Rule 
Articles and posts specifically teaching the Rule of St. Benedict. Articles divided into two categories: Benedictine Wisdom, the teaching of the Benedictine Fathers; and Instruction, teaching by more modern day Benedictine scholars.
And justice looked down from heaven
And justice looked down from heaven. That the Saviour should have mercy on his people was indeed an act of justice. See what the Scripture says: O how just are God’s judgments and how unsearchable his ways! On the one hand truth, that is, a saviour, has grown up from the earth, and on the… Read More ›
We were created to enjoy union with God
And with eyes wide open to the divinizing light, and with astonished ears, let us hear God’s voice crying out to us every day and admonishing us. (RB Prologue) The voice of God speaks to us every day, if we have ears to listen. What we hear, if we hear anything, can be a source… Read More ›
St. Bernard reminds us to properly prepare for the Lord’s Coming
[Yet people] observe these days (Advent) out of stale routine, without devotion or emotion. Further—and still worse—the remembrance of this condescension is turned into a pretext for the flesh. During those days you may see them preparing splendid clothes and special foods with utmost care—as if Christ at his birth would be seeking these and… Read More ›
Pope to canonize and name Benedictine nun Hildegard of Bingen as Doctor of the Church
December 16, 2011. (Romereports.com) Benedict XVI is set to appoint Hildegard of Bingen as a Doctor of the Church in October of 2012. She was a German Benedictine nun and was known for her visions and prophecies. Hildegard of Bingen lived in the twelfth century. In addition to being a nun, she was a composer,… Read More ›
The ultimate consequences of our choices
If we resist the advances of God’s love in this life, there is no solid reason to expect that things will be different in the next. The fear that this possibility evokes is due less to some fearsome quality in God than to the dread eventuality that our power of free choice will be seduced… Read More ›
Beating their swords into ploughshares?
Augustine, for all his pessimism about human nature, did not foresee the logical results of his thought, and in the original context, his “wars of mercy” to defend civilized order make a certain amount of sense. Always his idea is that the Church and the Christians, whatever they may do, are aiming at ultimate peace…. Read More ›
Silence and Removing Barriers
The silence of the tongue and of the imagination dissolves the barrier between ourselves and the peace of things that exist only for God and not for themselves. But the silence of all inordinate desire dissolves the barrier between ourselves and God. Then we come to live in Him alone. Thomas Merton No Man is… Read More ›
What the Lord has lost on my account
[God] had made only two noble creatures who were sharers in reason and capable of blessedness: angels and human beings. Yet on my account he has lost many of the angels and all of the human beings. Therefore, so that they may know that I love the Father, let those whom he seems somehow to… Read More ›
Of Silence
Let us act in conformity with that saying of the Prophet: “I said I will guard my ways lest I sin with my tongue; I have put a bridle on my mouth; I was dumb and was humbled and kept silence from good things.” Here the prophet shows that if we ought at times for… Read More ›
It is the silence of the world that is real
Those who love their own noise are impatient of everything else. They constantly defile the silence of the forests and the mountains and the sea. They bore through silent nature in every direction with their machines, for fear that the calm world might accuse them of their own emptiness. The urgency of their swift movement… Read More ›