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Kathleen Norris has been a Benedictine Oblate of Assumption Abbey, North Dakota, since 1986. Twice she has been in residence at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. It was one of these years, 1991-2 that inspired her to write The Cloister Walk. It is one of the most perceptive views of contemporary monasticism and the perennial value of the Rule of St Benedict for present-day living for anyone whatever their faith; Kathleen herself is Presbyterian. The book is in chronological form, going through the academic year from September to August, but always following the liturgical cycle.

To quote the dust jacket, "Writing with lyrical grace Kathleen Norris here takes us through a liturgical year, as she experienced it both within the monastery and outside it. She shows us, from the rare perspective of someone who is both insider and outsider, how immersion in the cloistered world - its liturgy, its rituals, its sense of community - can impart meaning to everyday events and deepen our secular lives. Through her masterly prose and rare insight, the monastery, often considered archaic or otherworldly, becomes immediate, accessible, and relevant to us, no matter what our faith may be."

Kathleen Norris is a poet by calling and profession, and has published three books of poetry and a number of the prose works, including the highly acclaimed Dakota: A Spiritual Geography. Her latest book, Amazing Grace, already published in the United States will soon be published here, also by Lion Books.

We are greatly honoured to be asked to host this event. The opportunity to hear Kathleen Norris read from her book, is one not to be missed, and we hope as many oblates as possible will come to hear and meet her on March 26.

St Benedict - Guide for Christian Living

THE basis of St Benedict�s spirituality is baptism. Living by St Benedict�s Rule is to strive to be profoundly Christian. Baptism demands conversion. Conversion is a life time project, not a one off event. The Christian is a person who is striving always to change, to turn more and more towards God. The aspirant seeking to become a monastic is asked �Do you truly seek God?� Seeking God requires a life time of change; we never arrive, but under the influence of grace are forever coming closer.

One of the three Benedictine vows is Conversatio Morum, a vow to be always striving for change in one�s life, always seeking for God, always striving for perfection. One of the chapters in the Rule where this is fleshed out is Chapter 4 The Tools of Good Works. It is a florilegium of scriptural texts, put together in such a way that they illuminate each other. Many of them seem very basic, 'You are not to kill, not to commit adultery, you are not to steal nor to covet, you are not to bear false witness. You must honour everyone and never do to another what you do not want done to yourself.' The trouble is they are so common place that we tend to glide over them. We say to ourselves 'I�m not likely to kill anyone nor to commit adultery, and I certainly am not a thief'. Yes, but, reflect a moment on how Jesus commented on these commandments in the portion of the Sermon on the Mount, we heard read on the Sunday before Lent. It is not just a question of the external act of murder or adultery that matters, but the whole way of thinking behind it. The one who is angry with his sister or brother or who lusts after another person has already murdered or committed adultery in his or her heart. The attitude of mind is all important.

From these basic commandments Benedict goes on to tell the monastic to discipline the body, not to pamper oneself, love fasting, relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick, bury the dead, go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing. We have to be of service to each other, to the world. One cannot be a Christian alone, God saved mankind as a community.

St Benedict becomes more explicit �Your way of acting should be different from the world�s way�. That is when the crunch comes. Whereas it so easy for us to be absorbed by the cultural ethos around us, we are called upon to be counter-cultural.

St Benedict explains further, we are not to act in anger or nurse a grudge, never give a hollow greeting of peace or turn away someone who needs our love; we are not to repay one bad turn with another, but to bear injuries patiently; if people curse us we are not to curse them back, but bless them instead; we are to endure persecution for the sake of justice. The list goes on, but just lay that section of the Rule alongside our morning newspaper. How much of the lack of peace in the world is due to people wishing to retaliate, in seeking their own rights rather than those of others, in looking after themselves rather than others, in treating others as objects for their pleasure or their profit, rather than as subjects equal to themselves in all respects?

You may have heard this Chinese story before. A man asked for a vision of hell, and was taken there. He saw a huge banquet laid out and all the people sitting round the table but they were starving. They were starving because they were only permitted to eat with chopsticks that were a yard long and so whenever they attempted to eat they were unable to put the food in their mouths. The man then asked for a vision of heaven and he was conducted there. To his amazement the scene was identical; the great banquet and everyone sitting round the table. The only difference was that everyone was happily eating, because they were all using their enormously long chopsticks to feed each other. That is the message that St Benedict gives us to share with the world. And we do it not by telling them, but by showing them. Actions not words make the best teachers.

St Benedict Catholic Worker

ST Benedict Catholic Worker is an organisation of Benedictine Oblates in Fresno, California, which is putting into practice the vision of oblate Dorothy Day (of whom more in a subsequent issue of Douai Oblate). They give ongoing witness for peace and nuclear disarmament, whilst providing meals, clothes, food and other necessities for the homeless, as well as providing them with opportunities for prayer, bible study and corporal acts of mercy. Their philosophy is summed up by Peter Maurin,

• The Catholic Worker believes in the gentle personalism of traditional Catholicism.
• The Catholic Worker believes in the personal obligation of looking after the needs of our sisters and brothers.
• The Catholic Worker believes in the daily practice of the works of mercy.
• The Catholic Worker believes in Houses of Hospitality for the immediate relief of those who are in need.
• The Catholic Worker believes in creating a new society within the shell of the old.

