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| Not Just for Medieval Monks: Wisdom for Us All from the Rule of St. Benedict |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-24-2025, 10:03 AM - Forum: Resources Online
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Not Just for Medieval Monks: Wisdom for Us All from the Rule of St. Benedict
Lessons on money, prayer, and silence from one of the founding documents of Western Civilization
Robert Keim from his Substack Via Medievalis | Aug 24, 2025
We are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord. In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome. —Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict
It is, in fact, unsurprising that the Rule of St. Benedict should be a masterpiece of wisdom and spiritual counsel for ordinary laymen: it was written for ordinary laymen. In composing his Rule and forming his monastic communities, St. Benedict was not establishing a clerical institution, nor did he assume that his monks would be occupied with clerical duties. Indeed, one scholar affirmed that his Rule “is somewhat distrustful of priests,” and I must admit that Chapter 60 does give this impression:
Quote:If anyone of the priestly order should ask to be received into the monastery, permission shall not be granted him too readily. If he is quite persistent in his request, let him know that he will have to observe the whole discipline of the Rule, and that nothing will be relaxed for him….
It shall be granted him, however, to stand next after the Abbot and to give blessings or offer Mass, but only by order of the Abbot. Without such order let him not presume to do anything….
If any clerics … wish to join the monastery, let them be placed in a middle rank, and only if they promise observance of the Rule and their own stability.
Benedict’s project was not so much clerical as evangelical: he sought to create a structure in which laymen of all conditions could conform their lives to the ideals of the Gospel. In the prologue to the Rule he makes it clear that his words were written for—well, for you.
Quote:To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King.
We need not lament the fact that the Benedictines developed into a clerical order; the marriage of monastic and priestly labors has been a happy one. And we should rejoice that many monks have attained extraordinary sanctity and embraced mortifications that make worldly people like me break out in a cold sweat and start searching frantically for excuses. However, it is right to be dismayed if Benedictine life is perceived as utterly remote from the attitudes and practices of ordinary lay Christians. The Rule, as the old Catholic Encyclopedia points out, “is meant for every class of mind and every degree of learning.” It is not a manual of deathly penance and lofty mysticism for people on the verge of sainthood; rather, “it organizes and directs a complete life which is adapted for simple folk and for sinners.” Benedict himself had characteristically modest expectations, expressed as usual in the language of a kindly father (the italics are mine):
Quote:We have written this Rule that by observing it in monasteries we may show that we have attained some degree of virtue or the beginning of conversion…. Whoever you are, therefore, who are hastening to the heavenly homeland, fulfill with the help of Christ this most elementary Rule.
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The images in this post are from an eleventh-century manuscript containing the Rule of St. Benedict.
It is said that monks take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Benedictines, however, do not take a vow of poverty. Rather, they vow stability, obedience, and fidelity to the monastic life as envisioned in the Rule. This is not to say that Benedictine monks have the option of being personally wealthy. Benedict strictly forbade private ownership, which the Rule calls a “most wicked vice.”
Quote:This vice especially is to be cut out of the monastery by the roots. Let no one presume to give or receive anything without the Abbot’s leave, or to have anything as his own…. Let all things be common to all, as it is written, and let no one say or assume that anything is his own.
If anyone is caught indulging in this most wicked vice, let him be admonished once and a second time. If he fails to amend, let him undergo punishment.
Thus, extreme personal poverty, though not a separate vow, is implied in fidelity to the Rule. My point here is that the Benedictine life entails poverty as one element within the context of the Rule, and the context of the Rule is this: that possessions held in common are not forbidden or even discouraged, and that monks will not be required to beg for alms or endure severe deprivation. In fact, the Benedictine monastery, as a community, should be wealthy enough to give alms and to build up infrastructure for the good of the surrounding society. And why would it not be? A spiritual family of able-bodied, highly educated men who live simply, shun self-indulgence, have no children to support, and esteem manual labor as a high road to heaven—this is a perfect recipe for material abundance. And material abundance is exactly what medieval monasteries acquired.
The relationship between sincere Christians and material wealth has long been a vexed one. The crux of the matter was captured memorably by Anna Sewell in the novel Black Beauty:
Quote:“Look here, mates,” said Jerry; “the gentleman offered me half a crown extra, but I didn’t take it; ’twas quite pay enough for me to see how glad he was to catch that train….
“Well,” said Larry, “you’ll never be a rich man.”
“Most likely not,” said Jerry…. “I have heard the commandments read a great many times and I never noticed that any of them said, ‘Thou shalt be rich’; and there are a good many curious things said in the New Testament about rich men that I think would make me feel rather queer if I was one of them.”
