The Waters of Siloe

by Thomas Merton

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  Glossary of Some Monastic Terms

  ABBEY. A monastery canonically erected by the Holy See and the Major Superiors of the Order and enjoying a certain independence and autonomy, under the control of its own ABBOT. The Abbey is the most complete and self-sufficient social unit that exists in the structure of monastic life.

  ABBOT. Regular first superior of an Abbey, in charge of the temporal and spiritual affairs of the whole community.

  ABBOT GENERAL. Superior at the head of a monastic Order.

  AMBO. A bookstand, usually in an elevated position, used in liturgical services. (Also called “Jube” in Cistercian monasteries.)

  ANTIPHONER. A large liturgical book containing the text and musical notation for the ANTTPHONS, short melodic chants sung in between Psalms in the Choral Office. The Antiphoner also contains the text of RESPONSORIES, or longer chants, in which certain verses are repeated. These chants are interspersed between the readings of LESSONS from the Fathers or from Scripture. The Lessons (read from the Ambo) are contained in another volume called the LECTIONARY.

  APOSTATE. A member of a religious Order who has left the Order without the proper dispensation, or a member of the Catholic Church who has left the Church, or a member of a religious Order who has left both his Order and the Church.

  ASCETICISM. The doctrine and practice of self-discipline and control of all the natural faculties in order to arrive at moral, intellectual and spiritual perfection. In the highest sense, asceticism means the effort of man’s soul, aided by God’s grace, to deliver himself from every attachment and desire that falls short of God himself. Actually, in a contemplative Order, asceticism is the active practice of virtues, with the help of God’s grace, preparing us for or accompanied by mystical contemplation, in which the chief work is performed passively in the soul by God Himself.

  BENEFICE. A permanent sacred office, constituted by ecclesiastical authority, and giving right to a determined revenue connected by its nature with that office (see Code of Canon Law, C. 1409).

  BREVIARY. A small liturgical book serving as a compendium of all that is contained in the larger liturgical books (v.g. the Antiphoner, Lectionary, Psalter, etc.) designed to help priests and monks to recite the Office conveniently when they are by themselves and not in choir.

  CANONICAL HOURS. The different sections of the Divine Office, properly so called, as distinguished from the various “Little Offices.” There are seven canonical hours: Matins with Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. The Canonical Office is the total of psalms, hymns, lessons, and phons, responsories, etc., officially instituted by the Church and imposed as a matter of obligation, to be recited daily by all monks and other religious under solemn vows as well as by clerics in major orders (subdeacons and above).

  CENOBITE. A monk who lives the “common life,” that is, who lives in a community with other monks and shares with them all the daily exercises of prayer, labor, study, meals, and so on. In the strict sense, the cenobitic life is altogether common, and the monk has no private cell of his own.

  CHAPTER (Capitulum). The monastic Chapter, strictly speaking, is the group of monks under solemn vows who have active voice in determining the affairs of the community. The Chapter Room is the place where they meet. In the broader sense, the “Chapter” is the daily meeting of the monastic community in the Chapter Room, after Prime, for the recitation of prayers and an exhortation by the Abbot or PRIOR.

  CHAPTER OF FAULTS. A session in which the monks accuse themselves and one another of violations of the Rule, and receive suitable penances from the Superior.

  CHARTERHOUSE (Chartreuse). A monastery of Carthusian hermits.

  CLOISTER. A covered arcade, usually quadrangular and open to the weather. By extension, the term is applied to the whole monastery or convent.

  COLLATION. Originally this was a short period of public reading, for which the monastic community gathered before Compline. Today the term is used to signify a light refreshment, taken in place of supper on fast days, consisting of some bread, a little fruit and a hot drink.

  COMMENDAM. The practice of giving the revenues of an Abbey or Priory to an absentee who was an Abbot only in theory and who might, perhaps, never even see the monastery, let alone become a monk. The chief cause of this abuse was that many monasteries came into the power of secular princes who distributed their revenues to their court favorites, much as a modern political boss shares out “graft” with his underlings. Those who became abbots in this way were called COMMENDATORY ABBOTS and the monasteries were said to be held In Commendam. This abuse no longer exists.

