The Common Life

Community is a fact of Benedictine life. We are a defined group, choosing to live according to the Rule of Benedict, with a common purpose of seeking God. Do I feel that it works, that it helps me in my search for God? Yes. Do I find it easy? Sometimes, not always.

I had lived alone for a number of years before I entered the monastery, and I loved it. It's often said that women who enter are seeking community, but that wasn't really true for me. I felt called to to this place and this way of life, and the community kind of came with it. I don't think I'd ever thought about community, whether I wanted it or not, before I entered. I've been fortunate throughout my life to have mutually supportive relationships and I was very satisfied with what I had in that respect. I also loved having my own home and being able to spend time on my own.

I feel I ought to say now that coming to live in a large community (our motherhouse, where I live, houses about 140) was a huge adjustment, but it wasn't. I guess I just plunged in, and I felt accepted. I haven't always got everything right and I've discovered that the place is full of human beings! This means that we sometimes irritate one another, occasionally hurt one another or misjudge another's motives or actions; we don't always think the same way about things. Amazingly, however, we seem to live in a fair degree of harmony. I put this down to our common purpose of seeking God. Essentially, it seems that this common purpose is what marks out a monastic community from other types of community: the common endeavor focused on seeking God, the common life of prayer, the common table. We are cenobitic monastics, meaning we seek God together in the sense that our common life provides the framework for our seeking of God.

The rub of community life and of trying to understand the other (because you are going to have to keep on living with her - you can't go home and close the door on her) is a seminal part how monastic life can transform us. However, if living in community provides challenges, it also provides gifts. There is always someone to turn to for help and support, who can understand what you're experiencing and, because our life is directed essentially towards seeking God, we are able together to create a framework which helps each individual woman deepen her search. A phrase from the monk, Thomas Merton, has stayed with me. It's to the effect that Community is not about forced togetherness. At its best, I see it as an intentional gathering of like-minded people who, in the externals of background and interests, may be very different, but manage to channel their diversity so that each can contribute to the building of a unity of purpose: seeking God.

Lectio Divina

Lectio divina is a Latin phrase which translates as 'holy reading'. It occupies an essential place in Benedictine life. Benedictines rate all education, study and reading highly, but lectio divina (often referred to just as lectio) is a slow, meditative way of reading the scriptures or other holy text which concentrates on what the words are saying to me, personally, at this time, rather than on information or facts.

I have always loved reading so, when I came to our monastery as a visitor and had an opportunity to learn how to do lectio, I seized it. I wasn't disappointed. This was at the stage where I was thinking where I should go with my life and my introduction to lectio was one of the elements that helped me to understand how I was being called to monastic life.

Now, it's easy to keep doing something when you first start and are swept up on a tide of enthusiasm. The challenge came when I realized that I was supposed to do lectio every day, not as part of "class" with a definite meeting time. This meant finding a space in my busy day to sit and read a passage several times, prayerfully, trying not be distracted by what I needed to get done next. As I look back, it seems to me that the discipline of forming the habit of daily lectio has been as important as the activity itself. It becomes a means of setting aside time to be with God. The Rule of Benedict is about seeking God, and you simply can't do that if you don't have specific times in the day that are intentionally devoted to doing just that. This isn't to say that I don't find God in my interactions with people, because I do, both within the community and the world outside. Indeed, God is always present, but lectio, Eucharist, LoH and personal prayer are times when I deliberately make myself aware of the presence of God. In saying that time alone with and for God is necessary, I am not implying that it's the only thing that matters. Rather, it's about ensuring that our lives are fully integrated.

Just a final word, so you don't get the impression I'm now perfectly disciplined. I have days when my timetable goes haywire or I don't make the best choices about my priorities. I need help sometimes to keep focused. That's where community can be a gift. There's a sister who often asks me what my lectio today was. That spurs me on to make myself do it, not so much because I don't want to admit I didn't, but because it tells me somebody cares and that she cares because she knows that it matters.

Eucharist: Desire and Discipline

The Rule of Saint Benedict does not specify how frequently monastics should attend the Eucharist (Mass). Mostly it has not been an option to attend daily, and that holds true for many women's communities today. However, here at Saint Benedict's we are blessed to have priests come most days from Saint John's Abbey, located about six miles away, and to have the local parish church practically in our back yard.


Since not everyone who reads this blog is Catholic, I'll  say a little about the Eucharist in the Catholic faith. Our belief is that when the priest consecrates the bread and wine, it becomes the true Body and Blood of Christ. It is not simply a remembrance or a symbol. Christ is really present on the altar: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. This great mystery of faith is called the Real Presence.