(Oh, to live in the days when “queer” was just a normal word that meant “strange” and could be used freely without stirring up a dust storm of distracting associations.)
Though many articles and several books could be written on how exactly a Christian family should pursue the ideals of evangelical poverty, I think that much insight and guidance can be gained simply by meditating upon the traditional Benedictine relationship with wealth. Material wealth is eminently good—that is, something to be accepted, appreciated, even actively pursued—when it builds up the community in a wholesome, balanced, and enduring way. Arable land, livestock, tools, granaries, flour mills, workshops, bridges, medicinal gardens, schools, libraries, scriptoria, shrines, oratories: these are things that bring collective stability and health; that make life more well-ordered and less physically burdensome; that improve the mind and soul through prayer, intellectual growth, and moral refinement. Such things are perfectly compatible with the Rule’s rejection of private ownership, and furthermore, they can coexist peacefully with personal poverty—even with radical personal poverty.
If this model is not directly applicable to family life, which faces the complexities of raising children and coping with secular society, it nonetheless can be applied far more than it usually is. Personal poverty—as a mentality or a spiritual disposition, yes, but also as a concrete, lived reality—is a beautiful, sanctifying, and liberating practice that need not prevent parents and families from building the holistic, socially productive wealth that medieval monasteries acquired. I admit that the thrilling ideal of the monk in his bare stone cell, the former wearing his one habit and the latter adorned by one crucifix, is beyond what familial normalcy would allow. But I think that many Christian families are much farther from this ideal than they ought to be—and I say this as one who, earlier in my life, pushed personal poverty close to its modern limits, and who therefore has tasted its sweetness. Though the monastic spirit has dissipated somewhat as I walk the path to which I am apparently called, I fondly remember the days when I had more land, more livestock, two barns, no mortgage, and only one computer.
However much we might associate monks with long hours of meditative prayer, their bodies cloaked in darkness as their minds sink into the mystical depths of the unseen realm, the Rule of St. Benedict gives direct, explicit instructions only for vocal public prayer. This public prayer was to consist of Psalms, Canticles, passages of Scripture, and readings from the Fathers, and it was envisioned as the central experience, principal labor, and all-encompassing inspiration for those who embraced the monastic life. That the laity of the postmedieval Church have diverged markedly from the paradigm of prayer found in the Rule is, for me, a source of great confusion and dismay. I see no justification for this, and the following observation, again from the old Catholic Encyclopedia, makes the situation appear even more anomalous:
Quote:By ordering the public recitation and singing of the Psalter, St. Benedict was not putting upon his monks a distinctly clerical obligation. The Psalter was the common form of prayer of all Christians.
Even if one were somehow convinced that the Rule’s basic model of prayer is inappropriate for the laity, the argument would flounder—as I said above, the Rule was written for laymen, and Benedict instructed his monks to pray the Psalter because that is precisely what Christians in general, clerical or lay, were already doing.
Do modern families need to pray the entire Psalter every week, as the Rule insists? No. The details can be adapted according to circumstance, and Benedict himself encouraged flexibility with regard to elements that he considered negotiable: “If this distribution of the Psalms is displeasing to anyone, he should arrange them otherwise, in whatever way he considers better.” He also said, and I find this particularly illuminating, that communal prayer should be “very brief,” or in a more literal translation, “altogether abbreviated” (“in conventu tamen omnino brevietur oratio”). Now when it comes to prayer, “brief” certainly means different things for different people, but the underlying principle is clear: for those who are novices in the spiritual life—and that includes me, maybe you, virtually all children or teenagers, and the men for whom Benedict wrote the Rule—lengthy periods of uninterrupted prayer are unwise. They can lead to roving minds, indolence, annoyance, resentment, maybe even spiritual burnout.
The Rule favors a system in which short sessions of formal, poetic prayer occur regularly from morning through night, such that the mind is frequently elevated and the soul frequently refreshed as we navigate the temptations, duties, and worldly labors of the day. If you have children and say the Rosary (perhaps with extra prayers tacked onto the beginning and end) every night, please be careful: if your kids seem to be in la-la land by the end of it, or if they express displeasure, apathy, grudging compliance, etc. through words, groans, or body language, I think you have a problem that St. Benedict has foreseen, and that his Rule can help you solve.
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| The Recusant #64 - Autumn 2025 |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-23-2025, 03:28 PM - Forum: The Recusant
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Contents
• Fake Resistance Lavender Mafia (Catholic Trumpet)
• Mary Cause of Our Joy, Summer 2025 (Fr Hewko)
• Fr Paul Robinson: ‘It’s all valid! Trust us!’ (Analysis)
• “Doubt and Confusion: the New ‘Canonizations’” (John Vennari)
• Is John Henry Newman a Saint and Doctor of the Church?
