St. Benedict’s Guide to Life

A Modern Take on Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today

Based on Wisdom Distilled From the Daily, by Joan Chittister, OSB

Edited by Nancy Pfaff, M.A.

BACK    HOME

 

  1. Listen
    1. To the Gospels
    2. To one another
    3. To the world around us
  2. Pray
    1. The Psalms [Psalms For Praying, an Invitation to Wholeness, by Nan C. Merrill
    2. Bring to prayer the whole life task of becoming fully human.
    3. Note:  No one finds time for prayer.  The time must be taken.
  3. Be Attentive
    1. Open your awareness to the presence of God.
  4. Love
    1. Support, empower and learn from others.
    2. “He is my brother, She is my sister.”
    3. I am loved with an everlasting love by God through Christ.
    4. It is what I have cared for that I grow to care about.
  5. Face Reality
    1. Learn to seek from within yourself.
    2. Accept being embodied and therefore having limitations.  Accept the limitations of others as well as your own.
    3. Respect God as involved in your life and this world.
    4. Acknowledge my mortality.
    5. Accept difficulties with patience and do not give up.
    6. Practice self disclosure of faults as well as out good character.
    7. Be content with less.
    8. Give
    9. Learn to take criticism
    10. Listen and learn from truth passed down the ages.
    11. Speak gently, humbly and seriously with sensible words.
  6. Open up
    1. Keep an open heart toward God and to those around you.
    2. “Life is a set of weaknesses in search of wholeness.”
  7. Use time wisely (It cannot be recovered and must not be taken for granted.)
    1. Be careful that our wants are not confused with our needs and treat the world and everything in it as sacred.
    2. Harmony, balance and awareness:  Walk through life smelling the flowers.
  8. Think
    1. Reflect about life every day
    2. Sleep well
    3. Don’t demand the best of everything.
  9. Work
    1. Do what you can to get more human and make the world more just.
    2. You have been given gifts to help others; they have been given gifts to help you.  “Work is my gift to the world, it is my social fruitfulness.”
  10.   Rest & Play
    1. Benedict’s Schedule

                                                              i.      4 hours of prayer

                                                            ii.      6-9 hours for work

                                                          iii.      7-9 hours for sleep

                                                           iv.      3 hours for eating and rest

                                                             v.      3 hours for reading and reflection

    1. A good life is thoughtful, not only productive.  Why are you doing what you are doing and what results are being produced?
    2. Real play includes activities done for no purpose at all except the release and recapture of energy.  It makes a human more human by engaging the heart and broadening the vision and deepening the insight and stretching the soul.
    3. “There are some kinds of uselessness that are essential.”
  1.   Practice Hospitality
    1. Go out of ourselves for someone else at least once a day.
  2.   Be interdependent
    1. Sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow; sometimes you help, sometimes you receive help.
  3.   Learn to Wait
    1. Commit to “seeing it through.”  This enables you to outlast the dark, cold places of life until the thaw comes and you can see new life again.
    2. Learn to wait through the winters of your life.
    3. Wait for no other reason than to discover with an open mind and accepting heart who you are, what you are expected to give, and what you are to learn in this situation.
  4.   Have Peace in your Heart
    1. Be soft with others.
    2. Be simple in your needs.
    3. Be humble in what you demand of life.
    4. Be giving in what you take to life.
    5. Walk through life lightly.
  5.   Recognize God
    1. Look for God in your own life.