Breaking the vow of silence

Forty days went too fast!

Happy Easter!

Vow of Silence

This gallery contains 1 photo.

A man joins a monastery and takes a vow of silence. He is allowed to speak 2 words once a year to the head monk. He struggles through the first year of silence, then dutifully lines up to utter his … Continue reading →

If this doesn’t make you happy, I don’t know what will.

Monks who have taken the oath of silence, sing the Hallelujah Chorus.

This is sooooo funny!! It’s a group of high school students playing silent monks and “singing” the Hallelujah Chorus.

Look at the feet of the monks also! And yes, you do need to turn the sound on to fully appreciate this. It’s a hoot! Plus, who doesn’t like to hear it, at any time of year.

 

Source: Email from a friend.

Waking from a dream.

In March in 1958, the famous Christian monk Thomas Merton suddenly awakened. He recorded it this way in his journal:

“Yesterday, in Louisville, at the corner of 4th and Walnut, suddenly realized that I loved all the people and that none of them were, or, could be totally alien to me. As if waking from a dream—the dream of my separateness, of the ‘special’ vocation to be different….Thank God! Thank God! I am only another member of the human race, like all the rest of them. I have the immense joy of being a man!….”

Imagine having a transcendental experience that all you feel is love, that all people are “beautiful” and that everything is light. The feeling of euphoria stays for the longest time. It feels good and it feels unreal at the same time. You wanted your old self again and yet how do you do it when you don’t even know how you came to this state of mind.  No, there is no hallucination. No, there is no mental illness.  It was more of a spiritual emergence.

To come back to your previous disposition before is a blessing. Thank God, indeed.