Monastery of Our Lady

What does it mean to have a monastery on earth? This is a question that seized me after Brother Zaher Semaan invited me to meet with some brethren from the Movement at the “Monastery of Virgin Mary the Consolatory”, which I mentioned yesterday. It was not the first time I have heard about this monastery which is under the jurisdiction of our Church in Constantinople. Some brethren had told me about it with remarkable enthusiasm. I have talked to you about prayer. Our heritage sees nothing that draws the world to God like prayer. The world is not preserved by chance, but by kindness, God’s kindness that is brought down upon us by constant prayer. It is the Church that is planted on earth for the good of the world that is building homes for constant prayer. In one word: God builds the monastery. The world, without inhabited monasteries, is something else. When I visited “Our Lady’s Monastery,” as our young people here call it, I found four sisters from our country, two of whom were raised in the same Movement expanse in which I was raised. The most eloquent thing in existence is that we give God that which He had given us. This is the meaning of the monastery.