Listening to the Rule
05/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
We celebrated the feast of St Gregory the Great, Apostle of the English, on Monday. How much the Church owes to him! It was at his prompting that St Augustine of Canterbury first preached the gospel in Kent; and his "Pastoral Care" had such an impact on Alfred the Great (whom we venerate with particular devotion hereabouts since Wantage was his birthplace) that he translated it into English and directed all the clergy to study it. We Benedictines have further cause to be grateful to Gregory because in the second book of his "Dialogues" he gives us an account of St Benedict. It is not what we would call "history", but many of the details are instructive. At one point Gregory says that Benedict cannot have lived otherwise than as he taught. For Benedictines, the Rule is an important source of monastic teaching and in monasteries we have the custom of reading it through in its entirety three times a year. From today, you can join us in our daily "Rule reading" by clicking on the Prayer Box on the Vocations page.