Esteban de Emaus 
From the HERMITAGE [EPUB ebook] 

Monastic life in the world today is perhaps as never before, a testimony of trust in the providence of God. In what way can we understand the act of consecrating life to prayer and work in a world that is continually desacralized. The brightness of the fleeting glares with vehemence; Infiltrated in the technological revolution has come the exacerbation of consumption and the alienation that results from it. In big bands of the population the sense of the sacred is lost. Communicated more than at any time in history, we exchanged mere fatuities; Today that particular verse, which says Vanity of vanities, is all vanity! (Ecclesiastes 1, 2). That is why, whoever becomes a monk or a nun today, gives special testimony of faith in the living presence of Jesus Christ. He claims to have seen something that is not in sight. That person in the midst of the multiple mirages has noticed something that escapes the majority. In the history of spirituality it has been called "Experience of the Presence". Those who in the second decade of the 21st century embrace the religious life, particularly the monastic, have heard the peculiar voice of the inner desert. It is a deep silence that draws them to the deep heart. They have been fascinated by God through various contingencies. Some were first seduced by prayer and quiet steps resounding in the cloister, others fraternal life in communion of works, to those from beyond them perhaps invited, the lectio, personal communion with the sacred writing. As a beloved niece said before her first profession: "… I was so refreshed by the joy of the nuns!" No mistake. Many still impress the joy without purpose of a life recovered in the essential. Be the writings that follow here for you, as an act thrown into becoming, a gesture of hope and recognition to the Spirit of God that encourages you as a soft breeze where w