About twenty years ago, through my reading, prayers and reflecting on what I saw in the culture around me, I had a sense that our civilization, just like in the last days of the Roman Empire, was morally collapsing. This has stayed with me ever since, reinforced by various events. A decade or so ago, for example, there were the riots in the city of London protesting about globalization. According to one newspaper, city traders were leaning out of their windows, drinking champagne and flaunting their Rolex watches, while drunken protesters below, set fire to cars and smashed shop windows in an orgy of destruction. My flat mate told me that he had gone by Trafalgar Square that afternoon and had seen half naked people dancing round bonfires: all reminiscent of the cruelty and decadence of Rome and the rise of the vandals and Goths of the 4th century. Although things soon went back to normal, for me it was a sign of the malaise and anarchy in the culture, which was normally hidden but had bubbled to the surface. It is the same, I believe with the growing alienation of inner city youth, and the increase in binge drinking, drug abuse and gang warfare in our towns. Something is not right but it is not something that the government can solve by throwing money at the situation or cracking down with more laws. Something has gone wrong with the soul of Europe.

Oases of civilization that kept learning and Christian faith alive

What saved Christianity in the West all those centuries ago, was the monastic movement. Here little oases of civilization kept alive learning and the Christian faith while the continent fell into the chaos of the Dark Ages. The same was needed today I felt. The question was how would this be practical as we live in a very different climate? Technology and urbanization mean that it is no longer possible to live totally apart and self contained, the way the early monasteries did, safe from the marauding tribes who were ravaging the countryside. A civilization takes a long time to decline – often several generations - but equally the antidote takes time to develop. Thus this is something I believe we need to be thinking about now. We can be assured, however, that we are not left alone. As Chiara Lubich, the founder of the Focolare movement, once commented, “God is always working on the antidote for the poisons we create”. Thus it is not a matter of us trying to find solutions, but learning to become more alert to what God is doing in our lives and in the Church and the culture around us, to show us the way forward.

When a culture becomes decadent it eventually collapses

When a culture becomes decadent it eventually collapses. Rome at one point had been a great and flourishing civilization, but it became decadent and became vulnerable to attack from angry and stronger tribes, jealous of the standard of living of Rome. In “Holding Up a Mirror: How Civilizations Decline”, Anne Glyn-Jones, draws on the theories of a Russian émigré sociologist Pitirim Sorokin, who died in 1968.With a huge team of researchers, he looked at the painting, sculpture, literature, architecture and music of civilizations, from ancient Babylon to twentieth century America, to see if any patterns emerged and whether there were common social indicators in the rise and decline of civilizations. Drawing on his research, Anne Glyn-jones herself examines four different civilizations (ancient Greece, ancient Rome, medieval Christendom and England since the Reformation), and identifies some common indicators shown in a society in decline. These include things such as – growth in abortion and a desire to restrict family size for a higher standard of living, growth in choice and sophistication of foodstuffs, increase in the sensate aspect of the arts, which become more pornographic and violent as people’s appetites become more jaded, increase in luxury and promiscuity and the decline of the importance of marriage and the family. The underlying key to this is the decline of the spiritual beliefs of the nation and the rise in importance of the material and sensate aspects of life. The lack of moral restraint, which results from this eventually leads to the society collapsing.

Whereas I could see the parallels with the fall of the Roman Empire, I couldn’t quite see how monasticism could play a part in the salvation of modern urban Europe. It is significant, however, that the current pope has taken the name “Benedict”, after one of the patron saints of Europe and the founder of European monasticism.

In my own faith journey, as I have written before, the Lord has led me to move to a small inner London housing estate. Here for the past eight years I have been reaching out on a personal level to the disaffected teenage youth of my area. Over the years different generations of them have dropped in for beans on toast and somewhere warm to hang out. Unlike the modern youth club which can often boast amazing resources – computers, sound systems, sports facilities etc., my home has none of these things. I don’t even have a television. All I have been able to provide by way of entertainment is a pack of worn out playing cards and a few pens and bits of paper. To be honest, I was as surprised as anyone that they came but I knew that it was God who was sending them. What was the attraction? I was not some cool youth worker but a middle aged woman who had nothing in common with them from a human point of view. When i reflected however I could identify three basic things which were drawing them and which I maybe incarnated for them in my lifestyle.

