Over the archways of medieval Benedictine monasteries shone one phrase: Pax intratibus–Peace to those who enter here. Nothing could be more basic, more soulful where monastic spirituality is concerned. But this motto has a far more complex meaning than most people surmise. Yes, it means that monasteries are quiet and peaceful places. But at the same time, monastic peace is a much deeper concept.

Monastics have no enemies, refuse to make enemies, and do nothing by force. Monasteries are places where anyone can come and there will be somebody to welcome them, to take them in, to accept who and what they are. In the face of social chaos, monastic people are the ones to bring back social order, provide substance, and base their lives on spiritual values.

Peace–personal faith and trust in the heart of God–is actually what it’s all about. Behind all the daily schedules and seasonal harvests, liturgical hospitality and ministry to many, one important facet goes quietly on: the need to be peaceful ourselves if we are ever to bring peace to others.

Decisions depend on prayerful discernment, not on the emotional demands that come and go with the winds of change. Instead, equality and community, respect and common care, are the portals of a peaceful world, the presence in flesh and blood of a world that is capable of living in harmony, each of us the support of the other.

Personal peace is cultivated by practice and practiced by living a life of openness to life itself, of trusting receptivity that does not collapse in the face of crisis. There are specific dimensions of peace, of course, each of which gets more and more engrained in the soul by the season.

First, monastic spirituality deliberately cultivates quiet in us. Second, genuine reflection on major issues takes deep thought and serious analysis. It is wisdom that refuses to react to an idea before it reflects on it. When the answer is not clear, the monastic heart, steeped in quiet and faith, waits for it. Third, interiority sustains us. It shields us from giving ourselves over to reactions without reason.

Which means what? It means that to have peace, to be really monastic, to be a peacemaker, you can’t fake it; you have to be it. In the family, in the city, at work, wherever your world hopes for peace, for the proof of peace, and the possibility of peace, you must become it yourself. Rather than pray for it, bewail its absence, or chastise the world for lacking it, you must both bring it and be it.

MONDAY, JUNE 1: Interior peace is not achieved by not struggling for things worth struggling for; it is achieved by not giving up the struggle for the sake of making a false peace.

TUESDAY, JUNE 2: When we know that something must be done to right a wrong but we ignore it in order to avoid the struggle, no peace comes. Then we are left only with a sense of the betrayal of the better self. There is nothing peaceful about that. As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.”

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 3: Serenity is the ability to sit through a storm without giving way to the fear that the rain may never end.

THURSDAY, JUNE 4: The person who lives in perfect inner peace simply cannot be moved by force or by fear to accept anything less than the truth about the reality at hand.

FRIDAY, JUNE 5: Serenity requires an honest admixture of equality and respect for those who hold opposite positions from our own.

SATURDAY, JUNE 6: A false peace occurs when one party to a negotiation talks nicely but gives no ground. The words sound serene but their purpose is simply to label one person’s attempt to dominate as the other person’s delusion.

SUNDAY, JUNE 7: Real peace cannot be shaken by disagreement. Real peace clings to an ongoing truth, however much pressure is applied to forego it.

MONDAY, JUNE 8: Serenity–inner calm and implacability– cannot be destroyed. In the end, what is true will prevail because those who are certain of soul are not able to be harried out of existence. As Reinhold Niebuhr teaches us to pray, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

TUESDAY, JUNE 9: It is serenity that walks us through all the changes of life. The serene person is full of the courage to let life happen in all its forms until it is possible to see clearly what must be pruned, what must be purged and what must be allowed to pursue its own perfection so that we may all grow with it.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10: No matter what goes on around us, the only way to weather the pain of it is to create within ourselves the kind of spiritual cave that can transcend the clamor in which we live. As the graffiti artist puts it: Serenity is not freedom from the storm, but peace amid the storm.

THURSDAY, JUNE 11: Just because every institution of our time is shaken with unrest does not mean that we must be shaken too. It only means that our souls must be unshakably serene while everything around us tips and sways. “Observe the wonders as they occur around you,” Rumi says. “Don’t claim them. Feel the artistry moving through and be silent.”

FRIDAY, JUNE 12: “As soon as you have a thought,” Lao Tzu says, “laugh at it.” Then, knowing that all ideas come and go in their time, you will be serene in the midst of the melee, however deep the soul-shake.

SATURDAY, JUNE 13: Approach everything in life as changeable, malleable, and movable. Then nothing can capture your inner self or put it in chains. As the world moves around you, you, too, will grow.

SUNDAY, JUNE 14: Never assume that any great threat to your life can destroy you. It can change your circumstances, yes, but only you can destroy you.

MONDAY, JUNE 15: Recognize danger and compose yourself to deal with it. But do not fear it. Nothing and no one has power over us unless we ourselves give it to them.

TUESDAY, JUNE 16: If we do not run from something–if we face it down and refuse to surrender to it– must sometime go away dried up, dwarfed and defeated. As Longfellow says, “The best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain.”

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17: Is something threatening you? Laugh at it and keep on doing exactly what you’re doing. Nothing diminishes a bully faster than to measure his nothingness with a laugh.

