I am reading up on the history of the Benedictine movement in preparation for a new class I will be teaching at the Avila Institute starting in January. It is How St Benedict Changed the World. As a Benedictine oblate, I am biased, but the writings of the Benedictine masters of spirituality always have such beauty and balance. [...]
Work is Prayer. Prayer is Work. Reading is Work. Reading is Prayer.
This morning I tried to think of the New Years resolutions I might make if I were truly a Benedictine hermit. They would be based in the three duties of Prayer, Study and Work. These three are important because they minister to the three aspects of the human person. Reading (or Study) illuminates and stretches the mind. Prayer [...]
Benedictine Nuns Make Final Vows A Benedictine nun writes, The end of Benedictine spirituality is to develop a transparent personality. Dissimulation, half answers, vindictive attitudes, a false presentation of self are all barbs in the soul of the monastic. This is especially important in our commercialized, plastic, artificial society. Everywhere we look we are [...]
There is a Great Deed which the blessed Trinity shall do at the last day, as I see it. And what that deed shall be, and how it shall be done is unknown to all creatures below Christ. And it shall be hidden until it is done. He wants us to know of it so that [...]
I said it again today: "Everybody is crazy but me and you, and I have my doubts about you..." Seriously, what I said to my wife was, "Can't we just pull out, leave, check out, unplug, get a cabin in the mountains where I will have you, my books, a fireplace, a dog and a view. [...]
Lectio Divina, or Holy Reading, is a wonderful, monastic contribution to spirituality. It combines two aspects of the threefold Benedictine life of Work, Prayer and Reading. When we participate in Lectio Divina we pray and read. We read and pray. The essential idea is that we read the sacred Scriptures not critically or even to gather information, [...]
Thomas Merton was a hermit at the Trappist Monastery of Gethesamani in Kentucky. His autobiography The Seven Story Mountain is one of the best tales of God getting hold of a man and that man's true conversion. Merton's later life was controversial as he was caught up in the turmoil of the 1960s, but his writings are beautiful [...]
My brother in law is an artist and a wise man. He is fond of saying, "Every person, everywhere will always do whatever they can to get as close as they can to what they perceive as love." During the Lenten season do you see yourself and other people chasing all sorts of things that you [...]
Angel, Reims Cathedral Awake, mankind! For your sake God has become man. Awake, you who sleep, rise up from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you. I tell you again: for your sake, God became man. You would have suffered eternal death, had he not been born in time. Never would you have been freed from [...]