The first was STABILITY. I was simply there. I was local. They didn’t have to travel far to get to me and they could drop in when it suited them. Part of my calling I realized was that God was asking me to restrict my own freedom and choices so I could be there for them should they choose to drop by. For community to survive in whatever form it takes, it is essential that some people take this vow of stability of being prepared to be there for the others. Our neighbourhoods, for example, die because of the high turnover of people moving in and out, as people up-size or down-size, depending on their individual circumstances. In our individualistic society, it doesn’t occur to us that our choices have consequences on the greater whole. It is the same with prayer groups. Flourishing groups often die because key people move away, and not enough people remain, who are prepared to come week in week out so that others can drop by when it suits them.

This understanding of the importance of stability, has now deepened, for me, into a fundamental option whereby I feel God has called me to stay in my particular flat for the rest of my life. This choice is for the good of community so that I will provide a reference point of stability for those around me, whether they know me personally or not. From a gospel point of view, it also means that I can afford to be more laid back about Kingdom results, knowing that I am there for the long haul. I experienced a fruit of this a couple of years ago when a friend of mine, who now lives in Germany, happened to find herself in London for 24 hours and turned up out of the blue. Part of the impetus for calling, she said, was that she remembered that I had made this commitment to stay on the estate, so she knew I would still be there.

We can’t underestimate the power of welcome

The second value I incarnate which I realized makes my place attractive to the teenagers is HOSPITALITY. I let them in. It isn’t that they are particularly attracted to my personality and my home, but I am willing to welcome them in. They are not fussy and would be happy to go to anyone who opens their doors to them. As families break down and neighbourhoods disintegrate, people get more isolated and hospitality becomes more and more important. We can’t underestimate the power of welcome. Whether it is welcoming one’s children’s school friends into one’s home or neighbours, it all helps to build community. Likewise parishes can be wonderful places for hospitality, drawing people who are very different together. Our parish priests, for example, often have people who live on their own for Sunday lunch or for the big feast days.

The third value that attracts them I believe is PRAYER. It is maybe only limited to saying the Our Father before their beans on toast and special intercessory prayers when they are facing a big problem. Yet they still call my place “God’s House”! A little obviously goes a long way! Even if they don’t pray such a lot themselves, they like being in contact with someone who does have a prayer life and prays. Teenagers are often not quite sure what they believe but I have come to realize they receive great consolation from the fact that I do believe. Someone they can come to when they are in need and help them connect with God.

God calling his people to incarnate monastic values in their lives

When I reflected on this further I realized that these three values are in fact the monastic values. I felt that God had revealed to me the answer to my search for a solution to the times we live in. God isn’t calling us to find some abandoned isolated piece of land and build physically a monastic retreat. Rather he is calling his people to begin to incarnate in their lives the monastic values – particularly stability, hospitality and prayer. This is something we can all do in whatever way is appropriate to our lives. I was sharing these ideas at a small family camp last summer. When he heard, one man, who was an assistant head teacher in a Catholic Secondary School, came up to me and told me that these were exactly the values that they tried to inculcate in their school.Their school he said was a source of stability for the wider community in a much wider sense than simply providing a centre of learning. Another couple commented that they had tried to make of their home a domestic monastery where these values were incarnated and passed onto their children.

We might ask ourselves, do these values of stability, prayer and hospitality resonate with us? And if not, are there occasions that would lend themselves to incarnating them? I recently attended a funeral celebration for the brother of a friend who had died, for example, where these values were very much in evidence.

Kristina Cooper is the Goodnews Magazine Editor