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.
How do we judge success?
Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the… Read More ›
Seven Reasons You’re Still Hungry
St. Benedict regulated the intake of food and spirits for his monks (see chapters 39-41 of the Rule). It is something for us all to live up to but for most of us dealing with everyday temptation we often fall short of the ideal. The principle reason is we were “craving” a particular food. Perhaps… Read More ›
Being Beloved Children of God (Part 5)
The wonder of our sonship. I tell you, my brothers, that there is absolutely nothing in this world—nothing that I can possibly conceive of—that is more wonderful than this: to know that you are God’s beloved son. It is total liberation. It is wondrous and great. It is a fulfillment of all the desires for… Read More ›
Being Beloved Children of God (Part 4)
Dropping our plan. What that Prodigal Son had to accept at that moment was to drop his own plan completely and accept the father’s embrace of love. Accept the father’s way. Let the father clothe him in the new garment—the garment we receive when we receive the habit. Put on his finger a ring, a… Read More ›
Being Beloved Children of God (Part 3)
Epiphany. That is a powerful word that the Lord gives us in the parable of the Prodigal Son. We all know ourselves to be the Prodigal Son, and we are on that journey. We are at different places on the journey, but there is a significant moment on the journey—a moment of epiphany. An epiphany… Read More ›
Being Beloved Children of God (Part 2)
The Prodigal Son. Saint Paul says, in his turn, that all paternity comes down from heaven, from the Father of Lights [3]. God is the supreme archetype of paternity—his total, complete, gratuitous giving of self. It is that paternity we want to understand, and to understand ourselves as sons in relation to that paternity. The… Read More ›
Being Beloved Children of God (Part 1)
Sons of God. Obsculta, fili or Obsculta, o fili, Saint Benedict says [1]. Most translations mistranslate that. Usually the translations say, “Listen, my son.” That is not what Saint Benedict said. He said “Listen, O son.” He is speaking to us precisely in our dignity and reality as sons. We have been baptized into Christ,… Read More ›
Peace is something you have
Perhaps peace is not, after all, something you work for, or ‘fight for.’ It is indeed ‘fighting for peace’ that starts all the wars. What, after all, are the pretexts of all these Cold War crises, but ‘fighting for peace?’ Peace is something you have or do not have. If you are yourself at peace,… Read More ›
We must cast out fear
Now one of the things we must cast out first of all is fear. Fear narrows the little entrance of our heart. It shrinks up our capacity to love. It freezes up our power to give ourselves. If we were terrified of God as an inexorable judge, we would not confidently await His mercy, or… Read More ›
God’s goodness is a gift
[Luke 18:9-14] is a parable with two characters in it. Like last Sunday, Jesus sets up a comparison in the parable between the two characters. Let’s have a peek at the two men. Luke tells us that one was a Pharisee; the other was a tax collector. Thanks in some measure to the gospel writers,… Read More ›