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.
Wisdom and Knowledge
Haphazard reading, constantly varied and as if lighted upon by chance does not edify but makes the mind unstable; taken into the memory lightly, it goes out from it even more lightly. But you should concentrate on certain authors and let your mind grow accustomed to them. The light of wisdom is kindled by fervent… Read More ›
But there came the Son of God
Created as we were to the image and likeness of the Creator, we fell through our sin from God into ourselves, and fell from ourselves beneath ourselves into such an abyss of unlikeness that no hope was left. But there came the Son of God, eternal Wisdom; he bowed his heavens and came down. He… Read More ›
Reflecting on Lent
. . . we are halfway through Lent. We have gone through twenty days and three Sundays. We have twenty days and three Sundays ahead. So it is a good moment to stop and look. What have we been doing with this Lent? Going back and listening to Benedict again: During these days, therefore, we… Read More ›
You are responsible for finding yourself
First of all, although men have a common destiny, each individual also has to work out his own personal salvation for himself in fear and trembling. We can help one another to find the meaning of life no doubt. But in the last analysis, the individual person is responsible for living his own life and… Read More ›
The desert will feed you
If you have fled away to remain in solitude, continue to stay there; wait there for the One who will save you ‘from pusillanimity of spirit and the storm’. However much the storm of battles may assail you, however much you may feel the lack even of sustenance in the desert, do not because of… Read More ›
Monks and Lenten Pretzels
Do pretzels really have anything to do with Lent? Fr. Williams Saunders The pretzel indeed has its origins as an official food of Lent. However, much of the information available is based on tradition that has been handed down through the ages. Nevertheless, the Vatican library actually has a manuscript illustrating one of the earliest… Read More ›
The need for Silence
Truly a trustworthy word and deserving of every welcome, O Lord, is your almighty Word, which in so deep a silence made its way down from the Father’s royal throne into the mangers of animals and meanwhile speaks to us better by its silence. Let him who has ears to hear, hear what this loving… Read More ›
Be who God intended you to be
Many poets are not poets for the same reason that many religious men are not saints: they never succeed in being themselves. They never get around to being the particular poet or the particular monk they are intended to be by God. They never become the man or the artist who is called for by… Read More ›
The delights of contemplation
If you ask me how to obtain the delights of contemplation, my immediate answer is by living in the wilderness and coming up from it. You know what scripture says: `The Lord God will make the wilderness of Sion like delights, and her desert like the garden of the Lord’. Stay in solitude and be… Read More ›
Prayer requires both the right time and the right place
Anyone who wishes to pray must choose not only the right place but also the right time. A time of leisure is best and most convenient, the deep silence when others are asleep is particularly suitable, for prayer will then be freer and purer. ‘Arise at the first watch of the night, and pour out… Read More ›