ry and desolate, a man’s heart is as empty as a vast, lonely desert. Wandering everywhere in search of something to quench his burning thirst within, he desires now one thing and now another, hoping that this pleasure, this career, this distraction, or this friendship, will completely satisfy him and make him happy. Each time he is deceived and his heart is only partially filled before the thirst begins again. This inner emptiness ever remains, waiting to be filled, and man foolishly tries to fill it with mere handfuls of water when he could slake his thirst and fill himself at the pure fountain of living water. “If any man thirst,” cried our Divine Savior, ”let him come to Me and drink.” “Whosoever drinketh of this water,” that is, earthly satisfactions, “shall thirst again: but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst for ever. But the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting.” True, there can be found joys on earth but these are only faint reflections, small sparks fallen from the Eternal Flame. God and He alone can satisfy the restless heart and fill it with true happiness.

t follows, therefore, that the purpose of every human life is to seek God, to find Him and grow in ever-increasing union with Him. For if we are to possess God for all Eternity in the Beatific Vision, we must first possess Him in this life by love. To the degree that we are united with Him in this life, to that degree will we be happy here and hereafter. But we cannot possess Him unless we seek Him with all our hearts.

od whispers to the soul, as it were, by His grace, “As it profits a man nothing to gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul, so neither does it make any difference what you lose in order to find Me and to live in the peace of the attainment of My love. All that passes with time is little or nothing. Forsake all and you shall find All; lose your life and you shall find it in Me – love Me without measure and you shall be filled with My love and happiness.”

monk is a man who has received a call from God to forsake the world, that with a heart free and unhindered, he may devote his entire life to seeking Him. The monk is simply a Christian who has chosen a more direct path to union with God in Christ, a path that is free from the necessary (and unnecessary) distractions that fill the lives of those living in the world. Preferring nothing to the love of Christ, he has renounced the pursuit of a career, the acquisition of wealth, the company of his family and friends and the right to raise a family of his own, with all its joys and burdens. It is not because he thinks such things are not good, but that for him, they are not good enough. For they are not the Infinite Good, which is God.

e has heard Christ’s evangelical counsels: “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come follow Me…There are eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven. He that can take, let him take it…Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting.” And it is impossible for one to sacrifice anything for God without gaining something greater. God will not be outdone in generosity.

verything in the monastery speaks of God to the monk's soul. The monastic solitude, poverty, silence and prayerdisposes his soul for his mysterious destiny of union with God. Here Jesus Christ predominates and absorbs all else since everything is His; there is nothing which does not bear His mark or reflect His beloved presence. This is why a monk leaves everything: that he may seek more ardently, find more quickly, and possess more perfectly, God Himself in the depths of his soul by love, and obtain, through its perfection, Eternal Life. Thus, he is given the name of monk, which means alone or one, signifying his separation from the world and his sole desire for God.