Prayer, Study, and Work: Renewing the Benedictine Ideal

In "Prayer, Study, and Work," Daniel J. Heisey succinctly explores what Benedictines and other Christians immersed in a modern suburban culture can still learn from the vision of monastic saints such as Benedict and Basil. Using the documents of the Second Vatican Council and other texts, Heisey meditates on ways to pursue a path of renewal through the Benedictine ideals of prayer, study, and work.

Selected Text from the Preface and Introduction

These essays began in the spring of 2013 as conferences given to novice and junior monks at Saint Vincent Archabbey, Latrobe, Pennsylvania. These six essays point out some aspects of the Purgative, Illuminative, and Unitive Ways and conclude with a few words on the Virgin Mary as a model for monks. Although what follows is not a work of critical scholarship, sources of quotations are given in notes at the end, and there is a brief bibliography of twenty books for further reading. Those books will direct the reader to dozens more books in the field of monastic studies.

While these reflections place emphasis upon how to develop spiritually in the Benedictine way, there may be elements worth applying to other approaches to the Christian life. For example, though much of what follows may seem to apply only to monks and nuns, oblates and others will be able to find in it something useful. Oblates have a great gift for taking something esoteric and seemingly fit only for the cloister and turning it into something practical for spiritual life out in the world.

In any case, I hope to have handed on a distilled form, a sketch of the classic understanding of the course and contours of Christian spirituality. I hope not to have said anything new, since after two thousand years saying something new probably means saying something wrong. In the event that I have stumbled upon something novel and erroneous, however, I reject it outright, deferring to the accumulated wisdom of the Church.

One of the more amusing spectacles in Benedictine monastic life is listening to monks or nuns evaluating over coffee or tea and danish or croissants which monasteries are really Benedictine. Each monastery, each congregation of monasteries, deems itself to be the gold standard of the Benedictine ideal. The truth is that each, from the most active to the most contemplative, has its role to play. Nevertheless, there is no escaping the fact that, despite particular or peculiar differences from place to place, there must be enough in common amongst all these monasteries claiming to be Benedictine for anyone to recognize them as such.

How to reinforce if vigorous or reclaim if faded those common elements is the purpose of these pages. With its obligation to instruct novice and junior monks, each monastery has a chance to pass on the best of the monastic way of life. Those monks, generally young and new to the monastic Rule and traditions, are beginning what is hoped to be a lifelong process of growth, growth deeper in union with Christ.

A novice has his baptismal vows, a junior has his temporary monastic vows, and both novice and junior discern whether to ask to profess final (or solemn) vows. Even after solemn vows, a monk must keep growing, all the while aware that healthy growth requires careful and repeated pruning. ...

In Prayer, Study, and Work, Daniel J. Heisey succinctly explores what Benedictines and other Christians immersed in a modern suburban culture can learn from the vision of monastic saints such as Benedict and Basil. Using the documents of the Second Vatican Council and other texts, Heisey meditates upon ways to pursue a path of renewal through the Benedictine ideals of prayer, study, and work.