your own personal definition, shored up with strict Biblical literalism.
Therefore your analogy would be more accurate thusly:
“Help! Is there a doctor in the house? This woman is choking!”
(man runs forward) “I can help. And if an actual, certified doctor comes along, he cannot help, because I myself am the authority on what constitutes a true doctor.”
Don’t you see at least a tad of arrogance in that?