THURSDAY, JUNE 18: Serenity is the refusal to be overcome by something with less stature of soul than yourself. As Yogi Berra put it, “Ninety percent of this game is half mental.”

FRIDAY, JUNE 19: Serenity is not a decision to let evil flourish or wrong win. It is a decision to struggle for something greater than what is, however long it takes. Thomas Merton writes, “Christ did not come to bring peace to the world as a kind of spiritual tranquilizer. He brought to his disciples a vocation and a task–to struggle in the world of violence to establish his peace not only in their own hearts but in society itself.”

SATURDAY, JUNE 20: Serenity is the ability to give our lives for something greater than ourselves, knowing that in the end justice must surely come, but only if we refuse to give in to oppression.

SUNDAY, JUNE 21: Serenity is not the ability to accommodate wrongs; it is the ability to point them out without apology. “Not to be angered by injustice,” Eknath Easwaran writes, “is a lack of sensitivity.”

MONDAY, JUNE 22: To adjust to evil is to become it ourselves.

TUESDAY, JUNE 23: Serenity is the ability to live through turmoil unruffled. Then no amount of turmoil can destroy us.

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 24: If we become hysterical, mean, helpless, in the threat of difficulty, what will happen to us when difficulty finally descends.

THURSDAY, JUNE 25: Surrender your equanimity to no one. To be less than strong in the face of threat will be precisely what defeats you in the end. Julian of Norwich reminds us always, “You will have pain and affliction, trouble and strain and doubt. But you shall not be overcome and all shall be well. Yes, all shall be well, and all will be well, and you shall see yourself that all manner of things shall be well.”

FRIDAY, JUNE 26: Serenity is not surrender to forces that have no right to oppress us. It is to refuse to surrender to the unacceptable. It is the ability to persist in the cause of justice despite any amount of opposition. Helen Keller says of such a situation, “I do not want the peace that passes understanding. I want the under- standing that brings peace.”

SATURDAY, JUNE 27: To be able to be the source of calm and joy in the midst of crisis is to stir timid souls to life again. “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,” Thich Nhat Hanh says, “but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

SUNDAY, JUNE 28: Serenity is the kind of soulfulness that can remain both strong and joyful in the midst of suffering. Again, we look to the insight of Thich Nhat Hanh, “Don’t wait until you have no more suffering before allowing yourself to be happy.”

MONDAY, JUNE 29: There are times in life when the struggles we face–sickness, loss, opposition–are constants. Then is exactly the time to live beyond their reach. Or as Shantideva says, “If there’s a remedy when trouble strikes, what reason is there for dejection. And if there is no help for it, what use is there in being glum?”

TUESDAY, JUNE 30: To refuse to be defeated by those who would control us, limit our right to think, or make us lackeys of useless ideas long-gone is the great strength of serenity. There is nothing that can change it, nothing that can conquer it, nothing that can overcome it. We can be forced to do anything but believe, and what we refuse to believe can never prevail.

LET’S SHARE OUR THOUGHTS

The following discussion questions, Scripture echo, journal prompts, and prayer are meant to help you reflect more deeply on The Monastic Way. Choose at least two suggestions and respond to them. You may do it as a personal practice or gather a group interested in sharing the spiritual journey.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Joan Chittister deals with the idea of serenity in a way that encapsulates both inner peace and peace in the world. How would you describe the relationship between inner peace and global matters? What reaction should a peaceful person have to current events?

2. Which daily quote in The Monastic Way is most meaningful to you? Why? Do you agree with it? Disagree? Did it inspire you? Challenge you? Raise questions for you?

3. After reading The Monastic Way, what is one way that you can put Sister Joan’s teachings into practice in your own life?

4. Joan Chittister uses other literature to reinforce and expand her writing. Find another quote, poem, story, song, art piece, novel that echoes the theme of this month’s Monastic Way.

5. On June 13, Sister Joan writes, “Approach everything in life as changeable, malleable, and movable.” Does this thought inspire serenity in you, or something else? Can you find serenity without an assurance of stability?

JOURNAL PROMPTS

Prompt 1: Here are a few statements from this month’s Monastic Way. Choose one that is most helpful to you and journal with it.

•To have peace, to be really monastic, to be a peacemaker, you can’t fake it; you have to be it.

• Is something threatening you? Laugh at it and keep on doing exactly what you’re doing.

• Serenity is not the ability to accommodate wrongs; it is the ability to point them out without apology.

Prompt 2: Spend a few minutes with this photograph and journal about its relationship to this month’s Monastic Way. You can do that with prose or a poem or a song or....

PRAYER

I am Peace
surrounded by Peace
secure in Peace.
Peace protects me
Peace supports me
Peace is in me
Peace is mine— All is well.
Peace to all beings
Peace among all beings
Peace from all beings
I am steeped in Peace
Absorbed in Peace
In the streets,
at our work,
having peaceful thoughts,
Peaceful words,
peaceful acts.
—A Buddhist Meditation

SCRIPTURE ECHO

In the tender compassion of God
The morning sun shall break upon us
To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death
And to guide our feet into the way of peace.
- LUKE 1:78-79