Of what use is a monastic?

            Before beginning on the topic of this article I want to say something to my readers concerning the series on the fathers of Sarov.  There is yet one more to approach – the Elder Nazarius who lived in monasteries both at Sarov and Valaamo.  His life and teachings have been published by St. Herman’s Brotherhood; but this book is currently out of print and unavailable.  My translator currently works full time; but hopes to eventually complete a translation of the life and teachings of the Elder into English. Our source for this material is the same book of the ascetics of the Sarov Hermitage which we have been translating.

            Now to the question I posed in my title.  I will say nothing of myself; but I will answer by referring to words of Saints Silouan and Sophrony the Athonites in the book, Saint Silouan the Athonite:

   “There are people who say that monks ought to be of some use to the world…The world thinks that monks are a useless species. But that is not the right way to think….We have to understand the nature of a monks service and the way in which he has to help the world….The world does not know how the monk prays for the whole universe—people do not see his prayers and how they are received of the Lord in His mercy….A monk is someone who prays for the whole world, who weeps for the whole world; and in this lies his main work.

“But who is it that constrains him to weep for the whole world?

“The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God incites him.  He gives the monk the love of the Holy Spirit, and by virtue of this love the monk’s heart forever sorrows over the people because not all men are saved.” (words of St. Silouan from pages 407 and 409)

   “When Parthenios, the ascetic of Kiev, sought to know what the strict monastic observance was, the Mother of God told him, ‘The monk who wears the schema is a man who prays for the whole world.’” (ibid p. 493).

            This is engendered within a man, as St. Silouan clarifies, through the love of the Holy Spirit Whom the Lord gives to man.  This is a revelation of the love of Christ for mankind. St. Sophrony tells us, “Through Christ’s love all men become an inseparable part of our own individual, eternal existence.  Speaking of St. Silouan, he continues, The Staretz began to understand the commandment, ‘Love thy neighbor as thyself’ as something more than an ethical imperative.  In the word ‘as’ he saw an indication, not of a required degree of love but of an ontological community of being¹.

            “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committeth all judgment unto the Son…because He is the Son of man” (John 5:22-7) This Son of man, the Great Judge of the world, will say at the Last Judgment that ‘one of the least of these’ is His very Self.  In other words, He assimilates every man’s existence and includes it in His own personal existence.  The Son of man has taken into Himself all mankind—He has accepted the ‘whole Adam’ and suffered for him.  St. Paul said that we, too, ought to think and feel like Christ—having ‘the same mind which was in Christ.’ (Phil. 2:5)

            “The Holy Spirit, in teaching Silouan Christ-like love, bestowed on him the gift of effectively living this love, of taking to himself the life of all mankind.  The intensity of his prayer as he wept for the entire world related and bound him with strong bonds to all mankind, to the ‘whole Adam.  In this world there are various distinctions and divisions among men but in eternity we are all one.  Each of us must, therefore, take heed not only for himself but for this single whole.” (pp. 47-8). A monk takes heed for the “single whole”—the whole race of Adam.

            In conclusion we can say that: “The world is supported by the prayers of the saints; and the monk’s calling is to pray for the whole world….Thanks to monks, prayer continues unceasingly on earth and the whole world profits, for through prayer the whole world continues to exist; but when prayer fails, the world will perish.” (excerpts from pages 408 and 407)  

 1.    This could perhaps also be expressed as such, “a theological truth: the nature of man’s existence is communal