Here’s a great excerpt from this week’s Desert Fathers episode by Erik Varden about Christian joy lived out over time:

So my fidelity must be rooted at greater depth, beyond sentiment. St Benedict stresses this when, in the midst of prescribing minutiae of regular life, he puts in lapidary phrases like these: ‘The love of Christ must come before all else’; ‘Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ’. The abba in our saying uses the image of a dog pursuing a scent. To live and thrive over time as a monk, it is not enough just to feel drawn to the community, wanting to belong, to do what the others are doing. The community plays a providential part in the realisation of a vocation, but I do not make vows for the community’s sake.

I make vows in order to know Christ, ‘and him crucified’; to be his and for him to be mine. Only if I keep my eyes fixed on him constantly, ever striving to be near him, will I be preserved from distraction into mediocrity or retrogression or recalcitrance.

A good word, and definitely a strong word, especially for someone who often sees community as a pearl of great price.