Traditional Benedictine Spirituality

[OraLabora]

I would be pointing first to virtues such as listening, balance and moderation, humility, obedience, dedication to work and prayer, cultivation of silence, self-discipline and so forth.

Agree completely. The difference between an oblate and a monk is one of degrees… the doing. For monk at Solesmes, for instance, “praying” includes saying the entire 7 daily offices according to St. Benedict’s schema (psalms recited 255 times a week) and chanted in Latin no less, in addition to lectio, etc.

One oblate who happened to be a very busy mother told me she was lucky if she could squeeze in Compline at the end of a day, if she wasn’t too exhausted.

It is possible for either of them to live to the spirit of St. Benedict’s rule, if not the letter. The point is not whether the mother can find time to do an entire slate of daily offices whether on the monastic schema or the much lighter Liturgy of the Hours: the point is that she makes a point to incorporate a prayer routine into her daily life as a means of balance and nourishing the other virtues.

The common element between a monk and an oblate is the state of being; of learning how to attain and practice the Benedictine virtues, which for most of us, monk or oblate, is a lifelong learning process. The Rule is as much, if not more, a book of wisdom as it is a book of laws. If all one does is use the Rule to follow the rules, one misses the point entirely.

 

[Terra_Australia]

On the ‘its a matter of degrees’ point, I agree but I think there is a concrete dividing line.

For a monk the Rule must have something of a legislative emphasis first (albeit mediated by the constitutions of their house or congregation), since they really do have to practice custody of the eyes and follow some of the other concrete provisions of it such as obedience to superiors, as well as looking to the Rule as a spiritual guide. For an Oblate, the emphasis is reversed: the Rule is a spiritual document first, and its legislative provisions must necessarily be greatly adapted and commuted.

St Benedict for example, castigates monks who sing less than the weekly psalter (ch 18), something cheerfully ignored by many (non-Solesmes!) monks and nuns; but no-one could rightly, in my view, criticise the busy mother who manages to squeeze in Compline.

Both Oblates and monks though, can look to the example of St Benedict and his lay and religious followers as set out in his life.