When I was converted to Roman Catholicism, belief in the Real Presence was central to my conversion experience. However, I have never previously lived a life where daily attendance at Eucharist was possible. In the years before I entered the monastery, however, my desire to attend Sunday Mass became deeper. Participating fed my sense of mystery and connection with the divine. Entering the monastery provided the opportunity to attend Mass and receive Communion every day. You might suppose I was pleased by that. Not so.


Now, I should say that we are not forced to attend daily, nor is it always possible. So, I had some freedom of choice here. Initially, I went most days but I started to feel that my longing for Communion was blunted  by the frequency, and so I would take "days off". Somehow, that never felt satisfactory. I couldn't find the perfect formula for number of attendances per week. This is where living as part of a community of women seeking God helped me to move on. Over the years (note, I grew slowly into my present position), I talked with various sisters about daily Eucharist and a recurrent theme seemed to be that if you discipline yourself to keep going, your desire to go grows deeper. I never made a conscious decision to begin going whenever it was possible, but somehow eased into it, and I'm finding they were right. I go whether I feel emotionally drawn to attend or not. It is an act of will, a choice which I now see as another way that I put my trust in God and give myself over to the path I've chosen to follow. Like so much in monastic life, it rarely yields a huge "high", but if I look back over the weeks and months, I see how my sense of Christ has deepened, and how the expectation that it will continue to deepen feeds my desire to attend.

Liturgy of the Hours

In my last post, I made the point that the Liturgy of the Hours (LoH) is our central community act, when three times a day we come together to pray. In this post, I'm going to explore what it feels like to commit to this and the effect that participating has on my spiritual life.

When I first started attending LoH, I thought it was wonderful, directly and perceptibly uplifting to me. It was like a fix three times a day. I have learned that this was part of the honeymoon. There are still times when a line suddenly strikes me from a psalm and seems to speak directly to me; times when our chanting seems to put me on another plane and I am drawn beyond myself; times when I become acutely conscious that not only am I bound together with my community in this activity, but that we are encompassing the whole world as we pray. These experiences are the ideals of what LoH should be. Would that it were always so!

On a bad day, I am distracted by things like pace, delivery, the scenery outside, my own thoughts, etc., etc. It is certainly not now the case that every time I attend LoH I have a good experience. So, why do I keep going? Well, after the initial delight wore off, it became a matter of choice, self-discipline and trust. I accepted that I was freely choosing to commit to this life and that LoH was an essential part of that commitment. Therefore, I had to discipline myself to attend, whether I wanted to or not. This is not as strange as it may seem. I recognized that in saying I felt called to this life, I was looking to be changed by it, to draw closer to God and I couldn't know if it would effect those things if I didn't live it fully. I guess that led to me to practice (practise, if you're English) the virtue of perseverance. I carry on going through dry times, trusting that I will finally reap a benefit in terms of my spiritual journey.

Unfortunately, I can't end by saying that I've had a great epiphany. I'm basically still persevering, but as I persevere, I am becoming dimly aware of being changed. Some of it is that the regular and frequent attendance at LoH has made God feel more pivotal in my life; I'm more conscious of the divine threading through the day, but beyond that is also a sense that I'm changed within, that I myself am threaded through the divine. I trust that, if I continue to persevere, I will continue to change, grow and draw closer to God.

Living the Life

In the next weeks, I'm going to continue focusing on particular topics, rather than reverting to a chronological story of my vocation.This is because, when the the honeymoon time as a postulant was over, I started living into what it means to commit myself to this life. One of the things I've come to realize is that one keeps learning and going deeper but the issues themselves don't change. Helpful images that sisters has given me to describe this process are that it's like a spiral: you move upward, but you're also going round and round, or that it's like peeling an onion: you think you've learned something, then you find there's another skin to peel and you learn again.

In order for you to make sense of some of the topics I'll be dealing with, it will be helpful to have some insight into what living in the monastery is like. Contrary to popular perception, we do not float around all day meditating, undisturbed by normal activities like work or doing the laundry. Life in a monastery is very full. Our day is divided between prayer, work and recreation. Communal prayer, known as Liturgy of the Hours (LoH), is our central community act. Our prayer is rooted in scripture, particularly the psalms. Our regular schedule is to pray together three times a day (early morning, noon, evening), and to attend Mass. Health permitting, sisters work either in compensated positions outside the monastery or in some form of community service; this is because we have to pay the bills and keep the monastery functioning. Three meals a day are served in our refectory and joining together at the common table is important for us, relaxing and enjoying food and conversation. You may notice that the pronoun 'we' has come up a lot. This is significant because the basis of Benedictine living is community: we go to God together.

