Dear Friends:
I always wanted to be a monk and now I am married. I have children. I want to be a monk now. I don't think that leaving a marriage would be a sin as big as I would commit if I continue to live here. I just don't like everything in this world. It is like trying to be dry while you are in a sea.
I want your spiritual advice. Your comment and other real stories related.
Thank you in name of God.
Comments
"I don't think that leaving a marriage would be a sin as big as I would commit if I continue to live here."
THe worst part of that sentence is "would be a sin as big..." really?! you have children. do you teach that stealing from the rich is ok but from the poor it's not and it's wrong?! or somthing like "you can hit the one who hits you but not anyone else"? again, it's not about what you will get after but what you have now.
First of all you two are now one flesh, God has bound you together and what God has bound no man can unbind. You simply cannot. Also in order to leave her you would have to divorce her and this in and of itself is a sin (adultery as Christ says). Further in Malachi 2:16 it says: "For I hate divorce!" says the LORD, the God of Israel. "It is as cruel as putting on a victim's bloodstained coat," says the LORD Almighty. "So guard yourself; always remain loyal to your wife." In leaving her for seeing the monkhood is not loyalty at all. Also if God hates divorce he wont accept you into the monkhood because you did something he explicitly says he hates.
Secondly, Christ is her father he took care of her before you came along and asked to take care of her too. In your wedding he gave you permission to take care of her along side him, he gave you permission to care for her spiritual life. How will you do that when you cause her to commit adultery by divorcing her or leaving her alone? Think of it like this, God is now your "father-in-law" so to speak. He is the one whom you have to answer to for everything that happens to her. He won't take kindly to you leaving his daughter in such a manner.
Finally, think on this. Is this really something from God? Would God tell you to break his commandment? Or could this be a trick from the devil, to convince you that you want nothing more than to become a monk to live a life of solitude only to destroy your marriage.
Do not forget what God gave you. Your children are a gift, Psalm 127:3 "Children are a gift from the LORD; they are a reward from him." Leaving them is throwing this gift away, its refusing to bring them up properly which according to the bible means you do not love them, Proverbs 13:24 -- "If you refuse to discipline your children, it proves you don't love them; if you love your children, you will be prompt to discipline them." But how can you discipline them and PROMPTLY if you are not with them?
Pray and speak to your father of confession at length until this thought leaves you. It is not a sin to stay in the world and be a dad. It is a sin, however, to leave your wife and try to become a monk (which no monastery will accept as an excuse).
I'm sorry for the lengthy post and I hope i did not offend you.
God bless,
Christrules
Psalm 27
King James Version (KJV)
9 Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.
Dear Friends:
I always wanted to be a monk and now I am married. I have children. I want to be a monk now. I don't think that leaving a marriage would be a sin as big as I would commit if I continue to live here. I just don't like everything in this world. It is like trying to be dry while you are in a sea.
I want your spiritual advice. Your comment and other real stories related.
Thank you in name of God.
It is ok to not like the world. We are not from the world. C.S Lewis says it beautifully: “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” So what can we do in the mean time? We can live the life of the ascetics, but that is not an option for you, because your married. The other option is to live the life of the ascetics IN the world. I think both of the books "Way of the ascetics" and "Way of the pilgrims" are going to be really good and beneficial in your case. I highly recommend both of them.
A person cannot live in the monastery because they want to escape from work or from social duties, or because of problems they have with people in the world; if these are the reasons that motivate someone to become a monk, they will not succeed in the monastic life.
Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the thoughts that I have towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
All these plus my own sinful nature is darkening my whole spiritual life. Sometimes it is I have no where to stand and nothing pure that I can think of. I feel like I am dead already.
Does it matter where you live as a dead person? My family and all the people I know, the whole world is better without me. I can only do good if I leave this world and live alone.
God is merciful. Why would He not be merciful for abandoning my marriage for a good reason?
u have contributed a lot to this forum over the years, so , no, the world is not better off without u.
and this is not just the usual reaction to the sin in the world.
the Holy Spirit convicts and gives life.
the enemy condemns and brings depression.
so please talk to yr priest / doctor / both.
may God guide u.
Also, you mention you want to become a monk to escape from the world and its problems. Monastic life must never be an option to escape the world. On the contrary, monastic life is a calling and a very deep desire not to escape the problems of the world, but to live completely for the Lord and to serve His people through prayer and service. The aim in our life is to be on fire with love for the Lord. And when you are on fire with love for the Lord, it doesn't matter if you live in a monastery or in the world, because the surroundings are irrelevant. Those who enter a monastery do so – not because they want to escape the troubles of the Lord – but because they feel a deep sense of living for the Lord and only for the Lord.
Also, remember that married life is pleasing and acceptable to Him. Not forgetting that Christ blessed marriage by attending the Wedding in Cana of Galilee.
Not forgetting the small detail, as ilovestmark said, that no monastery would take you under the circumstances.
I found these two links you might find priceless. I know they are not directly related with the current topic though.
