What makes a
monastery a sacred place ?[1]
A sacred place may be
visited by a tourist or by a historian or by an archaeologist. Each one of them, of course, looks at it from
a different point of view. For some people that place may also be a dwelling place. My talk will try to give you the point of
view of someone who lives in a sacred place, and who tries to reflect on the
meaning of that place – the meaning it has for his own life and for the life of
those who live there with him, and also the life of all the people who come
there either for a short visit or for a longer stay.
I am a monk – at least
I have been trying for many years to become one --, and therefore I live in a
monastery. My monastery – Scourmont,
here in Belgium-- is not a famous piece of architecture (like, for example, Villers, Park, Kaisersberg). It is simply a normal, ordinary and
functional monastic dwelling place built a century and a half ago and well
maintained – constantly adapted to new needs and new conditions. Sometimes ago
some tourists who visited Scourmont, after looking at the Church and the
surroundings, including a beautiful park asked one of the monks
: “Where are the ruins?”. That
little anecdote shows that for a large number of people, a sacred place is almost
necessary a hip of ruins from past ages, more or less well preserved or more or
less well restored, that has become a touristic attraction. A normal monastery, on the contrary, is
simply the living place of a monastic community, which means something only to
people who know something about the meaning of the life of that community.
An analogical concept
The adjective “sacred”
when applied both to a monument of the past and to a place where the sacred
liturgy is celebrated, or to an abbey or a convent where a monastic community
actually lives, is definitely an analogical concept that means different things
according to the contexts in which it is used. Therefore, we must ask ourselves
not only what does make a place sacred, but also what do we mean when we say
that something is “sacred”.
A specialist or a
tourist may come to a sacred place because it is considered sacred. But to
consider a place “sacred in itself” would be a pre-Christian and even
pre-biblical understanding of the “sacred”.
According to Greek mythology and most ancient cultures and religions,
there was a radical distinction between what belongs to the realm of the sacred
and what was considered profane. Hence the constant aspiration of humans to
steal away from the Gods something that was sacred and therefore to profane
it. Which was, of course, expressed most
of all in the Promethean myth. In the
Jewish Bible, and later on in Christianity, we find a completely different
approach. Nothing is sacred in itself but everything can be “sacralised”. In
the myth of Creation in the Book of Genesis, God gives everything to man as a
caretaker, and therefore everything is profane.
But man can sacralise anything by using it to express his reverence to
God.
Now, if we want to
apply that to Christian architecture and specifically to monastic architecture,
we must say that it is sacred not because it is built in such and such a way,
because it is old or not even because it is beautiful. It is sacred simply because what is lived (or
has been lived) there. Of course some of
those buildings are masterpieces of architecture and of art -- thanks God. But that does not make them more sacred and
more holy than any simple, even un-artistic (perhaps ugly) monastic
building. (Of course, we all prefer the
first ones!)
Monasteries are sacred because they are inhabited by men or women who
want to make of their lives a worship to God. Some of
them may be holy people, other not. What makes of their place a sacred place is
the holiness of the spiritual goal they have chosen for their
lives. To what extent they attain that
goal and to what extent they fall short of it is another question – an
important question for sure, but that has no impact on the holiness or sacredness
of the place.
For that reason it would
perhaps be important to make a clear distinction in our way of speaking between
“sacred and holy”. This is a distinction
that recurs constantly in the writings of Emmanuel Levinas
(who actually wrote a beautiful book with this as a title :
Du sacré au
saint. For him the word “sacred” would correspond almost to the
pre-biblical notion of sacred. It is
almost an objective quality. Holiness is
not something objective, outside the subject.
It is a quality of the subject and of his life. Most of all it is a quality of
relationship.
However as in many
other domains people say different things using the same word and, at other
times, use different words to say the same thing. What Lévinas calls
“Le sacré” corresponds pretty much to what René
Girard also calls “Sacred” in his La
violence et le sacré. On the other hand, what Levinas
calls “holy” is very close to the notion of sacredness developed by Mircea Eliade, for whom “sacredness” implied a dimension of
interiority, which was not present in the work of Rudolf Otto, Das Heilige
(1917), the master of all in this field.
In his reflection on
“sacred” and “holy”, Lévinas uses the biblical image
of the Shekinah that created a sacred place at the
heart of the People of Israël. It was a sign
of God’s dwelling among men. The Temple was a sacred place, because it was a
space – an empty space -- made by men where they could meet God. The empty space under the Shekinah, was filled with
God’s presence – because of its goal. We
have the same thing in the New Testament.