  COMMON OBSERVANCE. The distinction between Cistercians of the Strict and Common Observance grew up in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Common Observance was the mitigation of the Cistercian Usages permitted by several Popes, and it is followed by several Cistercian congregations today. The Cistercians of the Common Observance do not lead as strictly contemplative a life as the Reformed Cistercians. They engage to a great extent in parish work and education, and have excelled in historical scholarship in the past hundred years. This volume intends no criticism of the present-day Cistercians of the Common Observance, for they are to be considered as a thoroughly legitimate development of Cistercian life and have the full approval of the Holy See. There are two houses of the Cistercians of the Common Observance (otherwise called Sacred Order of Cistercians, S.O.C.) in the United States.

  COMPLINE (Completorium). The last of the canonical hours chanted each day by the monks. It is the evening prayer of the monastic community, after which all retire to bed.

  CONTEMPLATION. In the broadest sense it is a “simple intuition of the truth” (simplex intuitus veritatis) in which the mind is content to rest in a reflective gaze, without specific acts of reasoning, in the way an artist stands gazing at a picture. In the strict sense, contemplation is a simple intuition of God, analogous to the natural process described above, but produced immediately in the soul by God Himself and giving the soul a direct but obscure and mysterious experimental appreciation of God as He is in Himself.

  CONTEMPLATIVE LIFE. A life in which everything is ordered to favor the development of contemplation in the strict sense, and therefore a life in which exterior activities are supposed to be kept at a minimum.

  CONVENTUAL MASS. A Mass which is celebrated in the presence of the whole monastic community. It is generally a High Mass, chanted by the community assembled in choir. In the Cistercian Order there is one Conventual High Mass each day of the year. On Sundays and Feasts there are two Conventual Masses, one of which is a Low Mass.

  CORPUS CHRISTI. Literally “the Body of Christ.” A term for the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, in which Christ becomes substantially present under the accidents or species or outward appearances of the Host when the words of consecration are pronounced over them by the priest at Mass. The Feast of Corpus Christi occurs in May or June, and on these occasions the mystery of the Blessed Eucharist is fittingly celebrated with a special liturgical Office and Mass. In Catholic countries the Blessed Eucharist is carried in procession through towns and villages on this day and on the Octave Day of the feast (eight days later). In Cistercian monasteries this procession is held in the cloister in all countries.

  CROZIER. A staff surmounted by a crook, symbol of the pastoral office of a bishop or abbot.

  DETACHMENT. The habitual disposition of one who is not enslaved by the appetites and necessities of human nature. While remaining subject to the limitations and needs of a human body and soul, the man who is “detached” is not dominated by the desire of pleasure or the
fear of pain; his will is able to function freely without being dominated by self-interest. The acquisition of detachment is the proximate end of all asceticism. Christian detachment is distinguished by its supernatural character. It is ordered not merely to the perfection of the individual but to the love and service of God and, ultimately, to union with God in contemplation.

  DEVOTIONS. A term used loosely to cover all kinds of pious practices, especially prayers and meditations centered upon particular mysteries, saints or holy objects. Generally a “devotion” imflies the use of set forms of non-iturgical prayer in the special cult of its object. In a broader sense, any habitual religious response to a special appeal exercised upon the soul by this or that saint or mystery is called a “devotion.”

  ENCLOSURE. The limit defining the separation between the monastery and the “world.” It is usually a high wall or some such barrier, in which the doors are kept locked. In strictly enclosed communities, members of the opposite sex are forbidden to enter the enclosure under pain of excommunication.

  EUCHARIST. See Corpus Christi.

  EXCOMMUNICATION. An ecclesiastical penalty by which one is deprived of the rights and privileges of a member of the Catholic Church. A monk may also be excommunicated from his monastic community without being expelled from the cloister.

  FATHER IMMEDIATE. The Abbot of a monastery that has founded other monasteries is called the “Father Immediate” of those monasteries, and he exercises a certain supervision over them, visiting them each year to make sure that the Rule is being observed.

  FRATER. Latin for “Brother.” In some religious communities this title is given to the young monks who are not yet priests, or to the novices to distinguish them from the “Fathers” (priests) on one hand and the “Brothers” (lay-brethren) on the other. In the Cistercian Order, as well as some others, all the members, whether priests or not, use the title “Frater” (or simply “Brother”) before their own names, even when called “Father” by others.

  GARTH. An open courtyard or garden, surrounded by the cloister.

  GENERAL CHAPTER. A legislative and judicial body made up of the Abbots and other titular superiors of the whole Order.