|
|
| What makes up our life ? We seek God in community, under a Rule and an abbess. We bind ourselves to
this community through a vow of stability. With this vow, we promise to remain faithful to
the community we have entered.
Our life is characterised by three pillars: The
Work of God, the work of our hands, and reading. |
The first pillar:
The Work of God as found in the Rule of St.
Benedict, is the Divine Office sung in choir. We come together seven times a day to sing
God’s praises in our abbey church. We stand in God’s presence in the name of all
humankind, because we believe that “where two or three are gathered in his Name,
there HE is, in our midst.” In this way we are able to be there for every person who
asks to be remembered whenever we gather for prayer.
The Work of God binds our monastic day together into a harmonious whole. |
 |
|
|
The second pillar, Work,
and especially the work of our hands, is also an important part of the monastic day. The
Bible urges us on. St. Benedict says that a monk must live by the work of his hands. He
doesn’t exclude any sort of work, rather he quotes the verse of Scripture that has
become the motto of Benedictine monasticism: “that in all things God may be
glorified.” (RB 57) Work is never demeaning. It is a part of everyone’s personal
development. It also has a social function, a sharing in the responsibility for sustaining
the community |
|
The third pillar, Reading
is the monk’s spiritual nourishment. Just as the body needs food to remain healthy,
so must the soul have food in order to remain healthy. Study is not excluded either, but
the goal is always as a means to a more intense search for God. The common life is
fundamental. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who himself established a community that lived together,
wrote about the “common life”:
“We
are able to be alone only when living in community, and only those who can be alone are
able to live in community. They both belong to each other. It’s not that one precedes
the other, but that both begin at the same time, when Jesus Christ calls a person to this
life.” |
|
|
We try to become community
- as St. Benedict expresses it - by:
- letting Christ always be present;
- being zealous in showing respect for one other;
- bearing each other’s weaknesses with the
greatest patience;
- striving to obey one another;
- seeking not one’s own advantage, but rather what
is good for the other. (St. Benedict)
To live in this way is a daily challenge. You
yourself have not chosen your sisters. They come from a different part of the country, a
different way of life, etc. Each has her own background, and to live together with one
another in harmony is a real challenge. This is how St. Benedict, in correspondence with
the Gospel, shows us a way that leads to God. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
