Now this is interesting…
Posted by Terry Nelson on Apr 22nd, 2007
Cistercian nuns in Austria whose Abbey doubles as a spa and yoga retreat center. Some photos:
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That’s kind of different isn’t it?
CORRECTION: The Abbey is attached to a sanitarium - for years the nuns also acted as health care sisters to support their self-sufficiency - see Don Marco’s comments. I apologize for any misunderstanding. The spa is highly regarded in Europe. I am in no position to comment on the yoga and Tibetan practices however.
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:48 pm
That is just plain weird, not to mention innapropriate. What are they, New Age nuns?
April 22nd, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Actually, they are supposed to be contemplative nuns…but they are wearing the habit.
April 22nd, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Oooh-kaay. Now I’ve seen everything.
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Well, it just goes to show that the habit is really only supra-dermal.
Yoga is incompatible with Catholicism, period. It involves Eastern Mystic thought in each movement, which is a fully different understanding of the human person than that as understood by the Christian. The philosophies cannot mix.
This is an outrage and none of them who are involved with this are worthy of wearing the veil as a Bride of Christ until they renounce this nonsense.
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:37 pm
This isn’t anything new. The Cistercian nuns (enclosed with solemn vows)in Germany and Austria have staffed mental hospitals, prisons, physical therapy clinics, and sanatoria or water spas for a long time. Such works allowed them to survive when certain governments threatened “useless” contemplative monasteries with suppression. I admit that the photos are more than a little odd and I am embarassed by them. I didn’t know that the traditional Catholic health spas where devout folks went to “take the waters” had added yoga, etc. to their program.
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Thanks Don Marco - I had no idea about that fact - it makes much more sense now - especially if they engaged in nursing, etc. That is interesting to know they once had to ‘do’ something to avoid suppression.
I’ll take down some of the silly labels - I still found the story interesting however. I hope you weren’t offended.
April 24th, 2007 at 6:56 am
Maybe they’re just engaging in Yoga for the exercise & have divorced it from the mysticism & religious implications? Is that possible?
April 24th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
Aristotle and Plato are incompatible with Catholicism, period. They involve Greek pagan philosophical anthropology in every supposition, which is a fully different understanding of the human person than that as understood by the Christian. The philosophies cannot mix.
This is an outrage and none of them who are involved with this are worthy of wearing the veil as a Bride of Christ or donning the habit of a friar until they renounce this nonsense.
… Point being — plenty of people in and out of the Church have done pretty poor things with a variety of pre-Christian / pre-evangelized things, but at least in some cases (yoga may or may not be such a case), much can be gained by the orthodox Christian transformation of something that originated outside of the Church.
Admittedly, uch of very poor judgment has been done with Eastern practices by various Catholics in the last few decades. Sometimes those who have engaged Eastern practices seem to have done so because they had effectively stopped being Christians. But based upon these pictures alone, at least, one ought be a little more cicumspect.