Part 1: Modern “Canonisations”
Part 2: Problems with Newman
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| SSPX's 2025 Pilgrimage to Rome |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-23-2025, 07:37 AM - Forum: The New-Conciliar SSPX
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There has been much ado about the SSPX being allowed to have a large pilgrimage in Rome and allowed to say Mass in several churches. A few sobering thoughts in this and the following post:
Modernist Rome 2025: NeoSSPX Pilgrimage and +ABL Dire Warning
The Catholic Trumpet [slightly reformatted and adapted] | August 22, 2025
From August 19–21, 2025, nearly 8,000 Neo-SSPX pilgrims entered Rome’s basilicas during the Holy Year. Was this to convert modernist Rome, demand the Consecration of Russia, or reject the betrayal of 2012? No. It was submission—the incense of Tradition offered in the pantheon of apostasy.
This video calls true resistance: never compromise, never remain silent, fight, pray the Rosary, and ask the Immaculate Heart of Mary to crush this counterfeit church of Vatican II.
Listen as +Archbishop Lefebvre makes clear what so many refuse to see: the conciliar church is not the Catholic Church.
*This video features an excerpt of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre speaking on the crisis of the Church and the distinction between the true Catholic Church and the conciliar, post-Vatican II Church. Original clip:
The battle for souls demands courage. No compromise. No silence.
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| Hungary celebrates 1,000+ years of being Christian with giant cross in the sky |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-21-2025, 03:32 PM - Forum: Global News
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Hungary celebrates 1,000+ years of being Christian with giant cross in the sky
A huge cross in light, relic procession, and public prayer celebrated the sainted monarch who consecrated Hungary to Mary the Mother of God over 1,000 years ago.
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Mistervlad/Shutterstock
Aug 21, 2025
(LifeSiteNews) — Hungary celebrated its Christian heritage on St. Stephen’s Day with fireworks and a giant cross formed in the sky by drones.
On August 20, Hungary celebrated its national holiday, the feast of Saint Stephen I, the first King of Hungary. During the festivities, drones with lights formed a giant cross above the Danube River, close to the Parliament building. Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Peter Szijjarto, shared a picture of the floating cross with the caption “Another thousand years,” in reference to Hungary having been a Christian nation for a millennium.
The show also featured fireworks, a marching band, and a procession with the relics of St. Stephen.
“On St. Stephen’s Day, we celebrate our thousand-year-old Christian Hungarian state, the foundation of our nation – a pillar of Christian Europe,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán wrote on X. “Proud to carry forward this legacy of faith, strength, and independence.”
During his first reign as prime minister (1998-2002), Orbán played a key role in moving the crown of St. Stephen from a museum to the center of the Parliament building, a symbolic act that stressed the importance of Hungary’s Christian heritage.
“Today, 20th of August, feast of St. Stephen: Celebrations all over the world wherever Hungarians are,” Hungary’s ambassador to the Holy See, Archduke Eduard Habsburg-Lothringen, said. “We celebrate over 1,000 years of being a Christian nation.”
Hungary held a similar light show on St. Stephen’s Day in 2023, when drones formed a giant floating cross and a giant crown.
During the Soviet reign, the feast of St. Stephen was suppressed. The communist regime deliberately chose August 20, 1949, as the day to ratify their new Stalinist constitution in an apparent attempt to replace the feast and promote atheistic communism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the 40-year communist occupation of Hungary ended, and the Feast Day of St. Stephen became Hungary’s new national holiday.
King St. Stephen I was a zealous Catholic and Hungary’s first Christian King. Pope Sylvester II crowned him in the year 1000. He died on the feast of Assumption in 1038, and on his deathbed he dedicated the country to Mary. He and his son Emeric were canonized by Pope St. Gregory VII in 1083.
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| Cardinal Burke: "Perfect Emblem of Post- Vatican II 'traditionalism'" |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-21-2025, 03:25 PM - Forum: Vatican II and the Fruits of Modernism
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The following is an excerpt of a substack article from Hiraeth in Exile, recalling Cardinal Burke's past comments and actions regarding a 'trans' nun who started a congregation, with the Cardinal's blessing. Quite a few 'conservative' Catholics think Cardinal Burke is traditional. But in performing more than a cursory, superficial look, that tendency does not run very deep. He still praises and holds on to Vatican II. Let us hope and pray that he is lead to a full conversion to immutable Tradition of the Church.
Burke’s Trans Nun Amnesia: How a Cardinal Who Approved a Male “Sister” Now Hosts a Conference Warning About Them
Chris Jackson via Hiraeth in Exile [adapted and reformatted] | Aug 14, 2025
At Cardinal Raymond Burke’s annual Speculum iustitiae canon law conference, a Vatican official sounded the alarm that some transsexuals may have been ordained, their surgeries only discovered after ordination. His tone was one of horror: the sort of ecclesial scandal a faithful shepherd should surely have fought to prevent.
