Contemplative Monk by Anon

From today (17th May 2025), I will repost every Contemplative Art post whenever I post an update so that the previous one might not be lost.

 

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You may have noticed that the final element of the post on my Home page is a prayer to the saints of Carmel that they might pray for us. Carmel and I go way back, 29 years in fact, right to the beginning of my Catholic journey: the lady who instructed me in the Faith was a Third Order Carmelite. I have loved them ever since. 

As a result, when I updated the Calendar of Saints I was very happy to see that we celebrate two Carmelite saints this week: John of Ávila and Simon Stock. The latter is particularly special as we share the same English nationality. 

After adding Simon's name to the calendar I had the idea of looking to see if I could find any Carmelite related contemplative art for the week ahead. That led me to the painting below. I don't know much about it: Google's AI tells me it is a detail of a fifteenth century piece of art showing a monk who is possibly St. John Climacus, author of The Ladder of Divine Ascent. You can read more about it on the Carmelite Hermitage web page here.

In a way, this monk and any man or woman like him, are the patrons of this particular page of Fratelli Tutti. The page exists because, as I say at the top, active use of the internet isn't always the best thing to do. I would go further here and say it isn't always the good thing to do, either. Sometimes, we not only need to be still but have to be if only to create a little distance between us and the frenetic world of online life; a little distance, and a little perspective; a little perspective and a little balance. I know that this is the case for myself. 

When I look at the monk in this detail, I also know that he is doing something that my overuse of the internet stops me from doing also: reading. That, therefore, will be my mission in the week ahead. To stop. Be still. Read. Pray. How about you?

10th May 2025