An Introduction to Benedictine Thought & Action

Ten days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I flew to Rome for a semester abroad. Rome’s airport was filled with tension. Military personnel with AK-47’s and German shepherds were everywhere. War was in the wind.

The airport was only the beginning of my Roman education. Contrary to my assumption that Rome would exhibit a strong religious ethos, I found people in the city to be largely ambivalent about the faith. Poverty and petty crime were pervasive on the streets, public displays of sexual immorality frequent, and the Italian political system seemed to be a circus run by organized crime. I knew some of this from previous visits to Rome. But what I didn’t realize, until I began working at Mount Marty University in 2017, was that 1500 years earlier a young man about my age had a similar experience in the same city.

Around 500 AD, a young man named Benedict went to Rome for an education. What he encountered wasn’t far from my experience in the city, and it led him to abandon his education and retreat to the hills outside of Rome. There, he lived in a cave and dedicated himself to solitude and a life devoted to God.

Others took notice and followed Benedict, which led him to start what he called, “a school of the Lord’s service,” in which anyone who desired to seek Christ could do so in the stability of a small, well-ordered community of disciples. He drafted a short, practical rule to give the daily life of the community a structure conducive to prayer, work, and security. He did not want this rule to be harsh or burdensome. Rather, he wanted it to be useful, flexible, and productive of the kind of community life that could lead to spiritual and material flourishing.

As I continued my semester in Rome, my house chaplain encouraged me to schedule each day by the half hour and take inventory each night of how I made use of my time. The idea sounded good in theory, but I was like the wandering monks of Benedict’s time who didn’t like accountability and preferred to follow their own appetites and selfish desires. However, after seven years at Mount Marty, working in a Benedictine community and teaching Benedictine principles, I now know that my chaplain was simply trying to do what Benedictines having been doing for 1500 years: structuring daily life in a way that forms our character so that we can live freely in service to others, glorifying God in all that we do.

Join Mount Marty professors, Paul Anders, Jason Heron, Terry Lafferty, and me, as we explore Benedict’s Rule. We will journey through the chapters of the Rule in order to learn more about Benedict’s context and our own. As we listen to what Benedict has to say about prayer, work, and community, we hope you will discover just how relevant his work remains today.

ABOUT JOE RUTTEN

Joe Rutten has his BA in Catholic Studies from the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN and his MA in Theology from the Augustine Institute. He has spent over twenty years in Catholic education at the high school, parish, and university level. He is currently the Director of the Benedictine Leadership Institute at Mount Marty University and Assistant Professor of Theology.