December 14

Chapter 60

The Rule of Benedict December 14

from August:

Benedict's question from the Gospel of Matthew, "Friend, for what have you come?" is a question we would all do well to consider as we take our next steps.  Regardless of how the particulars of a Benedictine way of life are brought into our world through this community, our soul's answer to this question looks no different than the answers of those to whom Benedict posed the question in the sixth century.

The answer to Benedict's rhetorical question is found back in the Prologue.  We come to be formed in the likeness of Christ--as souls in which God is fully at home--by means, as Sr. Joan writes, of "a way of life immersed in the Scriptures, devoted to the common life, and dedicated to the development of human community . . . simple, regular, and total, a way of living . . ."