Religious and Monastic Life Explained by Dom Prosper Guéranger ~ Chapter II: 5. Community Life.

The monastic life is a life in common. The spirit of God has designed it thus that the monk may find a powerful help in the example of his fellow-religious and acquire a high degree of merit in the exercise of fraternal charity.

This being the case, regard with reverence the family life which you are called upon to lead. Learn to appreciate its advantages and promote its spirit in yourselves and others. Rejoice at seeing others participate in the favours of which you are the special object, and love one another as brethren who have been called together by the same vocation. Take pleasure in the company of your brethren, because the Holy Ghost Himself has chosen and united you for one and the same end. Let the joys, as well as the afflictions, be in common, and let your familiar intercourse preserve intact the mutual respect which is due.

Encourage one another in perseverance and progress, and offer up your fervent prayers for those brethren who labour under temptation or trial. Studiously avoid every word or expression that might in any way be offensive to your brethren or induce them to relax their efforts to attain the perfection to which all ought to aspire.

Besides cherishing an interior affection for one another, show also by outward acts that you are united by mutual charity. Endeavour always to vie with one another in politeness, conceding mutually in word and deed and detesting whatever savours of selfishness.

Those who have been honoured by admission to Holy Orders, will always recollect their own unworthiness of such a sublime dignity, and never exalt themselves above others who have not yet received this favour.

God often permits religious vocation to bring together persons of quite opposite natural dispositions. Therefore, let us be on our guard against every form of antipathy which the devil may endeavour to enkindle by means of these differences. Use all your energy to overcome every feeling of antipathy and, at the same time, take care not to yield to those blind and purely natural attractions by which you would become attached to this or that one of your brethren in particular. Moreover, be ever careful to correct whatever might possibly injure the family spirit, which should be the common bond of all.

Should anyone perceive in himself a tendency towards isolation, that source of misanthropy which can so soon render community life loathsome, let him not yield to this dangerous temptation. Such a one must summon all his will-power to overcome it at the very outset by prayer and also by repeated and persevering efforts, lest this disposition should awaken in him a spirit of pride and expose him to the danger of losing his vocation.

The family spirit will inspire the novices to be frankly subject to their Reverend Father Master, who, as their chief and guide, is the immediate bond of unity of their society. Let them manifest due respect for the monks, in comparison with whom they are children and should see in everyone of them a father and cherish filial affection towards the Abbot, as Christ’s representative in the monastery.

Cultivate, too, sincere attachment to our Order. Incessantly beseech our Lord to protect, maintain and increase it for His glory and for the welfare and the sanctification of souls. Do not undervalue the mode of life pursued therein. It is recognized and approved by the Apostolic See as being in conformity with the spirit of St. Benedict. Consequently, this mode of life justly claims the respect of all the children of the Church; how much more should it be reverenced by those whom divine grace has led to the novitiate.

Never allow yourselves, under the pretext that they are followed more exactly elsewhere, the least criticism concerning the manner of observing the rules. Remember that a novice has not yet taken upon himself any obligation and is therefore at liberty to direct his steps whithersoever his inclination may lead him. But if some should not feel any attraction towards the Order, its spirit or its administration, let it be understood that for them community life will be unbearable. It is the duty of such to withdraw from a mode of life which will never gain the allegiance of their thoughts and intentions.

This family spirit, founded on our relations to Divine Providence, should not lessen in us due appreciation of the other Rules and Constitutions approved by the Holy See.

Far from harbouring any prejudice against them, let us fervently pray for the preservation and extension of all the various religious Orders, take a lively interest in their progress and sympathize with them when pressed by misfortune.