obozy rowerowe - kolonie dla dzieci -

to find the rustling of dry reeds in the wind an almost insupportable noise. For the most part in the deserts north of the Thebaid the monks saw very little of each other. Even the inhabitants of grouped cells led almost solitary lives. On Saturdays and Sundays they met for public worship and perhaps a common meal, but during the rest of the week they lived alone in their cells, or with a single disciple. If the monk were wise, he worked. Sometimes he wove mats or baskets. These were afterwards exchanged by the hermit himself or his disciple for the necessities of life in some neighbouring village. If the cell lay too remote from human habitation

to permit of such traffic, the mats or baskets were accumulated in piles, and in the end burnt. They had fulfilled their obozy rowerowe function, and were got rid of that way as well as in the markets; for the hermit was not a tradesman. He worked, not for wages, but lest the devil might tempt him in his idle hours. Sometimes a garden was cultivated around the cell. The hermit struggled with drought and barrenness until he produced a little stock of vegetables. Sometimes his cell was happily placed where date palms grew. He watched his fruit against the depredations of wild birds. Nothing is more striking than the insistence of the greater hermits on

the necessity for labour of some sort. It was from their experience and their illuminated introspection that St. Benedict learnt the truth on which he built a great part of his rule -- "Idleness is the enemy of the soul." Besides working, the monks prayed. Hours every kolonie dla dzieci day were spent in prayer, which must have been more of the nature of meditation than intercession. In the intervals of prayer and work they sang or said psalms, and often repeated aloud long passages from the prophets. Books were scarce among them, and we read of monks visiting. each other for the purpose of learning off by heart fresh passages of Holy Scripture. The attainment of

unbroken monotony was a thing greatly to be desired. Perfect quietness was the monk's opportunity for spiritual communion with God. Therefore they regarded restlessness and the wish for change as a sin to be fought against. Long periods of unbroken monotony were liable to produce in the monk a spirit of irritable peevishness and discontent with his surroundings, which was recognised as subversive of true spirituality. They called this state of obozy jeździeckie mind "accidie" and held that it was the work of a special demon. The monk felt its force chiefly during the long hours of daylight when he grew weary of praying and shrank from the petty tasks which had to be performed around

and within his cell. The spirit which tempted him to accidie was "the demon which walketh at noonday." It was chiefly in order to conquer this sin that the monks worked as hard as they did at even quite useless tasks. They knew that it was fatal to try to avoid the attacks of accidie by seeking change of scene and fresh interests. Their one hope lay in labour and remaining quietly in their own cells. Sometimes the monotony of life was broken for the monk by the arrival of a stranger. The more famous among obozy them were so frequently visited, that the quiet which was necessary for their own religious life was seriously interfered with.

St. Antony, for instance, was obliged to retire to his remote "inner mountain" in order to avoid his numerous visitors; and Arsenius made it a rule during one period of his life to receive no visitors under any pretext whatever. For most of the monks, however, the arrival of a stranger was a comparatively rare occurrence. Sometimes, if his cell lay between two great settlements, he would be called upon to entertain brethren who were travelling from one to the other. If he lived within reach of any town, clergy and pious laity came occasionally to his cell as to a kind of retreat, looking for spiritual refreshment from his words, and participation in his prayers.

obozy jeździeckie - obozy -