麻豆约拍

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Once, when I introduced myself as a monk to a man I'd not met before, he replied "I thought you'd been abolished." The current TV production of Wolf Hall is probably reinforcing that idea. Thomas Cromwell closed down England's monasteries, saying they were full of corruption. The truth is probably that some monasteries were corrupt and some weren't. Yet all were swept away. In spite of this, English men and women continued to experience the call to the monastic life and English monasteries sprang up in Northern Europe. In the 1800's, English monks and nuns escaped from the French revolution and fled to England where we've been ever since.

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How have monasteries proved so resilient? I believe that monastic life is part of humanity and that, without it, our world would be deprived of a major source of spiritual oxygen. This may explain why as the practice of formal religion has declined so the numbers visiting monasteries have risen. And when the 麻豆约拍 ran a series based in my own monastery 3 million viewers tuned in. That experience made me realise that what people crave is sanctuary, a sacred space free from life's daily pressures. But a sanctuary is a place of silence and people today find silence disconcerting. Monks and nuns are people know how to handle the silence and make it fruitful.

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Last week, the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed an Anglican priest and a Catholic sister to lead what he calls a new monastic community based in Lambeth. This will be a sanctuary for young men and women who want to join it for a year. When the head of the Church of England is opening monasteries we know we've come a long way since Cromwell closed them all down. Many of us need a truly sacred space and monasteries continue to offer that today as in the past.