Yet the irony is breathtaking: in the 1990s, Burke himself approved and elevated a women’s religious congregation co-founded by “Sister Julie” Green, born Joel Green, a man who had undergone sex-change surgery. When concerns were raised, Burke defended the founder, insisting “she” did not promote the morality of the surgery, and warning critics against “rash judgments.” Rome only acted after the matter went public.1234
Now, the same Burke presides over a conference where the very scenario he once enabled is treated as a symptom of the Church’s collapse. It’s the perfect emblem of post-Vatican II “traditionalism”: speak thunderously against sin from the lectern, but turn pastoral discretion into doctrinal surrender when the decision is yours to make.
Burke’s Trans Nun Legacy
In 1997, then-Bishop Burke elevated the Franciscan Servants of Jesus, a women’s order co-founded by “Sister Julie” Green, who had undergone sex-change surgery years earlier. The facts were not hidden, complaints were made, letters were sent to the papal nuncio, and Vatican consultations were acknowledged.
Burke’s written defense admitted the co-founder’s biological sex and the moral disorder of the surgery, yet still justified allowing “her” to found and participate in the order. Canon law expertise didn’t prevent the bishop from treating the case as a pastoral oddity rather than a clear impossibility.
Fast forward to 2025: his own conference warns about priests who turn out to be female-to-male transsexuals.
The hypocrisy is a straight line from Burke’s permissiveness to the “horrors” now decried under his banner.
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| Assumption-tide |
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Posted by: Stone - 08-17-2025, 04:50 PM - Forum: Our Lady
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From the Oratory of the Sorrowful Heart of Mary Bulletin, dated August 17, 2025:
Assumption-tide
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Within the Assumption Octave
Traditional Catholics will be familiar with the idea of multiple overlapping octaves. The practice of celebrating an octave, while not only traced to the time spent by the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary in expectation of the Paraclete, also has its origins in the Old Testament eight-day celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles (Leviticus 23:36) and the Dedication of the Temple (2 Chronicles 7:9). Truly, Christ did not come to abolish the Old Law but to fulfill it.
By the 8th Century, Rome had developed liturgical octaves not only for Easter, Pentecost, and Christmas but also for the Epiphany and the feast of the dedication of a church.
After 1568, when Pope Pius V reduced the number of octaves (since by then they had grown considerably) the number of octaves were still plentiful. At that time, octaves were classified into several types. Easter and Pentecost had "specially privileged" octaves, during which no other feast whatsoever could be celebrated. Christmas, Epiphany, and Corpus Christi had "privileged" octaves, during which certain highly ranked feasts might be celebrated. Also, the octaves of other feasts allowed even more feasts to be celebrated.
To reduce the repetition of the same liturgy for several days, Pope Leo XIII, and Pope St. Pius X made further distinctions, classifying octaves into three primary types: Privileged Octaves, Common Octaves, and Simple Octaves. Privileged Octaves were arranged in a hierarchy of First, Second, and Third Orders. For the first half of the 20th Century, octaves were ranked in the following manner, which affected holding other celebrations within their timeframes …most Traditional Catholics using the Missal of St. Pius X will be familiar with this list of octaves:
- Privileged Octaves
- Privileged Octaves of the First Order
- Octave of Easter
- Octave of Pentecost
- Privileged Octaves of the Second Order
- Octave of Epiphany
- Octave of Corpus Christi
- Privileged Octaves of the Third Order
- Octave of Christmas
- Octave of the Ascension
- Octave of the Sacred Heart
- Common Octaves
- Octave of the Saint Joseph Solemnity
- Octave of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist
- Octave of Saints Peter and Paul
- Octave of the Assumption
- Octave of All Saints
- Octave of the Immaculate Conception
- Simple Octaves
- Octave of Saint Stephen
- Octave of Saint John the Apostle
- Octave of the Holy Innocents
Assumption-tide is this current period of time between the feasts of the Assumption and that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (August 22nd, the Octave Day of the Assumption). It is a time that’s meant to both contemplate the great mystery of the Immaculata’s Assumption into heaven, as well as a preparation for the sublime, crowning feast of her Immaculate Heart on the Octave Day. We can live out this beautiful Assumption Octave by adding to our daily prayers the Collect from the Solemnity:
Almighty and everlasting God, who hath taken up the Immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of Thy Son, with body and soul into heavenly glory: grant, we beseech Thee, that we may always, ever intent on higher things, deserve to be partakers of her glory. Through the same . . .
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