What is a monastery? A monastery is a place set apart—a place to learn the blessings of powerlessness, and that time is not ours but God’s. We have all spent many weeks at home during the pandemic.  For some of us, it truly has been a time to appreciate our home and our duties like a monastery, without the usual pressures of time squeezed in during a busy work week.  This time at home, complete with baking, cooking, organizing, etc. can teach us that powerlessness can be an unexpected but ultimately welcome blessing.

The pandemic has made us physically withdraw from the world, just like monastic men and women.  But the principle is the same as these vocations offering us  the same kind of opportunity for contemplation, and provide a desert for reflection.

In ten brief and powerful chapters, Fr. Ron explores how monastery life can apply to those who don’t live in a cloister:
• Monasticism and Family Life
• The Domestic Monastery
• Real Friendship
• Lessons from the Monastic Cell
• Ritual for Sustaining Prayer
• Tensions within Spirituality
• A Spirituality of Parenting
• Spirituality and the Seasons of Our Lives
• The Sacredness of Time
• Life’s Key Question