Category Archives: Monastic Practices

We have already seen in our lectio divina that it was Jesus’ practice to go away, frequently, from the crowds and from the disciples to make space and time to pray alone. Perhaps this is best conveyed to us in Mark’s Gospel (1:35): In the morning, long before dawn, he…

Strange as it may seem, each year a monastic community must make its own community retreat. The question arises, then – what is the purpose of a retreat when one already lives a life very much cut off from the usual hurly-burly of society? In fact, the question of the retreat…

One of the most effective tools for helping the work of ceaseless prayer to take place in one’s heart is the prayer which we know as the Jesus Prayer or the prayer of the invocation of the Holy Name. It is a prayer tool which has been venerated in the practice of…

The Rule of St Benedict and the way of life which grows within and out of the Benedictine-Cistercian way is a rich font of wisdom, not only for monks and nuns of that tradition but for anyone who seriously seeks God and a life lived in service of others…

Is it possible to pray without ceasing, as St Paul tells the believers in Thessalonica in his first letter to them (IThess. 5:17)? Christ himself teaches that it is possible and commends it to his followers (Luke 18:1). Certainly, to grow so that we are always turned towards God….

To keep vigil is simply to keep watch. In the Christian tradition it finds its most intense expression in Sacred Scripture as Christ prepares, in prayer to the Father, to face the events of his Passion. Having celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples, he goes into the garden at Gethsemane and…

It is often wrongly thought that Cistercian monks and nuns take a vow of silence. Instead, the Rule of St Benedict proposes a strict discipline around the use of silence in the monastic life, and so develops it, from the outset, as a tool which helps one grow in maturity in this life…

The term ‘cell’ has become one which is synonymous with religious and especially monastic-contemplative life, and yet it shocks! We think immediately of prison, of a deprivation of freedom, of limited association with others, of a regime not chosen but imposed, of punishment for crimes committed…

Fasting is never to be taken on for its own sake – it is never an end in itself, but a means to an end, or part of a broader tapestry of tools which we employ in the spiritual life. St Benedict in his Rule recommends it in as a tool for good works in Chapter 4…

Since men and women began to seek another way of approaching and finding God by leaving everything to be single-minded in their search, spiritual practices and tools have developed which have helped them as they struggled and stumbled. The practices which have given greatest assistance have stood the test of time…