When Ordinary Isn’t Enough (3)
Why we still need monks, mystics, and a touch of holy restlessness
The Call Beyond
If the ordinary is truly where holiness happens, do we still need monasteries, radical prophets, or modern saints? Indeed, in many Protestant circles, there’s a growing fascination with monastic life and the contemplative tradition—once seemingly distant from everyday faith. What’s behind that interest?
Giorgio Agamben frames monastic communities as a “messianic interruption,” a way of existing that interrupts business-as-usual. Monasteries—or any intentional religious community—offer a setting where the coming Kingdom is hinted at through a radically distinct way of living. This can look like shared resources, daily prayer, or even voluntary poverty.
The Gift of the Radical
From Pieter Vos’s perspective, one might worry that such a life reinforces a hierarchy of holiness: the monastic is “higher,” the ordinary is “lower.” But the Catholic tradition (from John Paul II to Tomáš Halík and various Dominican thinkers like Yves Congar, Marie-Dominique Chenu, and Herbert McCabe) insists on complementarity. These radicals in our midst aren’t telling us our daily path is worthless. Far from it! They highlight, in neon, the Kingdom values that should animate all believers.
They remind us that the ordinary can become complacent. A prophet shakes us up. A mystic reveals a deeper dimension of reality that routine can obscure. A monk—through prayer and communal life—shows a simple yet powerful alternative to materialism, noise, and hyper-individualism.
Three Ways Radical Witness Helps Us
Prophetic Disruption: By living differently, monks and mystics expose the ways we unthinkingly accommodate ourselves to consumerism or shallow routines. Their unusual lifestyle can be a holy thorn in our side: “There is more to life than this.”
A New Social Space: Communities shaped by prayer and simplicity aren’t mere escapes. They act like laboratories for grace, proving that life in fellowship with God and others is possible. This can spark hope and fresh imagination for us “on the outside.”
Voluntary Poverty: This is less about romanticising poverty than about bearing witness that true freedom isn’t bound up in wealth. It’s a powerful sign that trust in God can reorient our goals, choices, and priorities.
Embracing the Tension
We do well, then, to hold onto both truths: the holiness of the ordinary and the value of holy exceptions. We need the everyday small gestures, but we also need the bold, sometimes disruptive witness of saints and religious communities. Each calls the other to keep growing, to avoid settling for mediocrity. Vos’s emphasis on the ordinary ensures radical movements don’t become elitist, while the radical reminds the ordinary not to become bland.
A Shared Journey
Ultimately, we are all on the same path: a journey toward wholeness in God. Whether we walk that path as a parent balancing groceries and toddlers, as a teacher grading papers, as a monk waking for dawn prayer, or as a mystic seeking solitude in urban chaos—the invitation remains the same. In the grand tapestry of faith, the ordinary and the extraordinary belong together. Both speak of a God who meets us wherever we truly are, yet never leaves us there without beckoning us onward.
The next time you catch yourself scrolling aimlessly on your phone or sinking into mental autopilot, remember: we are called to a deeper life, even within the humdrum. Let’s keep our hearts open to the prophetic disruption that stirs our souls—so that day by day, we become that little bit more alive to grace, awake to God, and ready to share love with the world.
This is the third of 3 reflections on virtue and everyday holiness, based on a lecture that brother Richard gave on the occasion of the presentation of the Dutch edition of Pieter Vos’ book on Protestant Virtue ethics in March 2025.
Picture: RAJS (2025)
Really enjoyed this whole series!