This call, as many other of Christ's words in the Gospel, is a call to asceticism, to a learning that we are called out of the world, out of preoccupation with money and ambition, and out of placing self in the centre and expecting the world to revolve round us. It is a call to every Christian, but there have, from the early centuries of Christianity, been those who have answered this call in an acute manner, leaving much that is, in itself, good and pleasing to God because they have begun to learn that so much can tie them to this world, and turn them aside from seeking the Face of God.

Monasticism first appeared in the fourth century, when persecution of the Christian Church by the Roman Empire has ceased, and Christianity had become accepted. Life became easy and comfortable, and the need for a burning, sacrificial faith became less apparent. Men and women began to turn from this "secularisation ", leaving the cities and going into the desert to free themselves from the comfort that threatened to swamp them, and there to live in total dependence on God.

Gradually, three particular marks of their asceticism emerged: poverty, chastity and obedience.

Poverty freed them from the weight and care of possessions and helped them to learn more and more deeply that they had nothing and were nothing without the love and grace of God: that everything was His, and was only a shadow of that richness that His presence pours into the soul.

Chastity freed them from the ties of family to concentrate their being in a single-hearted seeking of God- not becoming cold and unloving towards their neighbours, but serving and cherishing all created in the image of God and saved by the sacrifice and Resurrection of Christ,

Obedience freed them from their own selfishness and wilfulness, opening them to God's will by learning to obey those who had an authority of love over them.

Very early, monks and nuns found it wise to live together in their own communities, where the experience could help the beginners and all could be upheld by their common striving. They varied, and vary today, from a group of two or three to a monastery of several hundred. The hermit life was for those who had lived the common life for many years, and were tested and experienced in monastic life,

Monasteries have, in many countries, had a great influence on the life of the people. In the Middle Ages, they provided schools and universities and have, in the last centuries, been centres to which the people have turned in times of oppression. In the Balkans, through the four or five centuries of Turkish occupation, the monasteries were the guardians of the faith and national identity of the people. Today, many monasteries have become important centres for young people, who come there to prey and work, meet each other and the spiritual fathers or mothers, and to be strengthened in their faith and life in the world.

If you visit a monastery - any monastery - today, you will find the day dominated by the worship of God. The monks or the nuns of the monastery are early in church at prayer, singing the Offices, based on the Gospels and the Psalter, that have been compiled through the centuries, and offering, daily where possible, the Bloodless Sacrifice of Christ in the Liturgy, the Holy Communion. They work hard, generally within the monastery or on its land, growing their own food, painting icons, making vestments, receiving guests.

The great monasteries have an almost constant flow of visitors during the summer months, both believers who pay a brief visit to pray in the church and venerate the relics of saints, many of whom are buried in the monasteries, or to stay for a time, joining in the rhythm of the life and being refreshed and renewed by the regular routine of prayer and work, and casual tourists who, coming to gaze, may find themselves touched by the atmosphere created by the centuries of prayer.

The monk and the nun pray in church, and also in his or her cell. In the latter, they read morning and evening prayers and other short offices, but it is above all in the cell that they use the Jesus Prayer: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner", renewing it time and time again within oneself, so that they learn to carry it in their heart wherever they are and whatever they are doing.

"Son, give me thy heart" - these words, through the mouth of King Solomon (Proverb 23:26), are the essence of the monastic call. The world is well lost to the one who receives this call and responds to it with the whole being. '