As communities of women in the Federation of Saint Benedict, we are rooted in the common experience of humanity. As members of the Church we grow in relationship with God and one another. We follow Christ in the cenobitic monastic tradition according to the Rule of Saint Benedict. Committed to Benedictine life through our monastic profession, we seek with all other faithful Christians to hasten the coming of the kingdom of God in its fullness.
I. The Mystery Of the Church
By her relationship with Christ, the Church is a kind of sacrament or sign of intimate union with God, and of the unity of all. She is also an instrument for the achievement of such union and unity.
The Church is the mystery of God among us. Within this visible community on earth, we continually encounter God who knows and loves us faithfully. We know what it means to be the Church when we experience the presence of a God who saves us and gives our hearts hope and love beyond our powers.
The redeeming experience of knowing Jesus the Lord and of sharing our faith in him gives strength and life to the Church. Jesus is the focal point and goal of all human history. Through his dedicated and total commitment to God, he has given witness of a faithful response from humanity to a loving God. In him we know the power of dying and rising, of redeeming the time in which we live. In him we contemplate a vision of hope for the renewal of all people to the glory of God.
Within the Church it is our joy to initiate new members in baptism and invoke the Spirit of God upon them. We express our unity in the Eucharist and in the celebration of reconciliation. We bless covenants of love in marriage and call forth and anoint others from our midst to serve the people of God. Finally, we support the sick and offer prayerful hope and love to those in transition from life on earth to the fullness of life in glory.
As the people of God, we have been called together by the Spirit to show forth the life and mission of Jesus; thus we become instruments of continuing revelation. Together with the visible representative of Christ on earth, we are all commissioned to serve in accord with the principles of collegiality and co- responsibility.
We are a pilgrim Church, a people already on our way to God, still subject to trials, while longing for future fulfillment. Experiencing the power of the risen Lord in the gift of the Spirit, we witness to God's fidelity.
The Creator's unconditional and faithful love is expressed in a universal call to holiness. Some of God's people respond to this call by choosing life in a monastic community, as we have. The covenant that we affirm in community life is one sign of Christ's saving action in his Church. This covenant identifies us within today's world and points beyond this world to the fullness of the kingdom.
II. The Mystery of Cenobitic Monastic Life
II. The Mystery of Cenobitic Monastic Life
Not to us, Lord, not to us give the glory, but to your name alone.
Together with all other Christians, we who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict rejoice that we share in the mysteries of redeemed creation. Called by our loving Creator, we desire to walk in God's presence, to be adopted children in the Spirit, and to live in the pattern of Jesus Christ humbled even to crucifixion, now risen and glorified. Firmly rooted in the fertile earth from which we come and on which we live, we humbly accept both the gifts and the limitations of our human condition. We have chosen the monastic environment in order to be formed in our search for God by the gospel and the Rule of Saint Benedict, by a living tradition, and by community customs.
Our way of discipleship is summed up in the twelve degrees of humility. With eagerness for the work of God, for obedience and for trials, we desire to be stripped of any false identity so that our conformity to Christ may be more clearly revealed. We strive together for fidelity in our personal dying and rising, believing that we encounter the incarnate Lord in the ordinary events and relationships of daily monastic living. Difficult and burdensome though our nature may find this way, we learn to see with faith beyond time to eternity. We come to know and experience the joy and peace of a life in union with others whose prayer and example are mutually sustaining.
The Spirit bestows gifts on us in the word of God and the sacraments of the Church and in the more intimate circles of community life, worship, and ministry. We are thus set free to seek God who in love draws near US. Whoever perseveres in this quest will discover the truth of Benedict's promise: with hearts expanded, it is possible to run the way of God with inexpressible sweetness of love.
Community
Wherever we may be, we are in the service of the same Lord. May he bring us all together to everlasting life.
A community of Benedictine women is constituted and continues in existence as long as individual Christians respond to God's call to a cenobitic monastic way of life. It is within such a community that our lifelong search for God takes place. We are guided and sustained in our quest by the gospel, the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the General and Specific Norms of the Federation of Saint Benedict and Its Member Monasteries, 1987 and subsequent revisions in 2000.
The prioress by her love and service is the spiritual leader in the community, a visible sign of Christ's presence. Directed by the gospel, the Rule, and these norms, she carries out her role of unifying, teaching, healing, and administering. She encourages discerning leadership among all the members, and herself exemplifies courage, gentleness, and discretion. She seeks to foster an atmosphere conducive to personal growth. With freedom and integrity, she is open to developing ministries and to continuing traditional works.
As persons committed to live a common life under the Rule of Saint Benedict and a prioress, we challenge each other to develop our gifts and live joyfully and responsibly. Mutual love and esteem for one another urge us to become what we are called to be, one in Christ. Living in community can be a prophetic sign of communion with God and of peace among all peoples.
Monastic Profession
I have come not to do my own will. Do not disappoint me in my hope.
By the grace of God we are committed in baptism to a life of faith, hope, and love. Monastic profession opens us further to this mystery of life in God begun in baptism. In daily living we seek and find God through the threefold promise of stability, conversatio and obedience. Christian monastic tradition holds that celibate chastity and monastic poverty are also indispensable to the common life.
