In Defense of Cloisters

There is nothing in this world so unappreciated or misunderstood as God or love of God.  If there were anything to run a close second in this quandary it would be prayer.  It has been said that “If you talk to God people think you are holy.  If God talks to you people think you are crazy.”  I am sure it has been said before but I do not think this is a fair.  If God were any normal person He would surely be driven mad by the sheer number of people who talk at Him without allowing Him to get a word in edgewise. 

Can you imagine anything so depressing as an eternity of listening to everyone else’s problems without the opportunity to try and help?  OF COURSE HE RESPONDS!!!!  Of course, like with any conversation, you have to be listening to hear the reply. 

It has been argued, and perhaps justifiably so, that the cloistered religious serve no purpose.  Unlike other orders that live to serve the people through educating, nursing, or other charitable works, the cloistered religious do relatively little.  It could even be debated that the religious do not have a purpose within society at all.  I say that there is a justifiable argument against the cloisters and religious because to the secular world they do not appear to serve a purpose, but that is just it, we may live in a secular world, but we are not of this world.  Our spiritual lives are as much a part of who we are as our physical beings.    

In any normal relationship a body must be acknowledged at the very least once a month.  To be a friend to a person you will probably want to talk to them more frequently than that.  A close friend you would probably talk to at least once a week.  Calling your family once a week is necessary to keep up a healthy relationship and to be in a romantic relationship- someone you claim to love and desire the highest good for- you need to talk with a person at least a half hour a day. 

A relationship with God is a romantic relationship because He loves you more than anyone and desires the greatest good for you.  As one of my religion students pointed out, if you are not talking to God every day you are doing something wrong as a Catholic, but obviously not everyone does.  Not everyone practices their faith as well as they should.  Not every remembers to talk to God every day.  The only thing worse than an eternity of listening to people and not being able to help is an eternity of being ignored.  Outside of one Poor Clare convent there is a sign that says, “Dear friends, during the following times we will be praying for you in chapel.  Please feel free to join us there.”  And they are always so joyful.  I don't think I have ever seen one with an expression that isn't jubilant or a word that is not kind.  For this reason the cloisters exist. 

Where half an hour a day is necessary to carry on a relationship with God they are there spending their lives prayer and most of their lives in silence covering for us- because we forget to talk to God, because we are too lazy to talk to God, or worse, because we forget that God is there.  They spend twelve hours a day in prayer (or more) making for twenty-three other people who did not talk to God that day.  Can you imagine spending your life praying for everybody else?  Is it possible to spend your days caring enough for the good of humanity, a people that you will likely never see in your life, that likely will not understand your calling, and trying to make up for your spiritual deficiencies? We may never see the good that their spiritual lives have done for our physical lives, but we may hear of it. 

When my grandmother, Marilyn was in her early forties she was widowed and had four children, all of whom were on the brink of their teenage years.  Her elder sister, Sr. Lucia, a Carmelite, had her entire convent in Santa Barbara praying for Marilyn to find a husband.  That summer my grandmother had no less than five marriage proposals.

Saint Therese of Lisieux was a cloistered Carmelite beginning at the age fifteen until her death nine years later.  She entered a convent that was less than sixty miles from the town she grew up in.  She wanted to be unknown but she became the patron saint of Missionaries.

A few years back my grandfather, Sir, had leukemia, a cancer that infected his blood and his bone marrow.  The doctor said that Sir did not have much of a chance of making it.  Several hastily written letters to a Poor Clare convent in Roswell helped improve his odds drastically and less than a year later he was throwing out his knee climbing mountains.

Now, scientifically I cannot prove that prayer changed the course of history, but as Stuart Chase would say 

"For those who believe, no proof is necessary.  For those who don't believe, no proof is possible."  

 I will say that in both of these cases without a doubt prayer was heard.  It may be said that I am too close to this situation; after all I have had many religious in my family and grew up making annual pilgrimages to a cloister three states away.  In response to this I would have to acknowledge that it is true- I do take this personally- prayer is personal, religion is personal, God is personal, and if it is not for you then you are doing something wrong.