Unlike other religious leaders, Benedict wrote only one rule of life, not one for men, one for women, and another for lay people. He wrote one rule that can be lived by men and women inside and outside the monastery as monks, nuns, and lay people.
Community in the Rule of Benedict
For Benedict, everything takes place within the context of community. Whether he is talking about prayer, relationships, work, or whatever it may be, the disciple is reminded that he or she is part of a community. This is particularly so in the case of Benedictine Oblates of the World Community for Christian Meditation. Benedict makes […]
The Observance of Lent (RB 49)
See now is the acceptable time: see now is the day of salvation. (I Cor: 6:2) These words taken from the readings for Ash Wednesday, express in a nutshell the whole purpose and goal of Lent. Although Benedict often refers to the various liturgical seasons of the year throughout the Rule, evidently the time of […]
Lectio Divina
As a child, Lectio Divina came naturally to me, having learned a love of the Bible from my Methodist father and my Congregationalist mother! Lectio Divina has a very long history, going back to the time of Jesus himself, who loved and taught from the Hebrew Scriptures. The Desert Fathers and Mothers of the 3rd […]
The Benedictine Oblate Path
Since the time of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, when the Christian monastic movement began, there have been many ways of expressing the monastic archetype. Even in the Desert there were anchorites, hermits and coenobites. The Desert wisdom also knew that the monastic archetype dwells in each human soul as that which orientates us to […]
The Gift of Silence
Listen to me in silence… (Isa. 41:1) Benedict obviously cherished silence, and saw it an absolute necessity for anyone who wants to pursue a spiritual path. He devotes a whole chapter of he Rule to silence, (RB 6) as well as mentioning it in a number of other places too. The very first word of […]