Benedictine Values Essay Sample free essay sample

Benedictine life. like that of all Christians. is first and foremost a response to God’s amazing love for world. a love expressed in the free gift of God’s beloved Son. Jesus Christ. Love. the motivation for cloistered life and its end. ace St. Benedict’s list of tools for good plants ( RB 5:10. 7:67-69. 4. 1-2 ) . Yet the Rule recognises many ways in which monks can neglect to anchor their lives in love. It sets up personal and communal patterns that deal straight with human selfishness wherever it occurs and seeks to mend the ensuing injury to one’s ego and others. Ultimately it is the power of God’s love that is decisive. Indeed. the coronating good work for the monk is â€Å"never to lose hope in God’s mercy† ( RB 4:74 ) . Prayer Benedictine schools cultivate a cardinal heed to the ways in which God is present in the human head and bosom and. We will write a custom essay sample on Benedictine Values Essay Sample or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page so. in all creative activity. St. Benedict directs that nil is to be preferred to prayer ( RB 43. 3 ) . This day-to-day experience of supplication is supported and deepened by single religious reading. a pattern that Benedictines call by its Latin name. lectio divino. Lectio divina is the slow brooding reading of Bibles and other sacred texts with the purpose of spoting how God is at work right now in the universe and naming within the individual’s ain bosom. For a cloistered. the day-to-day motion between common liturgical supplication and lectio divino opens up new infinite within where qualities and virtuousnesss such as compassion. unity and bravery can develop and turn strong. Stability Stability shapes a Benedictine manner of life. All of its members commit themselves to seeking God. They resolve to prosecute this. their heart’s deepest desire. together. twenty-four hours in and twenty-four hours out. in good times and in bad. throughout the full span of their lives. Stewardship At its nucleus the Rule seeks to further a cardinal fear toward the creative activity that God has made. St. Benedict exhorts his followings to see all the tools and goods of the monastery as the sacred vass of the communion table ( RB 31. 10 ) . Benedictine monks do non merely utilize up what has been given to them. nor do they take to populate in poorness. Alternatively. they prize good stewardship. the respectful usage of material things for the good of all. with a particular oculus to frugalness. unity of signifier and map. and the capacity of beauty to pass on the presence and power of God. HOSPITALITY St. Benedict sees Christ nowadays within the monastery in Scripture and Holy Eucharist. and in the individual of the archimandrite. abbess. the ill. and each of the members of the cloistered community. However. St. Benedict agreements particular attending to Christ’s unexpected reaching from exterior in the individual of the invitee. whom he describes alternately as hapless and as a alien. Christ nowadayss himself in the outsider’s exposure and calls the cloistered to set aside single programs and pre-occupations in order to allow the unexpected individual in. to assist them acquire established. to react to their most urgent demands. And when the foreigner comes to see being â€Å"at home† in this new topographic point. for nevertheless brief the stay. the cloistered discovers new consciousness of the common journey in which all are engaged. A approval accompanies both the offering and the receiving of cordial reception. Community Benedictine cloistered community is rooted in a peculiar topographic point in which common service. particularly in the everyday countries of mundane life. is demanded of all with no outlook of single wages. It is a challenge to lend to a life. flesh and blood community on such footings. The qualities of character that are required are nurtured by the single community’s sense of its mission. the informant of cloistered forbears and the broader Communion of saints across the ages. The imaginativeness to persist and boom in such a life is enriched through the illustration of communities across the universe – cloistered and nonmonastic. Christian and non-Christian. spiritual and non-religious – that make sustained practical attempts to further human wellbeing. frequently in the face of overpowering obstructions. Though straight grounded in a peculiar topographic point. the committednesss and aspirations of Benedictine life can merely bear fruit if they stretch to sk ylines that are genuinely cosmopolitan. JUSTICE AND PEACE The purpose of the Benedictine life is to happen peace. It is non something that we sit about and wait for – we must prosecute it. work for it. set out seeking to accomplish it. Peace is non another word for inactive or disengaged or removed from the universe. It is an active ordination of life so that peace is the result. Benedict is offering us a manner to ticket peace in our Black Marias and beyond. Peace is a characteristic of merely communities – inharmoniousness and unfairness create tenseness. green-eyed monster and irritation. Peace can non be in that environment. For peace to reign. justness is cardinal. So a Benedictine community has an built-in desire to convey about justness. This means that we recognise that there is nil in the universe that is non first in the human bosom. In all Black Marias and in our communities. we must seek peace and prosecute it. CONVERSATIO The purpose of life for Benedictines is the same as it is for all Christians – to be transformed in every portion of one’s life so that God’s really image. in which each has been created. becomes tangible and transparent. The Benedictine word for this manner of life is conversotio. the procedure of allowing travel in daily life of egoistic preoccupations and false securities so that the godly life at the nucleus of one’s being becomes manifest in a trusty form of life. Conversatio is a committedness to prosecute in patterns that over a lifetime bring about transition into the similitude of Christ and. in peculiar. Christ’s giving of ego for others. This transmutation proceeds harmonizing to little stairss ; and it is tested in unexpected ways over a life-time. To come to fruition conversatio requires stableness. subject. fidelity and resiliency. Obedience Benedictine life is unthinkable without obeisance. a value that cuts against the grain of much in modern-day life. It is frequently forgotten that the root of the word obeisance is found in audire. â€Å"to listen. † When St. Benedict begins the Rule with the exhortation â€Å"Listen. † he emphasises the stance of obeisance required of all who seek wisdom. He asks for obeisance non merely to the religious caput of the monastery. but to the other members of the community ( RB 7i: l-2 ) . Each has something of value to state about true comprehensiveness of life. For the cloistered. obeisance is seting into pattern what is learned by listening to the other â€Å"with the ear of the heart† ( RB Prol. 1 ) . Centuries of Benedictine experience show that such hearing requires a willingness to subject to imperatives outside of the ego. something that is neer easy to make. but that is profoundly honoring. Discipline Discipline is a manner of concentrating energy and attending on what matters most. Benedictine life is built around a cardinal subject of supplication. work and relationships that is set Forth in the Rule and that seeks to free people to take delectation in God’s presence within the ego. the community and the universe. New members are taught how to cultivate subject and to gain that it takes a life-time of pattern to develop to the full the accomplishments needed to populate life freely and wholeheartedly on the deepest of degrees. HUMILITY Humility is St. Benedict’s word for wisdom. He begins his drawn-out description of the 12 grades of humbleness by depicting awe at the staying presence of God and ends picturing a love that casts out fright ( RB 7 ) . The Benedictine manner of life seeks an accurate cognition of ego. a permeant consciousness of God’s presence in their lives and their dependance on others and creative activity itself. They recognise their restrictions without losing hope and accept their gifts without going arrogant because the step of their lives is non found in themselves entirely. There is ever room for extra personal growing. for giving one’s ego for the good of others.