Community

  For Benedictines the Gospel value of community is primary.  When Jesus began His public ministry He gathered a group of disciples and formed a community.  At the last supper his final instruction to those disciples was to wash one another’s feet.  In the Acts of the Apostles we are told that the first Christians lived in community.  They prayed together, ate together, and shared all things in common.   
 
St. Benedict patterns his community on these early models. In his Rule he calls the monastic way of life a “School of the Lord’s Service”.  The service he is talking about is the love we have for one another.   He instructs his monks to “bear one another’s burdens whether of body or of character and so fulfill the law of Christ.”  We learn how to love the Lord, not in isolated individualism, but by communion, by being with others and learning how to recognize Christ in them, respecting the other accordingly.
 
For Benedict, community life is practice for dwelling in God’s Kingdom.  It’s not heavenly bliss!  There can be friction among a diversity of people living closely together, but that is part of the asceticism of the monastic life. Through one another and with one another, we journey to our personal and all loving God.

At the heart of Benedictine community life is prayer together: the Liturgy of the Hours.  It is a work of praise to the Lord and for the world.  In reference to this communal prayer, St. Benedict in his wisdom counsels, “Prefer nothing to the Work of God.”  Community Life and Prayer, both together and alone, are monastic priorities.  Ministry flows from these.  
 
In his time, Benedict instructed his monks to serve Christ in pilgrims and the poor.  Through the centuries, as society has changed, our public ministries have changed as well. Our core mission, however, remains.  We live our monastic calling to community sustained by prayer and by presence to one another and reach out in service in response to the needs of the times.