During his last Supper with his disciples, Jesus says
: “If you love me, you will keep my Word, my Father will love you, we
will come and we will make our dwelling (monè) in you.
The effort of man to
keep God’s word creates in him a space that is filled with God’s presence, or
God’s dwelling in him; and then man want to dwell on that Presence, and he
builds places where this can happen.
Those are the loci sacri, the sacred places.
The early Christian
monks, following a long tradition of asceticism that preceded Christianity,
went to the desert (and the muni and the rishi had gone to the forests of India, thousands of years
before), in order to bring that presence into what was in the imagery of the
time considered as the dwelling places of the devils. The evil places and
transformed into sacred places. This is
described in highly symbolic figures in the Life of Anthony of the Desert by
Athanasius of Alexandria, who in his figurative way of speaking puts into the
mouth of the devil the declaration : “I don’t have any
“place” left where to go, because those crazy Christian monks have filled the
desert and make of it their own dwelling place.
The pagan spatial economy was annulled.
The Rule of saint Benedict
Let us speak now about
Christian monasticism and more specifically about Western monasticism. In the
Western part of the Church, monastic life has been most of all coenobitical –
although there were always some hermits -- and, after the Carolingian reform,
following almost exclusively the Rule of
Benedict of Nursia.
This has an importance
not only for the monks, because monastic life is a human archetype. It is a
human archetype not only because it is a way of being that we find in every
great culture and spirituality of the world, but it is an essential dimension
of human life as such. Those whom we call monks, in any culture, are simply those
who have chose to place that dimension at the heart of their existence and
organize everything in their life around that dimension.
Since almost all the
monasteries that have existed in the Western Church for the last 15 hundred
years have lived according to the Rule of St. Benedict, we cannot understand
all the great masterpieces of monastic architecture of the past or any type of
modern monastic building without a reference to that Rule. Of course, that Rule has been constantly
re-interpreted and inculturated. It has been lived in a great variety of forms;
and we can say that each expression is a different lived interpretation of the
Rule, (just as the Rule is an interpretation of the Gospel for monks).
That Rule being a very
important monument of Christian literature, spirituality and history, we can
say that its study is a prerequisite to understand anything of the Benedictine
tradition, spirituality, architecture or art.
I will now dwell on
that document for a few moments.
When you read the RB, you may be surprised not to find any indication on
how to build a monastery. You have the
impression that Benedict could have written about the architecture of the
monastery exactly what he wrote about clothing : “The monks should not worry about the color or texture of these items, but simply use whatever
they can find in the locality where they live, or what can be purchased more
cheaply.”
What is important for
Benedict of Nursia is what is lived in the monastery. In the Prologue to his Rule he describes his
theological understanding of monastic life as an answer of a person to God’s
invitation – an invitation addressed to anyone who wants life. Benedict’s goal is to establish what he calls
“a school of the Lord’s service” Then he goes on to explain, in his
first chapter that he writes that Rule for coenobites monks, not for hermits or
gyrovagues or sarabaites. Then he defines what a coenobite is : (and that description is extremely important). It is
someone who lives in a monastery, under a Rule and an Abbot. You have there the three basic elements of
Benedictine monastic life. The most
important, of course, is the first one : “in monasterio”.
Then, in his chapter
about receiving candidates, he stresses first of all the need to clarify what
that person is looking for, whether it corresponds to what we have to offer him
and whether he is able to live it. And
right from the beginning, even before the period of initial formation, the
candidate must promise his stability
in the monastery. Then, after a whole
year of formation, during which he is repeatedly reminded that he is free to
leave, and that he must make a serious discernment, the monk makes his solemn
profession : he promises his stability
(in the place), his conversion of manner (i.e. living according to a common
rule) and obedience.
Then, everything will
fall in place easily. Stability in a place is of the utmost
importance. The location where a
monastery is built is not normally chosen because it is a “sacred place”. On the contrary, it is chosen simply because
it seems to be a place adapted to what monks want to live. Then, it will become
a sacred place. (A few places of pagan
sacred places).
Stability is the visible, physical expression of a deeper reality
-- that of communion. It is around that
reality of communion that the whole
way of life of the monastic community is built and it is around it that the
architecture of the monastery develops.
It is a multidimensional communion.
First of all, it must be a communion with God in contemplative
prayer. That communion is expressed and
lived out in a communion with brethren within a local community. That community cannot be closed on itself; it must be open to
the local Church and the Church at large, also to the world, especially to the
people around the monastery and the guests.
