Tag: Rule
On Daily Manual Work
There has been some discussion among the Oblates as to what is our calling when is comes to RB 48, On the Daily Manual Labor. It has been suggested by several that this should translate into volunteer service to the Monastery, doing some of the physical labor that is needed to be done. This might… Read More ›
A Benedictine’s Rights
A Benedictine’s Rights According to the Rule of Saint Benedict: Seek God: “The concern must be whether the novice truly seeks God….” (RB 58:7a); Love young and old: “Respect the elders and love the young” (RB 4:68-69); Be silent: “The ninth step of humility is that a monk controls the tongue and remains silent, not… Read More ›
Who Is Called to Be an Oblate of St. Benedict ?
It is suggested that those seeking to make their Oblation should prayerfully reflect on the following paragraphs taken from St. Vincent Archabbey’s Manual for Oblates. Being invested as an Oblate novice or making full Oblation is not a matter of entering a religious order. Deciding whether to seek novice Oblation or Oblation would, therefore, not… Read More ›
Living out the Rule
The community as envisaged by Benedict does not operate according to the standards of this age . . . . Benedict resists any tendency which would lead his monks to do any of the following: to be more concerned about “transitory earthly trifles” than the kingdom (Rule of St. Benedict [RB] 2:33-36) to become protective… Read More ›
Let us listen in particular to St Benedict’s voice
A representative man and a real giant of history, St Benedict is great not only because of his holiness, but also because of his intelligence and industry, which succeeded in giving a new course to the events of history. We will recall only the essential elements of his interesting and adventurous life. Born about 480… Read More ›
An Invitation to Interiorness
In short, therefore, it can be said that St Benedict’s message is an invitation to interiorness. Man must first of all enter himself, he must know himself deeply, he must discover within himself the aspiration to God and traces of the Absolute. The theocentric and liturgical character of the social reform advocated by St Benedict… Read More ›
We must do all Our Actions in the Light of Discernment
In the sphere of action, a right thought is one ruled by the will of God, and intentions are holy when directed singlemindedly toward him. In a word, we could see clearly through any action of ours, or into our entire lives, if we had a simple eye. A simple eye is an eye, and… Read More ›
Living in Community is not just for Monks
We talk a lot about being “community” and we use the term a great deal in general terms; the parish community, the city as a community, the monastic community. But do we think any further on what it actually means? Michael Casey, OSCO, talks a great deal about the subject in his book Strangers to… Read More ›
Balance in the Rule
. . . The important thing, and it is what Benedict warns of, is the monastic vice of acedia. Apathetic is the word in English, but the Latin word is acediosus (RB 48:18). The monk has lost the zeal that is looked for in the new man coming to the monastery [1]. The man truly… Read More ›
America’s Poor Are Its Most Generous Givers
WASHINGTON — When Jody Richards saw a homeless man begging outside a downtown McDonald’s recently, he bought the man a cheeseburger. There’s nothing unusual about that, except that Richards is homeless, too, and the 99-cent cheeseburger was an outsized chunk of the $9.50 he’d earned that day from panhandling. The generosity of poor people isn’t… Read More ›