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.
Commentaries on the Rule Of St. Benedict
Several Oblates have asked for suggestions on commentaries on the Rule of St. Benedict (RB). The list is too exhaustive to list. Commentaries can be broken into three primary groups; devotional, line by line (exegesis), and a combination of the two. But before listing various commentaries, please remember that there are also quite a number… Read More ›
“Religion” Cannot be a Substitute for Humanity or Community
We may often find that the text of the Bible comes alive in an atmosphere of love, community, and service. Conversely, its meaning is obscured when we allow ourselves to become isolated and concerned only with ourselves. “Religion” cannot, in God’s plan, become a substitute for humanity or community. Our familiarity with the Bible can… Read More ›
Never Doubt God’s Love or His Plans for Us
In the mind of Saint John Cassian, anger and sadness are two principal preventatives of prayer: “The disturbance caused by anger or sadness is, above all things, to be eliminated at its sources.” (Conferences 9.3) The reason for such emphasis is simple. Both anger and sadness represent a refusal on our part to accept a… Read More ›
The Ten Commandments For Would-Be Desert Mystics
Like You and Me: Thou shalt have no other God than God, and shall not make a God of thine own holiness or thy desert search for it. Thou shalt recognize that thou art a sinner and that thou shalt take the heat for it thyself. Thou shalt know that silence is golden. Thou shalt… Read More ›
You must have Saints, Mystics and Prophets
If the salvation of society depends, in the long run, on the moral and spiritual health of individuals, the subject of contemplation becomes a vastly important one, since contemplation is one of the indications of spiritual maturity. It is closely allied to sanctity. You cannot save the world merely with a system. You cannot have… Read More ›
Simple Gratitude
My own personal task is not simply that of poet and writer (still less commentator, pseudo-prophet); it is basically to praise God out of an inner center of silence, gratitude, and ‘awareness.’ This can be realized in a life that apparently accomplishes nothing. Without centering on accomplishment or non-accomplishment, my task is simply the breathing… Read More ›
Community is Built by God Alone
…community is not built by man, it is built by God. It is God’s work and the basis of community is not just sociability but faith. This is what we need to see very clearly, because it is very important. … what really starts fighting is possessions. And people get into fights by preferring things… Read More ›
To put nothing before the love of Christ
“To Christ belongs everything we can do; we live because he quickens us, we move and have our being because he enlivens us, we love because he first loved us. It was out of love he created and quickened us, nourished and guarded us; he led us to the bath of rebirth, renewed us, governed… Read More ›
Father of a Family
16. The monastic community is so constituted and arranged that it resembles the Christian home over which the Abbot or Superior presides like the father of a family; and all should depend completely on his paternal authority. “We see that it is expedient” says St. Benedict, “for the preservation of peace and charity, that the… Read More ›
Create Your Own Lives
All Christian life is meant to be at the same time profoundly contemplative and rich in active work… It is true that we are called to create a better world. But we are first of all called to a more immediate and exalted task: that of creating our own lives. In doing this, we act… Read More ›