I have recently discovered that the streaming platform Binge has complete seasons of Time Team available to watch, so I have been ‘bingeing’ - for those who don’t know, Time Team was an archaeological program that travelled all over Britain (and sometimes Europe) conducting archaeological digs of interesting sites over just three days. When I watched a lot of these programs back-to-back, I realised how many religious sites – convents, monasteries, priories and abbeys – they dug for, and what the archaeological records tell us about Religious Life way back when (often in medieval times).

 I listen to the archaeologists talking about cloisters and chapter houses, and the daily lives of religious. I learn about the different orders which established religious houses – not just Benedictines, but Cistercians, and Gilbertines, and even Bridgettines from Sweden – and the differences in their lifestyles. And I watch with interest when an unsuspecting young archaeologist is pressed into service as a nun or monk for a day. Mostly this seems to consist of getting up at all hours of the day and night for prayer, wearing itchy habits and eating terrible food.

 And I think that most people, when they think of the Religious Life at all, probably think much the same things! That it is about praying a lot, wearing itchy (and in Australia, unsuitably hot) clothing, and eating bad food. And it probably was for much of the time.

 These glimpses into religious lives of the past make me think about the women and men who found themselves in religious houses over the centuries. I think for women in particular, it was often an attractive alternative to what was expected of them – marriage and children, and a life of relative dependence. For men, it may well have been the alternative to a life of serfdom, or military service. In a Religious Order there was freedom from those things, perhaps a little more independence, depending on the House or Order, and maybe even space to explore some of their talents, be it for music, brewing, embroidery, cheese-making or theology.

 None of what I have mused about so far has touched on the idea of vocation to the Religious Life. What about the women and men who sought out that life because they felt called to do so? The Celtic religious who pursued lives of white, green or red martyrdom? The women who willingly cloistered themselves away for the rest of their lives to devote themselves to prayer and a deeper relationship with God? The Julians and Hildegard, the Benedicts and Francises who felt themselves called to something big, even though they thought of themselves as quite small?

 When we speak about Anglican Religious Communities and Orders, of course we must also navigate the English Reformation and the dissolution of the abbeys, which was the event most often responsible for all those dig sites that Time Team loves so much. All those great and small houses which overnight came to an end, concluding the English experience of religious life for centuries, probably, until the Oxford Movement of the 19th C which saw the birth of new religious communities such as the Order of John the Baptist, which gave rise to our own Society of the Sacred Advent.

And here in the 21st century we encounter our own dissolution moment, when religious life is becoming more and more strange to people, and when many of our faith communities which played significant parts in the religious landscape of Australia in the 19th and 20th Centuries, now face their end or their revisioning. It is a moment when we ask ourselves what Religious Life means today?

 For the SSA, I think we are clear that poor sleep, bad clothing and unpalatable food - the asceticism of white martyrdom – is not where it is at. Nor are we about escape, I hope. Sister Jan in her John the Baptist homily talked about a recent time of exploring when members of the SSA explored the question, “what has brought you to the SSA?”, as a starting place for clarifying our collective vocation. I think the responses shared a common theme of yearning for space to encounter God and to find ways to serve God’s world.

 And this, to me, seems to be the enduring heart of religious life – making space for an authentic encounter with God, and understanding how best to serve God’s world. Neither of these are exclusive to the professed religious life, but they do require intention, which can be difficult to achieve in the secular world. The SSA expresses its mission as: making a place for God in our hearts and in the world in which we live. Which means, doing the work of creating what we might called sacred spaciousness for ourselves, so that we can model that for others and invite them into that space. Then in that space, where we hope to meet with God and hear Christ’s voice, we trust we will discover just what kinds of service we are being called to. And we help others find their call also, as they join with us in our work.

Service might be in the education of women and girls, and in the encouragement and nurturing of women’s leadership. Something as small as the Season of Holy Women, initiated here in the SSA, might give rise to an annual festival of women’s leadership (for example). Service might be making quilts for children in hospital, or ministry with the dying, or offering space for theological reflection to others seeking the discern their own vocational direction.

 Our role as a religious community is to prioritise and model a spacious life, not a life filled with tasks and events. We search for the balance between worship and prayer, and the life of work. And even as we discover what it means to live as dispersed community, half in and half out of the religious life some might argue, that yearning for and vocation to a spacious life of meaning and worth remains.

 Might you be called to explore a vocation to the Religious Life? Probably the best way to answer that question is to hang around a religious community! Here in Brisbane we have the SSA, the Society of St Francis, and the Oratory of the Good Shepherd for a start. We also have a vibrant community of Franciscan Tertiaries and even some Benedictine Oblates, and certainly these tertiary orders are looking for ways to incorporate more spaciousness into their lives too.

 At the heart of all we do is Christ’s call to follow, to serve him and to love one another. As Michael Leunig wrote: it is as simple and as difficult as this. [For us,] there is no other way.