Question:
Answer:
When Jesus went to the desert to pray for forty days, he showed us how necessary it is for us to pray. Most of us don’t have the time to pray for forty days straight. But God calls certain individuals to pray as a way of life to balance off the lack of prayer in the world.
Contemplative women and men are not shut off from the world like a prisoner is. They freely choose to be so as the result of the desire God has put into their hearts. It is not an easy life. No one “escapes” to a monastery. In the monastery sooner or later one has to deal with oneself. It doesn’t have the world’s escapes that people hide behind in order to avoid going inside and really facing themselves.
In a life of prayer, one sees one’s sinfulness and God’s mercy. It is to that mercy that monks pray for the world.