Finally, it must include a communion with nature, with the environment
and with the whole cosmos. The
architecture of a monastery is meant to foster all those levels of
communion.
In any monastery you
will find first of all, at the centre, a space for common prayer in a church
that is built such as to make beautiful and harmonious common celebrations
possible. Then there are others spaces
for study, lectio and private prayer
– all activities that prepare the common celebrations and continue them during
the whole day. There is a chapter room,
always near the church, where the community meets for all the important moments
in its life, like professions, election of the abbot, and various forms of
dialogue. Not far from it, on the same
level, you have the dining room. All
these places are linked to one another through a quadrangle cloister that
allows for an easy passage from one form of communion to the other and
expresses the connection between all the aspects of life. As for the dormitory it is normally on the
first floor with a direct access to the church through a staircase.
That plan corresponds
to a spirituality but also to a cultural incarnation
of that spirituality. It remained
basically the same during several centuries.
It was meant usually for rather large communities that were part of a
confident and powerful, expanding Church.
That corresponds to “Christendom” That period and that type of Church
now belongs to history. (The attempts made by some fundamentalist groups to
bring it back are useless and pathetic), Today’s Church, at least in most of
our modern Western countries, is no longer powerful nor
numerically important. Maybe it is its normal situation – a little bit of leven in the dough of humankind. We are back to a situation
like the one described in a book of the second century, called the Letter to Diognetos. The
present Church is like the one of the first few centuries of our era, before
the Constantinian peace, and as it was probably meant
to be : a collection of small local communities of
believers. In that Church, monastic communities tend to be small. There is nothing wrong about it. The quality of life and of witness of a
monastic community can be as good and as valid, whether the community is
composed of 100, 50 or 5 monks. What is
important, however, is that the material setup correspond
to the size of the community. (Problem of communities living in monasteries
built in a time of restoration, when vocations where abnormally numerous).
The location of the
monastery is important. Cistercians were
very practical – especially concerning water. Benedict wants the monastery to
be in a solitary place so as to allow for enough solitude and tranquillity for
the monks. At the same time he stresses
the importance of hospitality and even mentions that guests are never lacking
in a monastery. There is therefore in
the setup of a monastery a special place to welcome guests, to offer them food
and shelter. Various services of the
monastery, especially selling products of the monks and buying what is
necessary require trips outside by some of the monks.
Concerning the
architecture, the legislator of Western monasticism is surprisingly
silent. He mentions the presence of the
church, which he calls the oratory, and which is certainly the heart of the
monastery. He does not say how it should
be built. He simply says that is should
correspond to its name and therefore being a place of prayer and that nothing
should be done there or kept there that does not correspond to that
purpose. As you see, what is important
for the monks, even the most important part of the monastery is not the way it
is built or decorated, nor the materials with which it is built. It is what happens there. – Beautiful and
simple as a consequence. No decoration, no statues.
It is said of one of the
first abbots of Cîteaux in the12th century that he was “amator
loci et fratrum”.
(The “locus” that he loved was not a famous sacred place of great renown. It was still a desert and a primitive, poor
monastic setting.
The notion of “place”,
just like that of “sacred” includes a spiritual an affection dimension. A place is not only a name on a map. It is space where something happens or
happened. For monks, the place they have
chosen to live in and which the love is the space where a community lives. If, for any reason the community has to move
to another location (as it happened for several foundations), the place is
moved to another location.
For anyone who has to
build a monastery nowadays or for anyone who wants to study the architecture of
a monastery built centuries ago, the notion of communion remains the “key” that
conditions everything and gives its meaning to everything.
What is the present situation?
Nowadays there are few monastic
vocations in Europe and some monasteries are closed. We must however replace
that situation in a larger perspective. The worldwide number of monks and nuns remains
presently about the same, and there are new monasteries founded every year all
over the world. Communities,
however are smaller than in the pst.
All the
Cistercian-Trappist monasteries, which are those I know best (although I also
know a good number of Benedictine ones) can be placed in one of the following
categories with each one its negative and positive aspects – or rather its
challenges and chances.
Some communities live in beautiful buildings of the past that have been
either preserved or restored (with various degrees of success). Even if the monastery is considered a
national monument, a large part of the energy and resources of the community
goes into the maintenance of that monument.
The monks must either share their existence with a continuous flow of
tourists or have even become kind of museum objects themselves. For monastic communities as such, to live in
a beautiful, grandiose piece of architecture is rarely a blessing. It is often close to being a curse. Fortunately a number of them have found the
way of rearranging part of the building where they live, leaving the rest for
the tourists.
