The Rule of St. Benedict. Minnesota Assignment | Get Paper Help
Essay One (3 full pages) on the Rule of St. Benedict (60 points) 1. Background – While the Rule may seem only applicable to monastic life, the guidance of the Rule resounds for many of us in our desire to preserve and protect the environment. 2. Question — How does the Benedictine Rule guide Benedictine monks in their care for the environment? (60 points) This paper is an exercise in close reading and writing. There are many aspects of the Rule that you might choose (as explained in the Rule of Benedict video) for example, by focusing on Chapter 33, Monks and private ownership. This would lead me to ask myself, well, if they don’t own something, people generally don’t take care of it! So yes, no private ownership means no greedy over-shopping, but maybe it would lead to neglect and misuse of the monastery’s items, so they would have to be replaced more often. Then I would look at other chapters to see if St Benedict had thought of that (hint, he had). So my paper Thesis: might be “No private ownership is one of the key ways Benedictine Monks preserve the environment.” Or maybe “Strong community rules help Benedictine monks preserve the environment.” Or “Benedictine monasticism teaches restraint in consuming, so it is good for the environment.” Notice that my underlying assumption is that less consumption is good for the environment. So I have to make that explicit. My argument is 1) Less consumption is good for the environment (I give evidence supporting which probably fills page 1) 2) St Benedict limited consumption of goods (I give evidence from the Rule for this which probably fills page 2 and part of 3) Conclusion, Benedict taught his monks to care for the environment! (Final paragraph evaluating your evidence) You can add opposing points of view within the two parts of your argument . Please review how to cite the Rule in your paper because it is very different from normal APA citations. Example: The Rule of Benedict is what is called a classic text in APA. When you do your in text citation the format is, (RB chapter number:verse number). Laudato Si’ is cited by paragraph number, not page number. In both cases this is because the text appears in many languages, and using either chapter and verse or paragraph number means that anyone can verify the reference. Finally, email me or post in the Ask Dr F conference if you have more questions Benedict of Nursia (1981) The Rule of St. Benedict. Minnesota: The Liturgical Press. PDF https://litpress.org/Products/GetSample/MW019P/9780879070199
General Grading Criteria for Essays:
- Content or ideas: significance, soundness, clarity, development, and relevance to purpose of paper
- Source treatment: evidence from the texts analyzed well
- Organization: arrangement of content, evidence of transitions
- Mechanics: double-spaced, typewritten, using the conventions of ESWE (i.e. correct
spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentence structure, paragraphing) and citations provided correctly in APA format
Rubric for Papers is found on page 10 of this syllabus
Essay One (3 full pages) on the Rule of St. Benedict (60 points)
- Background – While the Rule may seem only applicable to monastic life, the guidance of the Rule resounds for many of us in our desire to preserve and protect the environment.
- Question — How does the Benedictine Rule guide Benedictine monks in their care for the environment? (60 points)
- The Rule of Benedict is what is called a classic text in APA. When you do your in text citation the format is, (RB chapter number:verse number).
Laudato Si’ is cited by paragraph number, not page number. In both cases this is because the text appears in many languages, and using either chapter and verse or paragraph number means that anyone can verify the reference.
Reference
Benedict. (1982). The Rule of St. Benedict in English. (T. Fry, Trans.). Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press. (Original work published in 6th Century)
Francis. (2015). Laudato Si’ http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html
Why monastic rules appeal in the midst of chaos
See more posts by Teresa Coda
Read the words “Monastic Rule” and images of chanting bearded men in coarsely woven habits, or rows of veiled sisters
processing solemnly into a chapel likely arise.
But with a little digging into church history and a deeper look into the modern practice of monasticism, you’ll find that
the rules crafted by saints of centuries past have much to offer anyone who seeks to live a purposeful and reflective life
in the present day.
The origin of monastic rules goes back to the fourth century, soon after the monastic movement originated in Egypt and
Syria and then spread to the Western Mediterranean. Monastic rules were the texts that oriented a particular monastic
community’s way of life—a handbook or manual of sorts. They established the basic organization of the community,
offered guidelines for the abbot and other office holders, and detailed the spiritual practices and principles that formed
the backbone of the community’s lifestyle.
Examples of well-known rules include the Rule of Saint Augustine, the Rule of Saint Benedict, and the Rule of Saint
Francis. While these rules contain distinctions—each author had a particular vision for their community—they also
contain many similarities. Unlike most books, their authors did not claim originality, but instead copied sections from
other rules and drew from a common shared history: the lives of saints, monastic travelogues, Scripture and homilies,
or talks on spiritual topics. Most of all, what the rules have in common is that they set an order to life, a rhythm for
living as people of faith in a tumultuous world.