Stability
God's own fidelity empowers us to remain in divine love and in solidarity with one another through our commitment to stability. Divine mercy is mediated to us in a community where the reconciling ministry of Jesus is realized through loving confrontation, both affirinative and corrective. When we profess stability, we promise to persevere in our search for God, and to assume mutual responsibility for cherishing the ideals of the Rule of Saint Benedict and the tradition and customs of our particular monastery.
Conversatio
This life to which we are professed is, itself an expression of the paschal mystery. We enter into the dying of Jesus that we may rise with him by embracing a life of monastic conversatio. We live out our promise of fidelity to the monastic way of life through daily acceptance of our human condition and steadfast dedication to community life. Experience of God's healing prompts us again and again to turn to our Creator. Relying on faithful love, we are gradually transformed.
Obedience
United by the bond of stability, we listen attentively to the Spirit present in God's word, in the prioress, in one another, in the Church, and in society today. Imitating Christ even to his death, we strive by the toil of obedience to incline our hearts freely to carry out God's will. Obedience to one another in community is authentic when rooted in obedience to God.
As the Spirit draws us into the intimacy of divine life, we grow in love for God and one another. Close personal union with Jesus is at the heart of celibate chastity; it is the basis for our friendships and all our human relationships. Celibate love is expressed in warm, nongenital affection, and respect.
The recognition that all we are and have comes ftom a generous, provident God is essential to our observance of monastic poverty. With reverence for creation we hold goods in common and strive for simplicity of life and responsible stewardship. Monastic poverty is both a sign and means of unity and peace in Benedictine life.
We are humbly aware that our monastic profession is only a beginning of that perfection to which we are called by the gospel and the Rule. We believe that together with all who have good zeal and joy in the Spirit, we are hastening to the heavenly homeland which God has prepared for those who live in divine love.
Worship
Nothing is to be preferred to the work of God.
Faithful to the rhythm of communal prayer established in the Rule of Saint Benedict, we center our worship in the liturgy. Allowing the word of God to resonate in the Liturgy of the Hours, we give voice to all creation. We praise God with the beauty of sound and silence, movement and sacred space. Jesus Christ himself is present in the people gathered for worship, in Scripture, in the sacraments, and in the ministers. It is especially in the Eucharist that Jesus the Lord is among us. This sacred remembrance of the presence of God is the integrating force for all dimensions of our life as Benedictine women.
Out of fidelity to monastic tradition, we value Scripture as our primary source for lectio divina and reflective prayer. In pondering and celebrating the Word, we receive the life-giving presence of Christ. This Word creates a contemplative dimension which opens us to the Spirit who unceasingly prays in us. Promptings of the Spirit come to us in our daily community life, in the providential unfolding of events, in communal celebrations of reconciliation and anointing, and in moments of shared prayer. To the degree that we allow the indwelling Spirit to direct our prayer through lectio divina, study, silence, and contemplation, our hearts will be in harmony with our voices.
The call to pray requires both external and internal self-discipline, as well as the support and example of the community. A diligent pursuit of order and inner stillness, and of leisure cultivated for the sake of prayer, merits priority in our personal lives.
Hospitality
All guests are to be welcomed as Christ.
Benedictine hospitality has its roots in the example and teaching of Jesus. Following him we team to identify with the stranger, especially the poor, the oppressed, the afflicted, and the needy. In accord with the Rule of Saint Benedict and our traditions, we receive guests with gracious respect and joyful service. Those with whom we associate daily have special claim on our hospitality.
Hospitality means sharing what we have, who we are, and what we value. We invite our guests to be with us to listen to the Word of God in community prayer, to celebrate Eucharist, to sham our common table, and to enjoy monastic peace. Guests in turn enrich the community as they help us discover anew the face of Christ and extend the boundaries of our love and concern.
Ministry
When they live by the labor of their hands, then they are really monastic.
These are the tools of the spiritual craft used in the enclosure of the monastery.
Within the redemptive mission of the Church, our primary work as a community of Benedictine women is to seek God in a life of prayer and service. The Rule of Saint Benedict, while specifying no particular work, affirms both manual and intellectual work as essential to monastic life. Furthermore, our work includes cultivation of the arts in our monastic environs while safeguarding the balance of prayer, labor, and leisure.
The grace of preferring nothing to Christ impels us to hear God's call manifested in the needs of the local Church. We minister to these needs as they become apparent and as our gifts and resources allow. In our ministries we seek to be a humanizing influence on our culture. 'Bus we offer hope to those in need as we spend ourselves to advance the Kingdom of God on earth.
III. The Mystery of Our Mission in the World
Sources
Apostolicam Actuositatem - Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity
Ad Gentes - Decree on the Church's Missionary Activity
Of All Good Gifts - Statement on Stewardship in the Lives of American Benedictine Sisters
Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life, SCRIS, 1981
Dialogues of St. Gregory
Dei Verbum - Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation
General and Specific Norms of the Federation of Saint Benedict and Its Member Monasteries, 1987
Gaudium et Spes - Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modem World
Lumen Gentium - Dogmatic Constitution on the Church
Perfectae Caritatis - Decree on the Appropriate Renewal of Religious Life
RB 1980: The Rule of Saint Benedict
Religious Life and Human Promotion. SCRIS, 1981
Sacrosanctum Concilium - Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy
Of Time Made Holy - Statement on the Liturgy of the Hours in the Lives of American Benedictine Sisters
Upon This Tradition - Statement of Monastic Values in the lives of American Benedictine Sisters
You Alone Must Dare - Commissioned by the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses; published 1980
I. The Mystery of the Church