The monastic community has the responsibility to live its monastic
life. It does not have the mission to
maintain an architectural heritage. If
it can do it, all the better; but if this has become too much of a burden, it
should not stay in a situation where it is bound to die out under that burden.
The monastic charism belongs to the whole
Church. The monks are the steward of that charism. The
monasteries as architectural and cultural treasures belong to the whole
society. The whole society is therefore
responsible for it. And it should not
use the monks to do it, if this does not foster their monastic life.
Someone talked
yesterday about “residual sanctity”. I
don’t think a building should be considered sacred because it was used in the
past as a monastery or as a church. On
the other hand that building deserves respect because it is a witness to
something sacred that was lived there.
Another number of
communities especially in Europe, but also in America live in monasteries that
were built in the 19th or early 20th centuries, usually
in imitation of the classical style, often in various forms of poor neo-gothic
architecture. The situation of those communities
is not much better than that of those just mentioned with the exception that
they can dare transform and readapt their living quarters without any scruples,
provided they have the means.
On the other hand, new
communities who build their monasteries nowadays or old communities who have
the courage to leave their white elephants to build something more adapted to
their needs, should have the freedom to create something totally new and the
courage to do it. Those places will be
authentic “sacred places” if they answer the cultural and spiritual needs of
people of today, that are often quite different from those of the former
generations.
They need to respond to
rather different demands than the monasteries constructed in the Middle Ages or the following centuries. First of all they should not be symbols of a
spirit of grandeur but expression of humility.
They are usually the dwelling place of a small, even often precarious
community. To respond to the present
spiritual ethos, a sense of intimacy and rootedness will be preferred to high
flying naves that used to express confidence and power. The separation of the monastic community from
the guests, especially in the celebration of the Liturgy will be much less
marked. The dormitories will be replaced with small individual rooms, the
shops, usually more noisy than in the past, will be
build at a distance. If the climate
allows for it, the cells will be spread out on the property in small groups of
3 or 4, instead of forming a long wing within the monastery building. The quadrangle cloisters will rarely be
present.
The good example I have
seen of a well adapted and inculturated architecture was the chapel of a small
monastic foundation on the outskirt of Noumea in New Caledonia. The chapel was a large round hut built
entirely of straw, in the same way as the dwellings of the local tribe. It was built by the local people according to
the traditional manner, in one day, and had to be replaced every five years, as
the dwelling places of the local people.
There was enough place in that round hut, on
Sunday Mass for the monastic community and a large part of the village
population. It corresponded exactly to
the needs and situation of a concrete, fragile but very authentic monastic
community. To my mind it was an
authentic “sacred place” as much as any masterpiece of architecture that has
survived centuries of wars and periods of decadence in Europe.
The relationship of the
monks with the lay people is very important. Nowadays there are several
communities of lay people attached to a monastery. In my Order, we call them “Lay
Cistercians”. This is not simply an
answer to a lack of monastic vocations. It is an authentic new expression of
the monastic charism.
That charism belongs to the whole people of
God. The Spirit is bringing to life new expression of that charism. The distinction between various classes of
people is nowadays much less important than it was in the Middle
Ages. For lay people a monastery is
therefore much more than only a place where to go, in order to escape the
tensions of daily life in the world.
We should also be aware
in our present developments of a radical change that has affected all the
religious traditions in our time. That change is a completely new relationship
with the world of symbols and rituals.
The liturgy of the past and also the architecture and other forms of art
of the past used a large variety of man-made symbols. These symbols may be highly appreciated by
people having a devotion to the past.
They usually don’t speak any more to most people – not necessarily for
lack of culture on their part, but simply because of a deeper change. People nowadays are less and less sensitive
to symbols created by human beings, and much more attentive to the symbolic
dimension of all the aspects of daily life, at the local, national and
international levels.
Symbols are no longer
symbols when they need to be explained.
In the past few days I have personally felt questioned and challenged by
the role played by the monks in Burma in the life of heir people and the
reaction of the population. Their
intervention has a tremendous symbolic value that speaks thousands of times
more that all their rituals and their temples.
I don’t say that all the Belgian monks should take the streets to ask
the politicians to stop playing games and to give the country a
government. But if they did it would
certainly give their life and the life of the country another dimension of
“sacredness”.
Armand Veilleux
Leuven, September 27, 2007.
[1]
Talk given
at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven on September 27, 2007, in the context of a congress on Sacred
Places within the framework of the European project Converting Sacred Places.