Lay Monasticism

Turning the commute into a monastic cell

Over the past thirty-five years, I have lost count at the number of lay people who have voiced interest in monasticism. Many have told me, had they’d become Orthodox at a younger age, they might have forgone marriage, for the monastic life. These were not people who were unhappy with their spouses, or being married. They simply found themselves drawn to the  rhythms of silence, liturgy, study, prayer and work.

It is certainly true that many pious Christians feel a romantic tug for a lifestyle that seems so peaceful, and worry free. They yearn for what they see as a cloistered, and therefore sheltered, life, where the stresses of the world are kept at bay. They behold the silence and peace that dominates the daily monastic rhythm, and feel a certain amount of envy.  Many yearn for an elusive silence and spiritual depth, and think it impossible for the ordinary layperson to cultivate regular times of deep, undistracted prayer. With the commute and jobs and bills and dinner and children, there is simply no room for the inner life as found in monasteries.

Yet if we really examine the daily pace of life, we can find a lot of time that has been squandered, time that could have been used in that evasive quest for silence and pray. During the daily commute, if you calculate the minutes that have been wasted with cell phone chats, listening to the news, or, if on public transportation, reading the newspaper, you can see sacred time that has been squandered. Rightly used, the commute time can become your sacred time.

Whether you commute by car, train, bus, or bike, your commute offers a monastic cell, a place cut off from the demands and noise of the world. A monk does not find such contemplative moments only in solitude, or in the services chanted in the temple, for the monk is praying even when performing his obediences. The monk is at prayer even when visiting with pilgrims, or working with other monks in the garden, or carpentry shop.

You can decide to turn your commute into your sacred space, and your car or train into a monastery. Instead of zoning out to music, or news broadcasts, you can use the commute as a time to strengthen your faith. An ipod, downloaded with podcasts from Ancient Faith Radio, can be your way of deepening your understanding of the Church’s mystical theology, or be instructed in the Art of Prayer, by a renowned Orthodox theologian. You can pray The Morning and Evening Prayers, along with our brother monks of Holy Cross Monastery, in West Virginia, who have recorded these services on CD’s.

You can listen to the Holy Scriptures, with many wonderful translations now available on CD, and study the Bible as you commute. The myriad of sacred Orthodox music that is available on CD’s, or down loadable onto your ipod from, once again, Ancient Faith Radio, can turn your commute into an uplifting event. Sacred music can sweep you into a world where joy and beauty hold sway, and the rush, noise, and stress of the commute disappear.

The Jesus Prayer is the perfect prayer for a commute, for it allows you to enter into a deep form of prayer, one that ushers in peace and joy, and opens your heart wide to Jesus. I’ve often recommended the Jesus Prayer for commuters who have problems of road rage, and the Prayer has transformed their drive into a peaceful, Christ centered commute.

There will be days when the very best approach for turning your commute into your monastic cell, will be to simply turn off all outside stimulation, and enter into the silence. We don’t always have to have outside stimuli in our lives, and silence allows for that moment when we can begin to listen for the Voice of God. It can initially be scary, for we’ve become so use to noise, music, and talk, that silence makes us nervous. Yet it is in silence that we can begin to enter into the heart of God, and usher in the Peace of Christ, which will transform the heart, and give us the peace that has alluded us.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

Photo: Father Michael Tervo, rector of Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Church in Bellingham, brought a group of his parishioners on pilgrimage to the monastery on Saturday.

The Scripture Readings

1 John 2:18-3:10

Deceptions of the Last Hour

18 Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us.

20 But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things. 21 I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and that no lie is of the truth.

22 Who is a liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son. 23 Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either; he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also.

Let Truth Abide in You

24 Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life.

26 These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you. 27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

The Children of God

28 And now, little children, abide in Him, that when He appears, we may have confidence and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. 29 If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone who practices righteousness is born of Him.

3 Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us,[f] because it did not know Him. 2 Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

Sin and the Child of God

4 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. 6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.

7 Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. 8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. 9 Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.

The Imperative of Love

10 In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor ishe who does not love his brother.

Mark 11:1-11

The Triumphal Entry

11 Now when they drew near Jerusalem, to Bethphage and Bethany, at the Mount of Olives, He sent two of His disciples; 2 and He said to them, “Go into the village opposite you; and as soon as you have entered it you will find a colt tied, on which no one has sat. Loose it and bring it. 3 And if anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ say, ‘The Lord has need of it,’ and immediately he will send it here.”

4 So they went their way, and found the colt tied by the door outside on the street, and they loosed it. 5 But some of those who stood there said to them, “What are you doing, loosing the colt?”

6 And they spoke to them just as Jesus had commanded. So they let them go. 7 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their clothes on it, and He sat on it. 8 And many spread their clothes on the road, and others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road. 9 Then those who went before and those who followed cried out, saying:

“Hosanna!
‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!’
10 Blessed is the kingdom of our father David
That comes in the name of the Lord!
Hosanna in the highest!”

11 And Jesus went into Jerusalem and into the temple. So when He had looked around at all things, as the hour was already late, He went out to Bethany with the twelve.