Benedictine spirituality?

[jesusmademe]

Are there any Benedictine oblates here?
If Benedictine spirituality is a Liturgical spiritituality lived in a community then how did your life change after becoming an oblate? Much of the Benedictine spirituality is just Catholicism lived in a monastery. There is no specific Benedictine spirituality per se but only a deeper Liturgical life. The Jesuit at least have the Ignatian exercices.
What then do Oblates do everyday that is specically Benedictine?
I am asking this as a person who feel closer to the Benedictine spirituality rather that other spiritualities.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

@OraLabora may know the answer to this one.
I believe praying the Liturgy of the Hours is one thing the Benedictines focus upon.

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

Read the Rule of St. Benedict. It not only describes living in a religious community but a community in general. It has changed how I interact with friends, family co-workers etc. Read chapter 4 of the Rule and you get a perspective on living your entire life.

 

[OraLabora]

Much of the Benedictine spirituality is just Catholicism lived in a monastery.

No, that would be a very false misconception. Benedictine spirituality rests on three vows: Stability, Obedience and Inner Conversion.

SuscipeMeDomine beat me to it, but it is life-altering and impacts on all your daily interactions, especially in treating everyone without exception as if he or she were Christ in person, including the co-worker who gets on your nerves or the beggar in the street.

It is a spirituality that slowly permeates the core of our souls. And yes attached to that is a deeper, and very liturgical, prayer life. In concrete terms for myself, it meant a huge devotion to the Liturgy of the Hours and also to some extent lectio divina.

You actually have to make it a point when you become an oblate to pray daily and especially to study the Rule daily, with a good commentary if possible. Then things gradually sink in.

 

[jesusmademe]

No, that would be a very false misconception. Benedictine spirituality rests on three vows: Stability, Obedience and Inner Conversion.

Well, all Catholics need stabilty, obedience and inner conversion in their lives. I dont see how you can live a life without those. You cant just jump from parish to parish or wife to wife. You must have stability in your life. Then you must obey the God and His Church and the local Bishop and other people. You may even obey a friend or spouse.
All of this is normal Catholicism. I even watch a monk from Meinrard discuss this.

I like this:
1. Marriages – Spiritually everyone who enters into a marriage takes a vow of stability to be true and faithful to their spouse in good times and bad, in sickness and health, in riches or in poverty till death. And yet more than half of marriages fail to realize this vow. Many want their marriage to be ideal and if there is any ordeal, most want a new deal. And, frankly most who divorce and remarry are the most likely to divorce again. As the Benedictine statement above says, Ultimately there is no escape from oneself, and the idea that things would be better someplace else is usually an illusion.

A Reflection On the Benedictine Vow of Stability - Community in Mission

Most Catholics are familiar with the three vows taken by most religious of poverty, chastity and obedience. To these three, St. Benedict (whose feast we celebrated Wednesday), added a fourth for the Benedictine order, the vow of stability. Our summer seminarian who had considered joining the...

blog.adw.org

You can give ot a fancy name but I’d just call it Christianity or Catholicism.

Maybe you just missunderstood me or maybe you dissagree with me.

 

[jesusmademe]

SuscipeMeDomine beat me to it, but it is life-altering and impacts on all your daily interactions, especially in treating everyone without exception as if he or she were Christ in person, including the co-worker who gets on your nerves or the beggar in the street.

Sounds like normal Christianity to me.

 

[OraLabora]

Sounds like normal Christianity to me.

You seem to want to argue this point, and I’m not going to bite. I don’t want to get argumentative about a spirituality that is very dear to me and has been life-changing. I suggest that rather than trying to argue this point, you seek out a Benedictine monastery and speak to the Oblate director. There can be no better answer than what you’ll get by going straight to the source.

An oblate also has a very special relationship with the monastery, as an outside member of the monastic community.

 

[jesusmademe]

I dont want arguments. I just want to know if I am missunderstanding something.
I could be wrong. What is it that I missunderstood?
And do you know of any good commentary on the Rule?

 

[OraLabora]

What is it that I missunderstood?

Well, what is special about Franciscan or Dominican spirituality? Would you say that they are just “Catholicism”? Of course they are all “Catholic”, but we all have different personalities and different charisms. The Benedictine charism is rooted in the contemplative tradition of the Desert Fathers. It’s way too long to explain here, and some of it (to me at least) is unexplainable. It has to be lived and experienced.

And do you know of any good commentary on the Rule?

I do but it’s in French, it’s what I use daily. It’s called “Sur un chemin de liberté” by Dom Guillaume Jedrzejczak, former abbot of Mont des Cats Trappist abbey in France.

Always remember though, that the Rule was written for a place and time: 6th Century Italy. It is, today, more inspiration than legislation, and that’s particularly true for oblates.

 

[SuscipeMeDomine]

Each kind of spirituality has gifts to offer. That’s true whether someone follows the Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, Jesuits – whoever. But I don’t see how you can follow them all. So you either choose one or perhaps pick one aspect from one and another aspect from someone else. But what’s wrong with the Benedictines?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Sounds like normal Christianity to me.

You could say this about virtually every religious order and lay spirituality group.

They each have special emphases and charisms that are most apparent to those actually participating daily in the order or group spirituality. If you’re just reading it off a page, you’re not going to get it. That is why people often go visit or go on retreat with the group they are interested in. They get a sense of the personalities involved and the emphasis.

 

[OraLabora]

I think it’s helpful to add here that the Benedictines are the oldest existing Order in the Church; 1500 years is nothing to sneeze at. I started going to the monastery in 2001, the Sunday after the Sept. 11 tragedies. I started reflecting on what the world had been through during the 1500 year existence of the Benedictines, and it occurred to me that there must have been something to this spirituality. It survived world wars, genocides, the dark ages, plagues, and all the foibles of mankind.

That line of thinking led to my oblate promise just under 3 years later.

 

[jesusmademe]

I did visit a Trappist monastery but I did not see much of the monk outside of the Liturgies.
How am I to get to know the monks if I dont really get to meet them? It could be that I chose the most austere Benedictines. They do not even have oblates.
The Benedictines ussualy dont even have retreats.

 

[christofirst]

The Benedictines usually dont even have retreats.

That might be so where you live, but the two Benedictines abbeys closest to where I live, St. Andrew’s in Valyermo and Prince of Peace in Oceanside, offer retreats throughout the year. It is one of their main ministries, and much needed and appreciated in busy and stress-filled Southern California.

I am not an Oblate, but I do support and visit the abbeys when I can. I enjoy spending the day, joining in the Liturgy, and sometimes joining the monks for lunch.

You mentioned a commentary on the Rule. Esther de Waal’s “A Life-giving Way” (1995 Liturgical Press) is often recommended as a good commentary, and I can vouch for that. There is also “The Oblate Life” (2008 Liturgical Press), which is not so much a commentary on the Rule, but a series of articles from various Benedictines on the specifics of living the way of St. Benedict for those outside the monastery.