Benedictine Spirituality flows out of the inspiration found in The Holy Rule of our Holy Father Saint Benedict that begins: "Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instruction, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.  This is the advice from a Father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice.  The labor of obedience will bring you back to Him to whom you have drifted from the sloth of disobedience." (Cf. Prov 4:20)

A Benedictine monk is one who hearkens and obeys. We spend a whole lifetime in heartfelt listening and wholeheartedly responding to the Word of God. It's that simple and that complicated. Yet, one may ask "is this not the vocation of every believer?" Actually, it is the vocation of every authentic human being. As one contemporary theologian concluded, we are created as "hearers of the Word." By our very nature, we are capable of receiving the self-donation of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Even though this human nature is stained and warped by sin, God is faithful to his word. In the beginning, the Lord God proclaimed after creating man and all other things, “Behold, this is very good.” Even after “the man” fell in the garden, God is faithful to his word. He promised that an offspring of “the woman” would crush the head of the serpent. This promise has been fulfilled in the Obedient Son of the Father, Jesus Christ, Our Only True Master.

It is Christ, Our True Master, whose voice we harken to as we seek to live a life of self-donation, of loving service to God and to others. We who listen to that voice in a monastic lifestyle believe that the abbot is our father in Christ. We hear and obey the Word of God in the loving discernment of our abbot. So the life of a monk is a life of obedience. The discovery and development of our strengths and weaknesses takes place within the context of a community whose father is the abbot. This community, in an ordinary way through daily encounters, summons the monk to obey the command of Our True Master, “Love the Lord your God with your whole heart, your whole mind, and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.” The abbot of a monastery normally delegates to certain wise monks the formation of the younger brothers. It is through the guidance of a Novice Master, Junior Master, and spiritual director that the abbot exercises his ordinary leadership during the formative years. At certain points along the way and in dialogue directly with the Solemnly Professed Monk, the abbot commands the very heart of the one, who has all along been listening to the Word of God. Such obedience is liberating. It enables the monk to cast aside any residual doubt and fear to completely embrace the will of the Only True Master.

This ordinary and particular obedience grows out of a daily experience of “conversatio morum.” The monk’s whole life is a constant process of conversion. Each day we take up our cross and follow Christ. Each day we die to ourselves in loving service to God and others. Each day we sacrifice our desires to pleasure, power, and prestige. Through constant attention to the needs of others, we give up our own comfort so that someone else may find the true comfort of Christ. Though constant attention to our own weakness and strength we seek to liberate our brothers and sisters in Christ, rather than try to control them. Through constant attention to the true humility of Christ we surrender our self-importance so that others are attracted to their own dignity in Christ. Daily we receive the evangelical gifts of chastity and poverty. By these gifts of our Master we seek to serve him alone in total freedom. Indeed only by such faithful service are we truly free to love everyone with pure passion and never to use another to satisfy our own desires. Indeed only by such faithful service are we truly free to use all things for God’s glory rather than our own selfish purposes. Poverty and chastity are first of all gifts from a Father who loves us and only secondarily a grace-filled discipline. We discipline our attitudes and behaviors so that God will be glorified, for we are made for His glory. In doing this, we also become more and more capable of an authentic human relationship and divine encounter. Indeed it is our intimacy in prayer and sensitivity in service, that are fashioned by a life of constant conversion of life.

Such a lifestyle of constant receiving and giving what we have received takes place in the context of a stable community. Benedictine spirituality is impossible without stability. From the early days of the hermits, it has been the constant conclusion of these solitaries that it’s all too easy to get caught up in a self-deceptive lifestyle. Those monks who lived all alone were quite capable of falling into the pits of idolatry. Because they had no regular contact with anyone who would challenge their virtue, it was too easy to convince oneself of one’s own holiness and a lot more difficult to really be holy. These monks would easily slip over the line between self-respect and self-worship. Sometimes they would give more value to their idea of holiness and cease growing in holiness. The ideal of a monk became more important than the reality of a monk. Growth in humility was impossible because they were so proud of their humility. Gradually, monks began to see the wisdom of community life. For most monks, who are sometimes honest and sometimes not so honest, living in community provides a mirror experience. Some monks elicit anger, and we begin to see in ourselves that which we least like about ourselves. Other monks elicit admiration, and we begin to see that toward which we can grow. Granted, there is a vocation to an eremitic lifestyle. God still calls certain monks to be hermits, but most of us need the give and take of monastic community to constantly test the metal of our souls. As Saint Benedict taught, staying in one community for life, rather than living as your own abbot or moving from monastery to monastery looking for the "perfect community," is the best lifestyle for most monks.  All of these monastic values, vows, obedience, “conversatio morum,” and stability are impossible ideals without balance.

The Benedictine life provides a communal context for individual balance. Both the community and individual seeks a balance of work and prayer, and in the community the individual seeks his own unique balance. The daily schedule for each monastery is the basic infrastructure for growth in holiness. By regular participation in monastic office, meals, conferences, chapters, retreats, labor and recreation, the individual monk has a good beginning upon which to build his own unique struggle to root out vice and grow in virtue.  This daily struggle to grow in holiness is both a grace and a discipline. God wants us to be holy much more than we want to grow in holiness. It is the Lord God Almighty who provides the motivation and the testing for our growth. As our Creator, He knows of what we are made. As our Redeemer, He knows our true frailty. As our Advocate, He knows our every desire. Indeed, The One who first loved us summons us to know who we really are and to love others and ourselves as He loves. Such a loving lifestyle is not possible for monks who do not surrender to the basic flow of grace and glory in the midst of weakness and humiliation. Moving from the community’s structure of holiness, the monk must also become one who listens with the ear of his heart to every word that comes from the mouth of God.  Such careful listening grows in “lectio divina.” In this gentle movement through moments of hearing, meditation, prayer and contemplation, the monk exercises his fundamental option to be and to become more and more authentically a hearer of the Word. Simply put, Benedictine Spirituality is organized for a community of hearers who have begun to respond to the summons of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This community could not be holy without the growth in holiness of each member, and each member could not be holy without the growth of the entire community.