When I told most people that I was going to join a monastery, I could tell they immediately placed me into one of the following categories:
She's gone crazy.
She's been brainwashed.
She's just going through a phase that will pass.
I sincerely hope the first and third aren’t true. However, the second one—being brainwashed—might not be as far off the mark as it seems at first glance. It’s only now that I’ve realized there’s a certain similarity. But with one crucial difference: I’m subjecting myself to this "brainwashing" completely voluntarily and consciously. I know that this life will change me, and I not only allow it but also desire it and actively try to cooperate with the process.
The texts we repeatedly listen to, the prayers we continuously pray, the psalms we sing again and again—these shape me. They shape my thinking, my actions—my very being. They penetrate and transform me. In a way, the words, if I remain open to them, become part of who I am.
For example, every day I pray the prayer of Charles de Foucauld—My Father, I abandon myself into Your hands...—and in it, I say: I am ready for anything; I accept everything. When something is now asked of me, or something happens that I don’t want, those words immediately rise up within me, and suddenly, it becomes easier to say yes to the situation. Again and again, words from the Psalms come to mind in all sorts of situations.
The Liturgy of the Hours, the Eucharist, Lectio Divina, meditation—all of this, if you will, serves as a form of voluntary brainwashing. It serves a process of transformation, where I can increasingly say: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And it is precisely in this transformation that we can most truly say that we’ve found our authentic selves.
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