The Benedictine Monks
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Would you be interested in joining our community?

Monastic life is a way of living our baptismal vocation;
  • rooted in a community which takes the gospel as its guide
  • in obedience to the Rule of Saint Benedict (RB) and a Superior , thus following Christ who was obedient unto death and because of this was raised to new life.

St Benedict asks regarding the candidate to the monastic life:

Does he truly SEEK God? (RB 58,8)
But first of all, there is God's initiative. It is God who SEEKS us:
" SEEKING his workman in a multitude of people, the Lord calls out to him.:
Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days?" (RB Prologue 14-15)

Then, follows the monk's response :
"If you hear this and your answer is "I do" (RB Prologue 16)

The life of a monk is a SEARCH for God:

through prayer

  • Divine Office
  • Lectio Divina (Prayerful reading of the Scriptures)
  • Solitary prayer
  • Reading and Study

through community life

  • God also speaks by the Superior who helps us discern God's presence in our lives.
  • by the brothers of the Community with whom we share our lives.
  • in our daily manual work by which we serve one another: "The brothers should serve one another" (RB 35,1), and earn our living: "They are really monks when they live by the labour of their hands"(RB 48,8).

SEEKING God is a life long process which carries with it a great promise:
"Those who SEEK the Lord lack no blessing" (Ps 33:11)

TO SEEK means TO LISTEN
"Listen carefully, my son." These first words of the Prologue to the Rule are the first words of the great Commandment: "Listen, Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord" (Mk 12,29).

LISTENING requires SILENCE as well as HUMILITY

"The disciple is to be silent and listen "(RB 6,6).
The monk seeks to walk humbly with God. (RB 7).

"Let them prefer nothing whatever to CHRIST " (RB 72)

Chapter CrossCHRIST is at the centre of our lives. The Rule of Saint Benedict is a tapestry of quotations from the Sacred Scriptures, mainly from the gospels.

Our presence to CHRIST is inseparable from our presence to all those who believe in Him, because we cannot separate Christ from the members of his body. At the heart of our lives is the prayer of Jesus on the eve of his passion for all those who will believe in him: " May all be one ". The desire for reconciliation, unity and peace is at the centre of our prayer, our listening, our community life and our hospitality: As a community, we strive to live united with one another so as to be a leaven of unity in the dough of the divided Churches. We not only pray for unity, but we also welcome in our liturgies and in our monastic hospitality brothers and sisters of other denominations.

Our presence to CHRIST is also a presence to all those who were created through him . This is a call to know and respect those of other religions, and pray for them.

Our presence to CHRIST is also a presence to the cry of the world. Monks are separated from all in order to be united to all. The community seeks to live in a spirit of compassion, interceding for the world, supporting all those who suffer.

All of this depends upon our personal conversion: "Unity among Christians therefore presupposes that we are agreed on the prior necessity of each man being at one in himself. It would be putting the cart before the horse if one wished to inverse this order". (Bro Roger of Taizé).