Category Archives: Benedictine Spirituality

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Row Your Boat: A Nursery Rhyme and Metaphor for Life

From time to time, the Benedictine Center invites guest writers to reflect on their own spiritual journeys in ways that might be of encouragement to others. This reflection is written by Jim Dawson, an Oblate and friend of St. Paul’s Monastery. Having told this story many times in person, he now offers his version of…

Reflections on Food as a Tangible Form of Love

I want to feed people the way she did because eating is, as our fall guest speaker Norman Wirzba writes, “a profoundly spiritual act.” What we eat and how we eat—both individually and collectively—reflect our gratitude, our stewardship, our generosity, our joy, and our love.

Desire, Perseverance, Making Our Way: Reflections from the Monastic Retreat

Desire, Perseverance, Making Our Way Reflections from the Monastic Retreat On a Sunday evening in mid-June, the annual Community Retreat began at St. Paul’s Monastery. The Sisters assembled in their usual places in the glowing Chapel, lit by the summer sky in the clerestory windows, joined by several Oblates, Benedictine Associates, and me. The white…

Sharper: Benedict’s Tools for Good Works

Sharper: Benedict's Tools for Good Works “Tools of the spiritual craft.” ~RB 4 How do you know when you need to return to your foundations? Last autumn, my Dad was at my shop, and we worked together for several weeks building a couple of saddles. For us, that means cutting, shaping, and decorating thick pieces…

The Erector Set: Adapting to Others

The Erector Set “[The abbot must] accommodate and adapt himself to each one’s character and intelligence ….” – RB1980 2.32 I’m no abbot, but I am trying to adapt myself to my son’s character. Toby’s a little like a cat—he’s stubborn and private, and I have to coax him to get him to come to…

Did You Know . . . ? | 35 Quick Facts About the Benedictine Center

Did You Know . . . ? 35 quick facts about the Benedictine Center compiled by Nancy Cicero, Oblate 35. The Vision of the Benedictine Center is to be “a sacred threshold between St. Paul’s Monastery and the wider world.” 34. The Benedictine Center embodies the values of the Monastic Community by: Extending radical hospitality;…

Transformative Change: Letting God Set the Agenda

CONTENT CREDIT: This article first appeared at www.pivotpointministries.org and is reprinted with permission. Transformative Change Letting God Set the Agenda When it comes to the human condition and a desire to change, we can become easily frustrated: we think that we want to change . . . but we really don’t. Paul expresses this contradiction…

Stability: The Benedictine Value of Locatedness

Stability The Benedictine Value of Locatedness An old saying touts, “Location, location, location” as the key to property value. Benedictine spirituality also values location, but not the way your real estate broker might. A prominent Benedictine principle is stability, or staying put within a particular community rather than continually traveling on to somewhere else. For…

Practice

Practice We all intuitively use the word practice in at least two ways that we don’t even think about anymore. The first is the idea of doing something to improve your performance for a specific task. I had football practice and my daughter has oboe practice. The second way we talk about practice is the…

Retreat: Making Time to Remember Our Belovedness

Retreat Making Time to Remember Our Belovedness Life’s challenges have a way of growing up all around us. I sometimes picture myself standing in a field surrounded by weeds I cannot see over. I do my best to push them out of the way, look around them, and pretend like they are not there. But,…

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