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Benedict's Way
Lonni Collins Pratt
Father Daniel Homan, OSB
240 pages
Loyola Press, 2000
Retail Price: $15.95
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From the Publisher
In the sixth century, a monk named Benedict devised a code of practical principles by which he and his fellow monks could live together and grow in the Christian spirit. Centuries later, the Rule of St. Benedict continues to guide and nurture men and women - both inside and outside monasteries - who seek to live a balanced spirituality. This contemplative guide is for individuals of all faiths in search of timeless wisdom.
In 30 short chapters the authors provide stories, reflections, prayers, and actions through which the reader can understand Benedict's principles and allow them to shape ordinary life.
Book Review
This simple and in some ways profound little book can serve as a primer for anyone who is thinking about making a retreat. It begins with the value of making one and how one might prepare for time alone in solitude.
It also offers a thumbnail sketch of St. Benedict (b. 480), most often considered the father of monasticism in the West. It then launches into 30 chapters which serve as meditations on a theme outlined by Benedict. For example, chapter headings include Listening, Chastity, Hospitality, Balance and Celebration, Simple Authenticity, to name a few.
Each chapter generally has two voices: Lonni Collins Pratt, a professional writer who, with others, supports the Benedictine monastery in Oxford, Michigan, and Father Daniel Homan who serves as prior there. A nice marriage of the secular world and the spiritual world reveals that in fact the two writers are very much a part of both worlds.
Let me be honest. At first I did not like this book. It was too simple, too, shall we say, ordinary. I was looking for more, something more complex. But as I continued to read the short quotes from Benedict's Rules and to pay close attention to the reflections on them by the co-authors, I realized that simplicity was exactly the book's primary virtue.
Benedict himself stressed repeatedly the art and discipline of listening. I think I learned to listen to simplicity in reading each successive chapter. In fact, the book begins and ends with meditations on listening.
In addition, I came to realize that one need not ever make a formal retreat to find the intrinsic value in these meditations. A retreat is not just a physical place but a condition or state of mind and being. One can take up a meditation a day in the quiet of one's living room and gain immensely from deeply listening to Benedict's wisdom, as well as the wisdom and beauty of the Psalms on which so much of monastic life is anchored and on the beauty and simplicity of the authors' reflections, one from inside, the other from outside the walls of monastic life.
Both authors point out that it would be "spiritual apartheid to suggest that God is heard only in monasteries." They remind us of the Irish idea of "thin places" in the world, what they call "sequestered spaces on earth where, if you listen very carefully, you can hear God more clearly." I believe this little meditative book offers many guides to these thin places that allow one to feel God's presence in ways that our normal busy lives occlude. I finally found the book's greatest strength resides in its deep simplicity
Dennis Patrick Slattery teaches in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara, California. His most recent book is The Wounded Body: Remembering the Markings of Flesh (SUNY Press, 2000). He has been making retreats since 1970.
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