Augustine of Canterbury Marmion Academy. Oceanside, California. Prince of Peace Abbey. Conception, Missouri. Basilica of the Immaculate Conception Conception Abbey. Benet Lake, Wisconsin. Hingham, Massachusetts. Our Lady of Glastonbury Abbey. Elkhorn, Nebraska. Mount Michael Abbey. Benedict, Oregon. Mount Angel Abbey. Mission, British Columbia.
Westminster Abbey Benedictine Abbey of St. Jerome, Idaho. Priory of the Ascension. Valyermo, California. Big Sur, California. Berkeley, California. Incarnation Monastery. Portsmouth, Rhode Island. Abbatial Church of St. Gregory Portsmouth Abbey.
Washington, District of Columbia. Creve Coeur, Missouri. David, Arizona. Olivetan Benedictine Monastery of the Holy Trinity. Pecos, New Mexico. Abbey of Our Lady of Guadalupe. San Luis Obispo, California. Newton, New Jersey. Schuyler, Nebraska.
Priory of Christ the King. This trend marks both an opportunity and a challenge for the Benedictine way of life. And, as the order with one of the longest histories accepting lay associates including Dorothy Day and novelist Walker Percy , how Benedictines adapt to the growing number of oblates will serve as a model for other orders. Oblates have existed in some form for centuries. Often they were persons of limited means who shared in the manual labor of a monastic community. Only in recent decades have professional men and women seized the oblate role as a way of sharing in the life of a monastery while still living outside of it.
In , the most recent year that statistics are available, there were 25, oblates worldwide, according to International Benedictine Oblates, a website that tracks oblates across the globe.
The number includes nearly 11, in the United States. By contrast, there were 22, monks and women religious worldwide, according to the and Catalogus Monasteriorum OSB. The number of oblates has likely increased in the ensuing years, while the number of monks and sisters has declined, as few who die are replaced with new vocations.
Like monks and sisters, oblates follow the Rule of St. Benedict, the classic guide for seeking God through prayer, work, hospitality, humility, community, and quietude. Oblates take vows similar to those of professed members, including vows of stability promising to remain affiliated with one particular monastery and conversatio morum, a commitment to seek constant conversion through a life of service and holiness. Oblates can be married. Most work. They include members of other Christian denominations as well as Catholics.
Many strive to follow the daily monastic prayer regimen of the Liturgy of the Hours, either on their own or with their monastic communities. They regularly practice lectio divina, a method of praying slowly and meditatively with scripture that monks and women religious have used for centuries.
Behold I am doing something new. Do you not see it? Sister Teresa Jackson, membership director at the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Cottonwood, Idaho, uses these lines from Isaiah to describe both the opportunities and challenges oblates represent.
Several monasteries are experimenting with ways to better integrate oblates into their religious communities. Mount St. Gertrude says. A community indicates mutuality and responsibility. Oblates already play many key roles that would have been unlikely just 50 years ago. When the sisters of Red Plains Monastery in Piedmont, Oklahoma left several years ago to join the monastic community in Atchison, Kansas, they left behind a number of oblates they had trained to become spiritual directors.
At the Monastery of St. Gertrude in Idaho, the chief financial officer is an oblate. About 20 years ago, Payer walked into Our Lady of Guadalupe for the first time. While there, she wears a simple white dress that serves as a kind of habit. Monks singing, and carrying tapers at a royal funeral, from the 14th century Litlyngton Missal. The cloisters, dating from the thirteenth to late fourteenth century, were the centre of monastic life where the monks spent most of their time when not at prayer or taking part in the daily services.
The walls were decorated with paintings and lamps were suspended from chains in the roof. In the west cloister the novices were taught and for relaxation they played a popular game of marbles called "nine holes". Some indentations in the benches for this still remain.
The monks worked in the north cloister, where they were sheltered from cold winds and got most of the sun. At first only the upper sections of the windows were glazed and it was very cold in winter. Later on the whole was filled with coloured glass. Later, rushes or carpets of hay and straw were strewn on the stone floor and wooden partitions were erected to form individual "carrells" where the monks could read and study.
The scriptorium, for those engaged in copying and illuminating manuscripts, was set up elsewhere. In the south cloister was the entrance to the refectory and towels hung in the four now restored niches which originally had doors and hooks inside that can still be seen at the west end of this walk.
The washing trough was in the first bay of the west cloister, with water being piped from Hyde Park. The refectory no longer exists apart from the blocked windows of one side in the wall above the south cloister roof. The monks ate lots of fish herrings, oysters, flatfish, sturgeon, whelks, cod etc. There was a bath house with hot water and a shaving house in the precincts but the monks only took about four baths a year.
The latrines were at the end of the "dark" cloister a continuation of the eastern walk. In the east cloister the community met each day in the Chapter House to have a chapter of the Rule of St Benedict read to them and to have any punishments meted out. Next door were the day stairs to the dormitory now the entrance to the Library. This was a very large room and by the 14th century was divided into cubicles, with curtains to ensure privacy.
Only some of the monks actually slept here, as many had private quarters. No fire was allowed and in the early Middle Ages they slept in their day clothes. By the 15th century they had special night coats over their underwear. In this cloister on the Thursday before Easter the Abbot used to wash the feet of thirteen elderly men although someone else had washed them first to make sure they were clean! The wide benches at the northern end was where this took place.
The Undercroft seems to have been used as a common room for the monks where they were allowed to have a fire. The two bays of the parlour on the way out to Dean's Yard could be used to receive guests or even entertain ladies of rank.
The centre area of the cloister was probably used as a garden - a turf bench was made round a tree there in The daily round of services usually commenced with Matins at midnight, Lauds at daybreak, and Prime at about 6. Terce, Sext, and None were said before dinner and Vespers at 6.
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