Raised and schooled Roman Catholic, Fr. Isaac of Holy Resurrection Monastery (St. Nazianz, Wisconsin) fell out of faith during his rebellious teenage years. He walked into the desert of “living the most complete immoral life that you can”. But music, specifically hip-hop was his means of survival, his therapy and sanity. Rapping and making beats day in and day out became his passion and an oasis from all the troubles and tribulations. Little he knew that those enchanted rhythms that he would hum for hours day in and day out, would become a foundation for his monastic life.

Yet, living high on drugs, in a studio and barely eating for days, he reached the end of himself and cried out: “God, if you exist, show me that you are real.” That moment became a “pure prayer”, a giving up of self and enabled an encounter with God, “a felt presence” as he calls it.

From that day forward, life changed completely. Through the help of a Jewish friend, Fr. Isaac became immersed in the Old Testament, then moved back to his family home, returned to college (majoring in philosophy and Catholic theology) and experienced his second conversion-prayer: “Jesus, if you are really God, I would like to know.”

 

Fr. Isaac, how did you end up choosing to become a monk? What was your discernment process?

One of the first books that I read that was really important to me was St. Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses. I picked it up at a school library and, reading it, I just fell in love. Then, I started reading St. Gregory Nazianzen, St. Basil the Great … and for me the Eastern Church was it — this is how I came back! The Greek Church fathers completely transformed me. Then I had to decide whether I would be Catholic or Orthodox. We had a Ruthenian church in Indianapolis, where I lived at the time. So, when I went there, I immediately felt that I had arrived — yep, this is it, this is home!

Then, prior to my conversion, I visited my sister at a Benedictine College in New Hampshire where she studied. I remember saying to her: “If I believed in Jesus, I would be a monk!” I think God heard that and said: “I’m gonna get you for that one.” So, God held me to that statement, and I’m glad that he did.

I remember the first time I went back to confession after 12 years, I shared with the priest that I thought I was supposed to look into becoming a monk. He advised to give it three or four years to make sure it was not an initial zeal. But this calling never went away. After college, I looked at a few monasteries, but once I found Holy Resurrection Monastery, I never looked back. It was quite miraculous! I know how slow we are sometimes with answering emails … Yet, when I asked for a visit, within an hour I had two responses. At that time, I did not realize, but now I say, “Man, that’s a miracle!”

 

How did you know, how did you come to the conclusion that Jesus is real?

The answer was not immediate. St. Gregory of Nyssa was my biggest help. When I read The Life of Moses, which is a book about spiritual life, there was so much beauty in it. Something just gripped me that I could not ignore. It still does to this day. So, for it to be real, a thing of such beauty cannot exist outside of God.

It is difficult to put in words. It is this assurance, deeper than just a feeling, a mode of being, that changed in me once I asked that question. If Jesus is real, if Jesus is God, that moved me towards the answer — “Yes!” Whenever I asked Jesus for help, even before I believed, a transformation happened within me and in the lives of people around me. Over a period of time, it changed everything in my life for the better. Relationships with my family were restored after a period of chaos due to my addictions. Seeing this transformation really helped me believe that Jesus is real, because these changes did not occur prior to my asking Him.

The answer came from within and then started to manifest in the world around me. The way I saw things change, my reality began to change as well.

 

Can you describe a day in your life?

Every day is the same and yet completely different. We have the times that are constantly set aside for prayer. At the monastery, on a weekday we have around five prayer times and things in between. We pray in the morning (Mesonyktikon, at 5:30 a.m.) the Jesus prayer (silent prayer) for about 20 minutes. We take a brief break, then continue with Orthros (Matins) and First Hour (6:45 a.m.-8:15 a.m.). After that, we have breakfast, followed by work (which is different for everyone — from cleaning to trying to figure IT stuff out). At noon, we go back to church and pray the Third and Sixth Hours (which is around 25 minutes long). We have lunch and then around 4:50 p.m. we pray the Ninth Hour, more silent prayer, and Vespers. Then there’s dinner and dishes, and we go back to pray the Compline, after which everyone goes to their cell for personal prayer time. Then you go to bed to wake up the next day to do it all over again.

One thing that I like is that you never go four or five hours without going into the church. So, this rhythm really centers your life around the church and places God in the center of the day.

 

Listening to the structure of your day, I cannot help but draw a connection with the schedule of a professional athlete’s life — practice multiple times a day, body/mind exercises, careful nutrition, rest — an overall structured, balanced, and disciplined life. Is this a fair comparison? Are you professional prayer-people?

Yes, it makes sense. As St. Paul points out, we are called to be spiritual athletes, to run the good race. We are, just like athletes, in a rhythm that we follow day after day, in order to maintain a certain level of performance. So, just like athletes, when we lower this discipline, this standard, you start finding yourself getting out of shape, which is not just physical (I’m having a hard time standing during Vespers), but it is also my mind wondering more. I may focus on things that are not so relevant, because I am not used to prayer. The more you become used to prayer, the more your mind becomes focused on God, and the better you deal with your other daily thoughts.

Diet is also important — athletes have to maintain it in order to be competitive. We fast on certain days; we abstain from certain foods. So, definitely, there is a powerful connection between athletics and spiritual life.

 

People define prayer in different ways. How would you define prayer? What is prayer for you?

If I had to come up with a definition, I would say: raising the mind and heart to God. Which means to give ourselves to God in a way we can do right at that moment. Even a quick movement of the heart is a prayer to God. And that is why it is important to train our minds and hearts to constantly keep God in front of us. For me, this is the essence.

 

What are some types of prayer that you use at the monastery?