Monasticism, to be sure, is a vocational calling. For centuries, individuals have committed themselves to this particular
way of life after experiencing a call, undergoing years of formation and making serious vows. But the ways of
monasticism are for more than just the monastics and any individual seeking a meaningful and ordered life has much to
learn from them.
For instance, joining the approximately 21,000 professed Benedictine monks and sisters around the world are an
estimated 25,000 Benedictine Oblates. Oblates of Saint Benedict are individuals and families who have connected
themselves to a Benedictine community and the Benedictine way of life in order to enrich their spirituality and guide
their walk with Christ.
Similarly, Third Order, or Secular Franciscans, join the First and Second orders (the Friars Minor and the Poor Clares)
in observing the Rule of Saint Francis of Assisi. The Third Order, founded as the Brothers and Sisters of Penance, “was
Why monastic rules appeal in the midst of chaos https://uscatholic.org/articles/202006/why-monastic-rules-appeal-midst-chaos-32106
1 of 3 6/22/2020, 10:53 AM - devised by Saint Francis as a sort of middle state between the cloister and the world for those who, wishing to follow in
the saint’s footsteps, were debarred by marriage or other ties from entering either the first or second order.” Today, the
Third Order is by far the largest of the Franciscan orders, with hundreds of Third Order communities around the world.
Benedictine Oblates and Third Order Franciscans commit in a formalized way to living out the Rules of their respective
monastic communities, but they do more than this. They show the non-habited among us that we can integrate the
wisdom of these monastic communities, and the particularities of their Rules, into our lives outside the cloister.
And we have good reason to do so. Not only is there spiritual insight to be gained from the reading and practice of
monastic rules, the rules—with their emphasis on the regular practice of certain behaviors—appeal to our modern
desires for routine and order in a tangible and practical way.
And the modern desire for order and routine certainly exists. From books to blogs to podcasts to magazine articles, a
glut of information pertaining to daily routines fills the cybersphere of the 21st century, with a Google search of the
topic yielding over one hundred million hits. As the laws of supply and demand tell us, such an abundance of content
wouldn’t exist without a demand for it. So, why the demand? Why are people so interested in how others start their days
and manage their time, when they exercise, what they eat and where they do their best work?
Though a first glance may indict nosiness as the culprit (and the sub-genre of “What’s in your purse” YouTube videos
layers on evidence for this accusation), I suspect that there is more to our curiosity about strangers’ rituals than mere
meddling. We look to others for a sense of organization and routine because we crave order in our own lives, and it’s
easier to get our fix through observation than through actual achievement.
As for why we crave order and routine? I’d suggest two reasons.
For starters, we yearn for order because life often seems inherently disordered. Bad things happen to good people.
Natural disasters strike, wars erupt, and pandemics sweep the globe. We work hard, plan for the future, build savings
accounts and make our best attempts at preparing for adversity, but when crisis inevitably unfurls—because none of us
are immune to trouble—we often feel entirely unprepared for and destabilized by it.
No amount of planning can shield us from the chaotic unfolding of life, but when we find ourselves amid the chaos,
routines and rituals help us to feel as if there is still order to be found. Anthropologists, sociologists, and philosophers
have posited various theories of ritual over the years suggesting that operating through ritual practices and
performances can contribute powerfully to a sense of stabilization and also the maintenance of society during troubling
times.
The American novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson evidences the power of personal ritual in her novel
Housekeeping when a character seeks healing through the ritualization of otherwise mundane tasks like hanging
laundry and cooking lunch: she “perform[ed] the rituals of the ordinary as an act of faith.”
In other words, rituals and routines enable us to control what we can control, which provides comfort as we confront - disease, but if I can get my morning cup of coffee just right, I feel a little bit safer, calmer, and happier amidst the
turmoil.
We also crave order because, as thinking and loving human beings, we yearn for meaning in life. We want our actions to
have purpose and for our lives to matter. This desire for meaning manifests itself in our major life decisions (the career
paths we choose, the partners to whom we commit our lives, the causes we support, the families we cultivate) and it also
appears in the mundane details of the everyday (how we spend our pockets of free time, what we do when we can’t sleep
at night, how we start and end our days).
Said another way, meaning is to be found in the day to day actions of ordinary life. As the nature writer Annie Dillard
states, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is
what we are doing.” Schedules, rituals, and routines, completed with attention and intention, help us spend our time
wisely in the short term, and live life well in the long term.
Read next: 3 monastic rules for ordering your life
Image: Savannah Wakefield on Unsplash
