The Center for contemplative practice
A Lay Cistercian Looks at Spiritual Reality
WHAT IS A CHARISM?
The following items I found in a book by the late Father Anthony Delisi, OCSO, a monk of the Monastery of Our Lady of the Holy Spirit. He writes in this book about Cistercian charisms, What makes a Cistercian Monk? His book is taken from a series of weekly Chapter meetings he presented to monks from 2003-2004. He offers these refections to Lay Cistercians to help them define what it means to seek God in the world and not in a monastery.
What is a charism? He defines a charism as that something that makes a monk. The following areas of formation, leading to transformation, are charisms that monks try to have in themselves. Some of them are:
Foundations of the Cistercian Monastery
- Nothing is to be preferred to the work of God
- Faith in the rule of St. Benedict
- Respect and Love for one another
- The Stability of the Rule
- Respect your Elders, Love the Young
Charisms of the Strict Order Observance Cistercians (OCSO)
- Early Rising
- Encountering the Presence of God Especially at Divine Office
- The Psalms as Song and Prayer of the Monks
- Lectio Divina
- Contemplative Prayer
- Silence in Contemplative Prayer
- Why do we need solitude?
- Treasuring Cistercian simplicity
- Living by the work of our hands
- Embracing the torch of obedience
- Stability and Community
- The gift of celibacy
- Living in Community
- Amore Christi–the love of Christ
- Conversion of manners (life)
- Humility
- Patience
- Balance
Not all of these charisms are appropriate for Lay Cistercians, but many of them are. We use five: silence, solitude, pray, work, and community as cornerstones and try to implement the rest of them as we can.
See: https://thecenterforcontemplativepractice.org for my blog on contemplative practice.
See www.trappist.net to see the Monastery of the Holy Spirit and look under Lay Cistercians.
UIODG
The Center for contemplative practice 