Being Benedictine in the 21st Century

This weekend I will participate in a Zoom conference called “Being Benedictine in the 21st Century,” which will explore how to live the Benedictine charism in our changing world. Participants have been invited to consider what it means to be monastic and how Benedictine values can be lived out both within and outside of monasteries. Interestingly, this conference is taking place as I prepare to ask the Mount community to support my request to make final vows.

For years I searched for the way that is most conducive to living with God as the center of my life. After spending time in communities that centered around school or ministry, in a parish community, and at Shantivanam House of Prayer in Easton, Kansas, I have discerned that living in a monastic community according to the Rule of St. Benedict offers me the best avenue to follow Christ wholeheartedly. The Rule provides a structured balance of prayer, communal life, and work achieved with the tools of humility, hospitality, a listening heart, stability, simple living, and a solid leadership model.

Living in a monastery isn’t the only way to follow the Rule of St. Benedict, of course; it just happens to be the best way for me to live out my vocation. Other people are finding ways to integrate Benedictine principles into their lives as oblates, hermits, scholars, and members of alternate communities. In a way, the people who are being Benedictine according to various models are like an ecosystem—different life forms that feed each other and energize each other with the common goal of sharing life with God. It’s an appealing vision of how we can live and thrive in the diverse and inclusive kingdom of God.