The Monastic Way of Life
This way of life was gifted to us over 1,500 years ago by St. Benedict. In the prologue of the Rule, we read
Therefore we intend to establish a school for God’s service. As we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.
We live in a monastic community where seeking God is central and becomes the daily pathway for all of us to grow into a deeper relationship with God. Our search is rooted in a commitment to discover God’s desire for us through prayer and through living with others who teach us, challenge us, push us, invite us and embrace us, and in doing all this reveal the face of Christ to us daily. We commit ourselves to communal prayer and to personal prayer with scripture (divine reading) and we do all of this so that “in all things God may be glorified”.
The Benedictine vocation is unique in the promises that we are invited to take as Benedict himself states in Chapter 58 of the Rule. He calls us to promise stability, fidelity to the monastic way of life and obedience.
Monastic stability
We commit ourselves to share the whole of our lives with a particular community of women. The community in which we make vows will be the community where we die and are buried.
Fidelity of the monastic way of life
At the center of this commitment is conversatio, or conversion of heart, a transformation that takes place over a lifetime of fidelity. We are saying that we embrace every aspect of monastic living and the common life.
Monastic obedience
Benedict instructs us at the beginning of the Prologue “listen with the ear of your heart.” Monastic obedience opens us to this kind of listening for a lifetime. We learn through this kind of listening to surrender our will to the authority of the Rule, to the Prioress and to the community.