Benedictine Spirituality is a way of life in which one follows Christ in the footsteps of St Benedict as prescribed in his Holy Rule. We also follow our Constitution, and Manual of the Cistercian Order of the Holy Cross.
Benedictine spirituality is practical and profound. The Rule of St. Benedict has often been referred to as a compendium of the Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Benedictine/Cistercian monasteries are palaces where the glory of God shines out.
Monks are called to seek and abide in the love of God through the celebration of the Eucharistic Liturgy and the singing and reciting of the Office.
Humility is fundamental to monastic life. Humility makes our communities the throne of God.
St. Benedict invites us to build a community in which we are liberated from rivalry, competition, and power struggles.
This implies a profound challenge to the modern cult of self.
The Cistercians, a reformed Benedictine movement of which we belong, developed a profound spirituality based on solid theological anthropology such as knowledge of self in community, love and mystical contemplation.
Indeed the Rule offers each person a direct path to Gospel perfection, through a careful balance between the traditional monastic observance and our contemporary culture. Catholics and Protestants have benefited from the teachings of St. Benedict.
- Preferring nothing to the love of Christ
- Joyfully accepting the blessing of obedience, practicing fraternal charity, progressing in the conversion of life and the practice of humility
- Greater places of silence, peace, brotherhood, and ecumenical sensitivity
- Authentic religious perfection
- Witnesses of the theological virtue of hope
- The search for God
- Obsculta –”listen with the ears of your heart.” We listen, trusting that God is there and that God will speak.
- Burning passion for God, discipline and discipleship
- Spirit of hospitality
- The luminous figure of St Benedict stands in our midst, pointing always to Christ
- Contemplative silence
- Devotion to Mary to whom the Cistercian Order is consecrated
- Faithfulness to our way of life as we live in charity and courage
Benedictine/Cistercian spirituality is not a spirituality of escape. It is a spirituality that fills time and space with an awareness of the presence of God. For this purpose, Benedict called for prayer at regular intervals of each day.
Benedictine prayer has several characteristics that make more for a spirituality of awareness than of consolation. It is regular, converting, reflective, and communal. Out of these qualities a whole new life emerges and people are changed.
We pray to see life as God sees it is, to understand it, and to make it better.
We pray to dispose ourselves to God. “Here I am Lord.” We pray to open our hearts and minds to be challenged and changed by God and neighbor. From this is born the Benedictine/Cistercian monastic vows of obedience, stability and conversion.
For the true contemplative, all is God, all is prayer.
St Benedict knew that the regeneration of the individual generally is not to be reached by the path of solitude, nor by that of austerity, but by the beaten path of man’s social instinct, with its necessary conditions of obedience and work, and that neither the body nor the mind can be safely overstrained in the effort to avoid evil.
Ora et Labora. Opus Dei. Silence. Solitude. Simplicity. Material and Spiritual Simplicity, Work, Prayer, and Study – are a must for cultivating a contemplative atmosphere, both within and around. The result should be PAX.
Silence or restraint of speech operates at many levels and is an act of discipline proper of the spiritual art. It necessitates that state of tranquillity which makes possible greater attention to the non-sensate realities of the spiritual world. Different levels and degrees of monastic/spiritual silence are as follows:
- Reduction of Physical Noise
- Avoidance of the Sins of the Tongue
- Conservation of Energy
- Attentive Listening
- Concentration
- Listening with the Heart
The only way to pray is to pray and the way to pray well is to pray much.
If one has no time for this, then one must at least pray regularly.
But the less one prays, the worse it gets.
When one has imbued oneself in prayer, silence and solitude, it becomes almost impossible to believe that life’s journey ends at the grave. Following Christ under a Rule and an Abbot, community life becomes a school of the Lord’s service and a training ground for brotherly love.
Being an intern, extern monk or oblate, community life offers a challenge. Life circ*mstances and the people therein can be difficult at times. It is there that we meet the Crucified Christ.
And so we do this walk together with confidence that God is intimately close.
