A few years ago, I became aware of a movement in North American Christianity which referred to itself as ‘’New Monasticism.'’  A website representing those who associate themselves with that movement defines new monasticism as ‘’an attempt to discern the Holy Spirit’s movement in the abandoned places of the Empire called America.'’ At the time, I was generally interested in the idea and even considered perhaps buying an old house in the middle of a run-down neighbourhood in Niagara Falls, beginning to hold the daily office (according to the Book of Common Prayer as I was an Anglican then) and trying to meet the needs of the people around me. I have come to look with a bit of healthy suspicion on my own desires to do such though after conversations with traditional monastics and much spiritual reading, mainly because of the threat of delusion, a mixture of vainglory and deception that often overtakes those who attempt to live something of a monastic life without the formation one gains within the framework of cenobite monasticism. (Without spiritual direction or under self-direction, the risk is very high as the Fathers always say ‘’He who has himself for a spiritual director has a fool for a spiritual director.'’) ... more