Chapter 58: The reception of candidates for the community (paragraphs 4-5)

When the decision is made that novices are to be accepted, then they come before the whole community in the oratory to make solemn promise of stability, fidelity to monastic life and obedience. (From para. 4 of Ch. 58 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

St. Benedict teaches me that the monk is one who seeks God. Through meditation I've come to appreciate the wisdom of the Rule, that this inward seeking is best realized community. The solemn promises Benedict names apply to to the totality of my journey inward and outward. Somehow, in this knitting together of the inward and the outward, the monastery without walls is formed.