Finding Sanctuary: Monastic Steps for Everyday Life Book

The BBC TV series 'The Monastery' involved five very modern men living the monastic life for forty days and forty nights while TV cameras tracked their progress. The sight of monks responding thoughtfully and helpfully to ordinary people's struggles was a surprise to millions of viewers who had presumed that monks are 'out of touch'. St Benedict wrote his Rule for monastic living 1 500 years ago when he was abbot of Monte Cassino the monastery which sits atop an inspiring mountain to the East of Rome. The name 'the Rule of St Benedict' often misleads people into thinking that Benedict wrote 'a book of rules.' In fact he wrote a book of insights about Christian living with some practical suggestions about how to put those insights into practice. The insights are still guiding people today even though many of the rules have been adapted to local conditions as Benedict asked that they should be. In every generation monks and nuns bring together the realities of their day and the wisdom of the Rule in a new fusion born of contemporary experience. That fusion is the energy which enables monasteries to continue to be places of sanctuary today as they have been for centuries. And th