Do any male religious live in cloistered communities?

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I am familiar with nuns who live in cloistered communities. For instance, the Poor Clares and Carmelites stay within their convents. In many cases, they are only allowed to have their families visit at certain times.

Are there any communities of male religious that are cloistered?
 
There are many, most of them are part of the Benedictine family or get their inspiration from St. Benedict.

There of course the Benedictine Monks.

There are the Cistercians who have two branches to their order. The original branch are called Cistercians and the reform are called Trappists. These men never leave their monastery.

The Carthusians, founded by St. Bruno are hermits. They live on the same campus, but each brother has his own little hermitage, rather than living in one large house. The lay brothers live in a large house and the ordained brothers live in individual houses. They get together as a community on Sundays and Solemnities. They never speak, except Sundays and they never leave. Their entire life is dedicated to prayer, penance and love.

The Camaldolese are also an enclosed community of men. Their life is dedicated to manual labor, prayer, Eucharist, solitude and silence.

All of these communities are grounded in obedience. Their mission in the Church is to be obedient to Christ, to live a life of contemplation for the sanctification of their souls and the Church. The highlight of their day is the Liturgy of the Hours and the mass. They support themselves through manual labor.

Often they make and sell things too.

Some of them welcome lay people to spend time on retreat at their monasteries. They usually have a separate hous for retreats and a monk will take care of your spiritual needs.

Some will allow you to pray with them in their chapel, but not all.

The idea is to live a life that is comepletely detached from the world to find God.

They are very necessary in the Church. People often overlook them, because they don’t see them in the parish or the workplace.

Some people look down on them because we have an attitude that a religious must produce something that we can see, such as confessions, communions, converts, etc.

But the truth is that these men bring more converts to the Church and convert more sinners than any parish priest. They lay down their lives on the cross.

There are communities mixed with men and women, such as the Brothes and Sisters of Charity and Madonna House. These are lay men and women who live in seclusion. They live lives of prayer, penance, Eucharistic adoration. They follow the constitutions of Catherine Doherty who is now being studied for beatification.

Some Secular Franciscans also do this. They do not live in a monastery, but they live secluded lives of prayer and penance. Their time is spent around the Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours. They follow the rule of St. Francis.

Hope this helps.

JR 🙂
 
I once heard a Church History lecture where the professor argued that no one will ever know how much tradgedy the prayers of Religious Communities have spared us. Indeed, what good these men do in the Community of Saints we will never know.

These discussions are really making me look forward to visiting the Brothers of Saint John, for spiritual guidance. Hopefully next week!
 
JReducation said:
There are many, most of them are part of the Benedictine family or get their inspiration from St. Benedict.

There of course the Benedictine Monks.
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But they’re not cloistered…at least not the monks of the monastery where I’m an Oblate. They leave the monastery when necessary, for example, to travel to the seminary where a couple of them teach, to preside at Mass for sisters in convents (the abbot once referred to himself as “Fr. Friday” because that was his day to go to a convent for Mass), and to direct the Oblate groups that meet outside the monastery. We’re not talking about coming and going all the time, but it’s still different from the kind of enclosure that Poor Clares have.
There are the Cistercians who have two branches to their order. The original branch are called Cistercians and the reform are called Trappists. These men never leave their monastery.
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The first Trappists who come to mind are Thomas Merton (who died accidentally in Thailand) and Thomas Keating (who gives talks and retreats in many places around the country).

You’re right about the Carthusians. If the OP is interested he many enjoy the movie made about their life, Into the Silence.
 
First of all, men’s communities do not have, never have had, grilles separating them in chapel and parlour from the world. For historical reasons, various groups of contemplative nuns and sisters have.
Benedictine monks vary in the degree of cloister they observe. As far as I know, because Benedictine choir monks pre Vatican II were priests, cloister in the sense of enclosure was not possible. Also, because education is very much ‘in the bones’ of Benedictines, many monasteries, such as Conception Abbey, or St. John’s Abbey, opened secondary schools, colleges and universities. However, there are also Benedictine monasteries which do not exercise ‘active’ ministry, such as Mount Saviour in Pine City, New York.
Even among Cistercians, there was a case where one was chosen to be a bishop in Iowa, hence uncloistered.
With the Carthusians, choir monks are priests; but this, I understand, is to complete the monk’s total identification with Christ interceding with the Father. They do not leave the cloister, ever.
There is one American monastery of Brigittine monks, founded by the late Brother Benedict Kirby, which is totally non clerical, and seems to observe a great degree of enclosure.
A new foundation of Carmelite monks is taking shape in Wyoming, and these men seem to observe the same degree of enclosure as Carmelite nuns.
Good luck in your search.
 
odubhghail said:
First of all, men’s communities do not have, never have had, grilles separating them in chapel and parlour from the world. For historical reasons, various groups of contemplative nuns and sisters have.
Benedictine monks vary in the degree of cloister they observe. As far as I know, because Benedictine choir monks pre Vatican II were priests, cloister in the sense of enclosure was not possible. Also, because education is very much ‘in the bones’ of Benedictines, many monasteries, such as Conception Abbey, or St. John’s Abbey, opened secondary schools, colleges and universities. However, there are also Benedictine monasteries which do not exercise ‘active’ ministry, such as Mount Saviour in Pine City, New York.
Even among Cistercians, there was a case where one was chosen to be a bishop in Iowa, hence uncloistered.
With the Carthusians, choir monks are priests; but this, I understand, is to complete the monk’s total identification with Christ interceding with the Father. They do not leave the cloister, ever.
There is one American monastery of Brigittine monks, founded by the late Brother Benedict Kirby, which is totally non clerical, and seems to observe a great degree of enclosure.
A new foundation of Carmelite monks is taking shape in Wyoming, and these men seem to observe the same degree of enclosure as Carmelite nuns.
Good luck in your search.
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The reason why monasteries of women had grills was because there was originally a very strong focus on virginity and the desire to protect virgins from the outside world. The grill not only provided a separation from the physical world, but literally served as a way of protection from being invaded and harmed.

Today, some monsteries of cloistered nuns no longer have the grill. The Poor Clares in Andover, MA, I can’t recall the name of their monastery, have a divider like what you find in many offices where the secretary sits on one side and you on the other. It’s a little lower than the average kitchen counter.

Monks never had these grils because the first organized monks belonged to the Benedictine tradition. They ran schools and even universities out of their abbeys and monasteries. Originally, they did not leave the abbey, they laity came to them.

Leaving the abbey became more customary as bishops became short of secular priests. The borrowed monks who were priests from the monasteries to help the secular clergy. The same happened with the Carmelites and the Franciscans. They were never founded to run parishes. They were to live within their community and leave only when necessary to preach. Gradually they became more and more available to bishops. I know that the Franciscans are no pulling back and spending more time in community and less time in parish ministry and are taking on less parishes too. Some provinces are also ordaining less friars to preserve the contempaltive nature of the order as opposed to a clerical appearance that it took on from about the 1500s until Vatican II.

JR 🙂
 
JReducation said:
Today, some monsteries of cloistered nuns no longer have the grill. The Poor Clares in Andover, MA, I can’t recall the name of their monastery, have a divider like what you find in many offices where the secretary sits on one side and you on the other. It’s a little lower than the average kitchen counter.
Click to expand...
A friend of mine from church has a cousin who is a Carmelite nun. She never leaves the monastery, but she is not enclosed behind a grill. It is more like the way the communities of monks that you described live. I was invited to go to the monastery and meet her, but I was unable to go due to family commitments at the time. Hopefully, I will get a chance some other time.
 
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