The main type of prayer is liturgical prayer (the prayer of the whole Church), and that involves the entire cycle of prayer (from the Midnight Office [Mesonyktikon] to Compline to Divine Liturgy). Everything is connected in liturgical prayer. We also use the Jesus prayer heavily because it is a large part of our tradition. There are other prayers such as the Akathists (a type of hymn usually recited dedicated to a saint, holy event, or one of the persons of the Holy Trinity) or Parastas (prayer for the departed). But then you have those prayers where you are just sitting by yourself, in the presence of God and it is closely related to the Jesus prayer. For me, spiritual reading is another form of prayer that leads me to deeper prayer.

There are other, less exciting forms of prayer. One example was when I had to start learning how the services were conducted, I was thrown in to lead the service at a certain point. In those instances, I wasn’t able to pay attention to the words, to what was being said, because I had to make sure I followed the rubrics to lead the service so that everyone else was able to engage in prayer. That is a form of prayer, and, honestly, it took me a while to realize that. It’s a sacrifice for others, just like a mother sacrifices her time to engage her children. Also, any form of sacrifice out of love for others is a form of prayer.

 

Great awareness! Gary Chapman, in his book The Five Love Languages, describes the five ways in which we offer and receive love (words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, physical touch and gifts), but it never occurred to me that these could be ways of prayer as well, ways to encounter God and people. You and the other monks seem to use all these means to pray, offer/receive love, and share responsibilities for the benefit of the whole group, isn’t that so?

Yes, in fact you could argue that words of affirmation towards God are acts of praise. Quality time is encountering God in prayer (liturgical or other). We offer God-given gifts or graces — whether it’s skills, talents, or spiritual in nature — for the benefits of others. We serve God and one another, and physical touch becomes a source of forgiveness and sharing.

 

Sports and spirituality in a communal setting have a thing in common — teamwork. Can you share on this topic and how is this manifest at the monastery?

Yes, all of this goes back to St. Paul — everything must work together (the head, hands, feet) if we are the Body of Christ. This is the case on a practical level, during liturgy, where the priest, deacon, cantor, everyone collaborates and have specific roles which they follow. Just like in soccer, you cannot have the goalie running all over the field and leaving things wide open. But this also applies to non-liturgical situations, where it is very much a family dynamic (I guess family too is like a team sport). I make up for Father Moses’ weakness, he makes up for my weakness, and then we try to draw out the strengths of the other person. So, just like in sports, you try to put people with the right skills in the right places, the same goes for community life.

For example, Father Seoirse is very good when a situation might be unjust, seeing things quicker than the rest of us might see. So, we lean on him for that. Father Maximos has a level of intelligence above us all, therefore we lean on him and he offers this gift to our community. Indeed, it is amazing to observe the similarities between sports and communal life.

Also, there is hierarchy and structure. The Abbot is the leader; like a coach, he puts the right people in the right positions. That involves a lot of listening and attention on his part, learning and seeing where everything goes. Our role is to assist him in this endeavor. We have a council of professed monks (monks who have dedicated their entire life to this vocation) who discuss things and help the Abbot make decisions. We have novices, who are discerning if this is where they are going to be for their entire life, usually a three- or four-year process. Then we have postulants — people who are looking into monastic vocation — who spend up to six months at the monastery, learning and experiencing monastic life, before moving into novitiate.

There are a few boundaries, but then there are so many areas that require love as a necessary tool: a deep attention to the other person and a love for the other person.

 

What is the reason of being, the purpose of a monastery? What is the goal?

For the individual monks, the goal is to come to terms with who you are — your basic need for God, your sinfulness — which is not necessarily a bad thing. But can be an opportunity to grow, a freeing experience, and achieving communion with God to whatever extent we can. We are working on our salvation here, on our way of being saved.

The monastery, on a larger scale, acts as a place where people who are called to the monastic life can come and work on their salvation. It also works as an icon to people outside the monastery, reminding them of the presence of God in the world and the need for a union with Him. It shows them that there is something real going on here that is important. I remember reading the comment of an atheist reviewer to the movie “Into Great Silence” (a documentary on the Carthusian monks in the French Alps) who said: If God exists, this life makes a lot of sense. To me, that was an important statement because these monks’ lifestyle spoke to this man. If God exists, we owe him everything.

It also keeps things in perspective. Being in a monastery and the cloth habits serve the same purpose. Wearing black reminds people of death. But being a visible sign of something is more important now than it ever was, in this meme-obsessed, short-attention-span culture. Having a visible building or clothing enable us to communicate beyond words.

Our particular monastery provides people with a place to come and encounter God, a safe place for people to do that. They can leave some of the mundane responsibilities aside (like cooking food) and experience prayer in a way that their busy lives would not permit. It is a place where you can experience silence and guard it, a place where you can ask questions and feel like there is someone who cares, a place for spiritual direction. The monastery functions as a spiritual center.

 

What can secular people take away from the monastic experience and implement in their lives?

First, people should be open to a space for silence, a place where they can escape the noise of electronics and be by themselves. For married couples, a place where you can sit in that silence and make space not only to talk to God but to listen.

Second, try to be mindful of how you view things, because that will influence what you are able to see. If I can change how I view a person (an enemy or someone I do not get along with), I will be able to see God present in that person. Little things like that can have huge consequences in the spiritual life.

Third, and this might be harder during the pandemic, enjoy the community and presence of others. Look and see what their gifts and talents are, and ask yourself: How can I help this person express their gifts in a better way? Then, when you see weaknesses, instead of pointing them out, ask yourself: How can I step in, be something that lifts them up and holds them up in their weakness?

Allow time and space for God; have a change of perspective; help others by reinforcing their gifts and supporting their weaknesses. I give this advice to others and myself.

 

Interview by Raul Botha