Chapter 1: Four approaches to monastic life

Let us leave them to themselves and turn to the strongest kind, the cenobites, so that with the Lord's help we may consider the regulation of their way of life. (From para. 5 of Ch. 1 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

The mystery of the WCCM Oblates, the mystery of our "new form" of community which involves not only a monastery without walls but also, for many of us, physical separation from other Oblates -- where does this mystery get its power?  I believe, from the creative silence of meditation, from the power of our mutual fidelity to this discipline and to the Benedictine widsom tradition. The Spirit leads us to "new forms" --  to "regulation", as St. Benedict says. I live into a more and more ordered life through our community, finding order in the mystery, through the gift of the Spirit.