I wouldn't like you to get the impression that we are clones. Quite the reverse! There are many characters living in community and ideally we are all seeking God as our own authentic selves. This means that if a sister has a particular gift or talent she is encouraged to use it, but always for the good of the community. It means that we choose our own friends, but not in such a way that we exclude others. It means that we can be sociable or choose solitude, but always bearing in mind how our choice affects the community. It is difficult to achieve a position of perfect poise; in fact, I have discovered that failing to do so, and trying again, is an intrinsic part of monastic life. It is an aspect of perseverance which is essential to monastic living.

Rule of Benedict

As Benedictines, we commit to living according to the Rule of St. Benedict, written in the sixth century. March 21 is St. Benedict's feast day, so it seems appropriate today to pose the question: Why would a woman living in 21st century America (or England), choose to live a life whose pattern was laid down by a man, in Italy, 1,500 years ago? I'm setting myself quite a challenge by trying to answer this in 250 words, but here goes...

Much of the Rule gives very practical instruction about how to live daily life. Fundamentally, it takes a holistic view of human beings (body, mind and spirit) through advocating a life of prayer, work, reading and adequate rest. Through the centuries, it has been adapted to suit the time and local conditions, something for which Benedict makes provision. However, there are underlying essentials which are as necessary and precious today as they were to Benedict's own community. It is these that I want to unravel.

For me, the first essential is that Benedict puts God as the primary focus, and seeking God as the essential activity in our lives. Secondly, all through the Rule, he calls us to be our authentic selves. Benedict's community is not about conformity, but about common purpose. The common purpose is seeking God, but each person does it as a unique individual. For Benedict, developing our authenticity comes through humility. By humility, he absolutely does NOT mean having a low opinion of ourselves or exhibiting false modesty. He means that we have to accept ourselves as the flawed human beings that we are, understand our total dependence on God, as opposed to ourselves or others, and understand that God loves us exactly as we are. As we come to develop this true understanding of ourselves, we become more and more able to accept the shortcomings of others, and not just tolerate them, but love them in all their humanness.

Of course, this doesn't happen overnight: it requires patience, perseverance and trust during dark times. It is achieved through struggle, and Benedict's practical "rules" for how we should conduct our lives are intended as a guide to help us manage the struggle. In future blogs I shall be reflecting on the practices of our daily life. Today, I'm content to realize that the reason the Rule calls me is because it grounds me, teaching me to love through humility, and to draw closer to God through loving.

Discerning Discernment

As a postulant, novice and woman in first profession, I have been in the stage of monastic life known as initial formation. This is the time when a woman learns about monastic life, in theory and in practice, and reflects on whether this really is what God is calling her to. In other words, it's a time of discernment: in this context, specifically religious discernement.

I'm going to be really honest and confess that, although I'd heard the term used many times, and understood its meaning, I wasn't really clear how I should actually do it. Were there definite steps, a protocol? How did I distinguish what God was telling me from what I merely fancied doing? Did other people know some secret method I didn't? I can say that over these years of initial formation, I have come to a deeper understanding of what discernment is (I had, in fact, being doing it for many years), but I have to warn you that we are back in murky water here, so please abandon any hope that I shall be offering an ABC guide!

What I can say about my call to monastic life is that when I let it in, it was the working of grace. My part was to choose to open myself sufficiently to allow grace to work in me. It seems to me that free will and choice are seminal to the discernment process. Making the choice to desire to desire to be open to God, and God's grace, is a prayer in itself, a prayer which will be answered. You don't have to do anything other than decide that you want the gift of an open heart. Actually, beyond that, you can't do anything because you're not in control. You can't seize the grace, earn or merit it; you part is to desire it and accept it when it's given. When it is, and you recognize in that inner part of your being that God is working in you, a practical help that I have found comes from a Jesuit discernment practice. Imagine the path you might be called to follow - does it feel like water dripping onto a hard rock and bouncing off, or does it feel like water dripping onto a sponge and being soaked up? If the latter, then it is probably the right path.

For me, entering the monastery has always felt like water soaking into a sponge. However, that doesn't mean that I don't get distracted and irritated by the difficulties that are part of daily living, and sometimes they make me feel I'd rather be a million miles away in some other life. At these times, I find it helpful to go back to the moment of enlightenment, when God felt so close and the call so clear,  and ask myself, "Has anything really happened that negates the truth of that moment?" No. So I dust myself down and keep going.

A final word: discernment is ultimately not about knowing, but about trusting