Becoming a Community of Disciples

Afterword As we have seen, the rules of Benedict of Nursia and Basil of Caesarea touch on a lot of areas, though not all, of course. The purpose of these rules is to facilitate the monk’s relationship to God; and to organize the life of the monastery/community. Given that most of us are not monks in the traditional sense we come to these rules already having to do a bit of adjustment so that they can “fit” our lives and, as it turns out, they are easily adjusted so as to help the Christian believer in her relationship to God. That is, the spiritual teachings of these documents apply to all Christians, not just monks and nuns. Moreover, many (perhaps even most) people live in some type of community. A married couple without children is still a community of two! Thus, these rules, when they talk about things related to living in community have something to say to all of us as well. Nonetheless, there is so much information in these rules that one might be overwhelmed! Thus, let me suggest three main takeaways:

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