The Workshop of Holiness

            After recounting The Tools for Good Works in Chapter 4 of the Rule, St. Benedict tells his monks: “The workshop where we are to toil faithfully at all these tasks is the enclosure of the monastery and stability of our community” (RB Ch. 4:78). 

            At first sight this does not seem to apply very well to Oblates who live in the hustle and bustle of the world, but on closer inspection it really does.  The Monastery of our Oblation, and our Oblate Chapter, provide an anchor, a place of stability and a micro-community where we can work out the call to become like Christ Jesus as we gather together for fellowship around the table, as we pray the offices together, and as we study and meditate on Scripture, the Rule, and the Life of Prayer. 

            Even though we may experience instability within denominational structures and sometimes within parishes, the fellowship of the Rule and our Benedictine heritage goes back for centuries through St. Benedict and the hills of Monte Cassino in southern Italy to the hills of Galilee where Jesus taught his first disciples to pray.  

            This place of stability is not to be found in the grounds of the monastery, but in the gathered community of monastics, who have taken seriously their vows of stability, conversion of life, and obedience. That community goes back in unbroken continuity to the first Benedictine community in Monte Cassino where St. Benedict wrote his Rule.

            The stability that created joy for the monks of St. Benedict creates joy for us now as Oblates and Companions of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica. This stability goes beyond our transitory experience to the heart of Christian fellowship as it was expressed by John the Apostle:  “That which we have seen and heard we proclaim to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ” (I John 1:3).