Essay Lester Little, Anger in Monastic Cursing - 1215 Words

In Lester Littles, Anger in Monastic Curses, we see how, through liturgical cursing, monks can express a form of anger that is acceptable and appropriate for monastic culture. This form of anger does not undermine monks religious status in the feuding and vengeful culture of this time. Liturgical cursing is used to formulate emotions of anger in a way that is appropriate for monastic culture to participate in. In Aelred of Rievaulxs, Spiritual Friendship, we see a similar scenario in which Aelred seeks to find an appropriate form of friendship for monks to engage in, apart from the not virtuous version that aristocratic culture practices. Both forms of anger and friendship seek to not undermine monastic culture and status. While†¦show more content†¦While Aelred does believe that friendship does exist in monastic culture, as well as all cultures, he seeks to find an appropriate version of friendship. Aelred explains, Now the spiritual, which we call true friendship, is desir ed not with an eye to any worldly profit or for any extraneous reason, but for its own natural worth and for the emotion of the human heart, so that its fruit and reward is nothing but itself(Aelred, 64). In this passage, Aelred explains how spiritual friendship is the purest and only acceptable form of friendship for monastic culture. He describes that friendship should be for no other purpose than for the use of human connection, expecting nothing material in return from a friend. When introducing this concept, Aelred seeks to provide a new type of friendship, for monks, that is separate from the aristocratic, carnal and worldly, friendships that are not virtuous and thus unacceptable in monastic culture. In Lester Littles, Anger in Monastic Curses, Little seeks to form an appropriate form of anger in monastic culture. Like Aelred, Little rejects anger in its current form practiced in medieval culture as being appropriate for monks. In medieval culture, feuding and vengeance is th e acceptable way for people to express anger, however, for monks, this is not virtuous. Little explains how liturgical cursing allows for monks to express anger in a way that does not undermine their religious status. Liturgical cursing, in simplest form,