Embracing Benedictine Spirituality

I have always been something of a radical sort.

Monasticism is radical. Monastic spirituality is radical. Perhaps not radical in its historical setting. Perhaps not radical over the centuries. It is, however, especially radical in our post-modern cultural setting. Monasticism, and the spirituality that it fosters, attracted my attention when I first discovered and began to investigate it nearly two decades ago.

My first encounter with monasticism was through the Celts. 

There was something daring, something intensely radical, about those Celtic monks in the Sixth and Seventh Centuries. I could close my eyes and see them in their coracles being carried by the wind to some rocky crag of a shore where they would stack stones for their hermit cells.

I found Saint Francis to be a daring figure.

John Michael Talbot’s music and his book on the Life of Saint Francis deepened my attraction. Shirli and I had the opportunity to attend one of Talbot’s concerts at a Catholic Church in Northern New Jersey. We sat beside a group of sisters that were clothed in grey habits. God breathed the Holy Spirit into the Church when Talbot began to sing and play. One man in a brown habit playing a classical guitar. It was not a concert. It was a service of Divine worship. The life of Saint Francis, and Franciscan spirituality, held a strong appeal.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers captured my attention - those ordinary Christians living in solitude in the deserts of Egypt, Palestine and Syria. 

They chose to renounce the world in order to deliberately and individually follow God’s call. These early monastics embraced lives of celibacy, labor, fasting, prayer, and poverty. They practiced a heroic stoicism and believed that they would be led to unity with God by denouncing material goods and practicing stoic self-discipline. The spiritual practice of the Desert Fathers and Mothers formed the basis of Western monasticism and greatly influenced both Western and Eastern Christianity.

It was rather obvious to me that I was not called to such heroic asceticism as a vocation.

It was Saint Benedict that arrested me. 

I found the Rule of Saint Benedict to be, in one breath, both extremely challenging and user friendly. There was something about Benedictine spirituality that called to me and invited me in.

Christ, in our Gospel today, tells us, “But take heed to yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipations and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you as a snare; for it will come upon all who dwell upon the earth. But watch at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of man.”[1]

I discovered in Saint Benedict not a book of rules as most people think of rules. I discovered a practical life-guide that assists me in living as Christ taught his followers to live.

Benedictine monks take vows of Obedience, Stability, and Conversion of Life at the time of profession. Oblates do not take vows but, rather, implicitly promise at the time of Oblation to live by these Benedictine values. Though these promises of Oblation (Offering) are not binding under penalty of sin, and an Oblate can at any time rescind their promises or be removed by the Abbot, these promises are taken seriously as part of carefully discerning a lifelong commitment.

It is quite a serious personal commitment. I cannot vouch for where or how these solemn ceremonies are performed elsewhere. I can only speak to my own Oblation involving myself and Father Thomas O’Connor, OSB at Saint Bernard Abbey where I signed my Oblation Promise on the side altar in the Abbey Church. 

The altar photo in the sidebar on the right is of the altar where I signed.

As I reflect back over these years of my Oblation, I can clearly see that the life-formation – the Conversion of Life vow of the monk and promise of the Oblate – has life altering life long effects. Even when we are not progressing forward during seasons of personal deepening in our life in Christ, even during seasons of dryness, even during seasons of sloth on my part. The effects of Conversion of Life flavor my thought processes. Saint Benedict, Headmaster of what he referred to as his “little school”, remains close by gently coaxing and encouraging me by his example.

How do I, as an Oblate of Saint Benedict, integrate these monastic values into my life in the world outside the monastic enclosure?

I will, over the course of time, add flesh to the bones of the skeleton presented in this question.

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[1] Luke 21:34-36