It just brings life, the word of God spoken in His servants, as humans we need someone to look upto.
i will look at them again when i have more time.
i know romania well, and it is amazing to think people survive in the wilderness there; in the winter it gets down to -20C or colder!
may God give them mercy, love and joy and may He give us a love for prayer just like theirs so we may pray and be satisfied with His love in the cold wilderness of the world in which we live.
uh... so change dem diapers then pray
True, the quiet and structure of a cenobitic monastery helps, but you can choose to shut off the TV, radio, internet, etc., while being in the world. Spend your spare time praying the Agpeya or reading the Bible, or any other number of spiritually beneficial things available to you, and you will find that your mind is cleansed and focused on God. And you may find that you are naturally inclined towards your wife and children after such activities. Sometimes when we get closer to God, we find that we are naturally drawn towards other human beings. This is a blessing. Keep it and guard it.
Every good and kind word lifts up people just like every evil that comes out of us shatters humans.
That is why we will be judged by what comes out of us, what our God, Jesus Christ, teaches us.
Personally I think that it would be the wrong choice to leave the family that you have created under God to become a monk! You have made a family and a home, and would be leaving somebody who is of (now) the same flesh and spirit as you for something completely different. Possibly shattering your partners heart in the process!!
Yes, you may feel swamped down now, but, things improve!! Not always at first but eventually.
My own opinions, my own morals, feel that creating a family IS one of man's greatest ideals in life.
Don't leave them now. Your family needs you.
-- Vanessa
Hello BinC, I came across something that might be edifying and helpful to your situation if you're still struggling with these thoughts and feelings. I will quote the following passage from the book, "Christ In Our Midst, Letters from a Russian Monk, Father John" In this particular letter he is speaking to one of his spiritual daughters who is struggling with her husband who at the time was addicted to alcohol.
I advise you not to contemplate monastic life. The Lord will lead you to eternal life through married life in the world. Learn to live for Christ in your family life. The Lord sees your good intention and will save you in your family life - have no doubt of this. St Makarios the Great gives the example of two women who were pleasing to God and reached perfection in the spiritual life and were even higher than the recluses. They wanted to spend their lives in monasteries, but for some reasons they had husbands. The Lord, seeing their will to serve God in a monastery, helped them to be saved while living a family life. At the present time life in monasteries is not as you picture it, and with your inexperience of spiritual life you might only be led astray by monastic life.
A few days ago J went on foot to the convent fourteen kilometres from us. I stayed there overnight, observed their life and ways, the enormous amount of work, the scanty food. The Lord help them, they have already become hardened to that life, but newcomers to the convent could hardly endure it.
I apologize for posting on this old thread, I just happened to remember this one while I was reading today.
1. Adultery
2. Change of religion
Other than that, if a marriage is broken, the church won't accept the decision to break the marriage.
Leaving your wife to be a monk would be like having promiscuous sex to help promote virginity or living a prodigal life to encourage others and yourself to live in holiness.
Your reasoning is far from sane. It's downright irresponsible and is just anti- Christian.
if u are worried about binC, send him a personal message.
i hope he is feeling much better now; his posts have been good, so i think he is ok.
:)
Currently I am very happy with my marriage and have read a lot about the subject which built my confidence. To cut out all the social life; I am hoping may be to leave my home country and live abroad.
I found this article which relates with this subject
We Must Be Faithful Where We Are:
Finally, we are taught that to discover God’s will for us we must be faithful to Him where we are, faithful to and in the conditions in which He has placed us. One of the greatest obstacles to the discovery of one’s vocation in life, which is a clear expression of our disobedience and self-will, is the desire to be someone else, someplace else, sometime else. We have all heard people say that if only they lived in another place, or in another time, or with other people...then they could be holy. Or, if only they were married. Or, if only they were not married. If only this, and if only that! We must come to see how sinful such an attitude is, how crazy and deluded. It is simply blasphemy. And it may well be the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit which Christ says cannot be forgiven, for it dares to tell God that our failures in life are His fault for making us the way we are (Mt. 12:31; Lk. 12:10).
God has made us who we are. He has put us where we are, even when it is our own self-will that has moved us. He has given us our time and our place. He has given us our specific destiny. We must come to the point when we do not merely resign ourselves to these realities, but when we love them, bless them, give thanks to God for them as the conditions for our self-fulfillment as persons, the means to our sanctity and salvation.
Being faithful where we are is the basic sign that we will God’s will for our lives. The struggle to “blossom where we are planted,” as the saying goes, is the way to discern God’s presence and power in our lives, to hear His voice, to accomplish His purposes, to share His holiness. Jesus said that only those who are “faithful in little” inherit much and get set over much. Those who are not faithful in the little things of life, and thereby fail to accept and to use what God provides, end up losing the little that they have, or — as Jesus says in St. Luke’s Gospel — the little that they think that they have, for even that “little” may exist only in their own deluded imaginations (Mt. 25:14-30; Lk. 19:11-27; 8:18).
So the summary of the whole thing is this: We must labor to do the smallest good and to avoid the smallest sin in the smallest, seemingly most insignificant details of life. We must accept who we are, where we are, when we are and how we are, and struggle to sanctify our real state of existence by the grace of God; resisting the world, the flesh and the devil and gaining the Spirit of God through Christ in the Church. We must participate in the services and sacraments, be fed on the scriptures and imitate the saints. We must seek out the help of the experienced, and heed their counsel and advice. And we must go to God Himself and say with a pure heart: Thy will be done! And He will see that we find our vocation and calling in life, and become the saints that He has willed us to be from the beginning.”