Ora et Labora is the Newsletter of the St Benedict Catholic Worker. The following article is quoted from the January 1999 issue, with permission.�

Emmanuel - God is With Us
by Liza Apper OblSB

IN Isaiah 22 the prophet sees Jerusalem as a city run amok. The people have turned from God and placed their trust in their ingenuity, their weapons, and on their faithless neighbours. Jerusalem, the "valley of vision", (God�s vision) has become, as Daniel Berrigan SJ has written in Isaiah, Spirit of Courage, Gift of Tears, "Land of No Vision".

Not unlike what is happening today as we live and breathe and see the effects of the "Land with No Vision" both within its borders in the poor that we serve everyday and beyond its borders in the continued embargo and recent bombings of Iraq. Indeed we have become a society of revellers (Is 22:13) even as this visionless land conducts its death-worshipping liturgy over the skies of Iraq, and those without homes wander the streets of Fresno on frigid nights.

Yet in the Book of Revelation chapter 21 we read of the vision of "New Jerusalam" where God lives among us: "he will wipe away every tear from their eyes". John writes "Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more..." This is a vision of the reign of God established by the coming of Jesus that first Christmas. Emmanuel, God-is-with-us, has come.

We have seen glimpses of God�s kingdom in the work that we do. Often times as people pass through our soup-line asking for seconds, I reply: "This is �kingdom economics�...seconds are OK!" It seems to be working - this �kingdom economics�. Last Tuesday (three days before Christmas) David, a 'regular' on our soup line received a gift of a carton of cigarettes - a precious commodity on the streets. He immediately opened the carton and shared the cigarettes with the people gathered there. Many times spare change, a cigarette, clothes, and even blankets are given by those with little to those with even less. God-is-with us!

As people of the incarnation we have seen the vision of Jesus and we walk with that vision ever before us. That is our hope - that even amidst such visionless times as these, we proclaim with eyes of faith: EMMANUEL, GOD IS WITH US!!!! 

LENT is about the Church on the move towards that saving promise of God made manifest in the Resurrection of Christ. Ash Wednesday begins that season of penance which the whole Church takes part in, like that period of fasting, weeping and mourning undergone by the people of Israel in our first reading. But the purity of heart required for such an external manifestation of public penitence and conversion requires that we already possess those virtues spoken of in the gospel. It is much easier for us in our day to keep Lent in the true spirit of devotion and repentance than it was for our fathers. Now that the government doesn't order a public fast, accompanied by a fast-day sermon, it's much easier for us not to succumb to hyprocrisy. We are able to follow the precepts of this morning's gospel without show, and our Lent can be carried on quietly and even secretly.

It's attractive that Lent is so long - six weeks. for this allows us the opportunity to realise how easily we can succumb to our old ways, but it also ensures us time to examine in great depth and with unusual thoroughness our motivation as we twist and turn during the days ahead. In a sense, we can use the window of these Lenten weeks to glimpse the whole of our lives, just as in the gospel the temptations of Our Lord's public life were compressed into that forty day stint in the desert. In the same way St Benedict envisages a monk's life to be a continuous Lent, but that doesn't mean a period of aridity, hopelessness and isolation. Our Lent deserves that we give it a hint of Easter joy. The fasting of anorexia, we are told, comes with the onset of puberty, and is sometimes caused by the fear of moving to the next stage of life, but the fasting of Lent is one of joyful anticipation.

St Benedict sees our whole life in the context of Lent; it is a reprieve granted us so that we may mend our ways. It is a time of conversion. As becomes Chrisians, people who are saved, monks pay particular attention to that salvation to which they know they are destined. And if we wish to dwell in the tent of God's kingdom, we should be eager to pitch it in the desert first.

SINCE our last Newsletter we have had a residential retreat in December and the first of single day meetings on Sunday February 8. Six people attended this day, two of whom had come for the first time.We plan to have another oblates day on Sunday May 9. The arrangement will be the same: arrive for the community Mass at 11.30, and bring food to share at lunch time. There is no need to book in advance; just turn up. The talks continue until Vespers.

The next residential retreat will at the weekend of March 12 to 14. If you wish to come to this and have not already let us know, please book in as soon as possible.

Lent is with us again. A recommended book for Lent is Bede Frost's 'Lent with St Benedict' Bede Frost was an oblate, and his son became a monk of Belmont and eventually prior. The bookshop has already sold out once and more have been ordered.

For those with access to the internet there are several new addresses of interest to oblates. The Oblate magazine editied and published by Keith E.O. Homstad for the oblates of St John's Abbey, Minnesota is available 'on line' at There is also a 'notice board' where oblates can post notices and hold conversations with each other. This has been set up by Jane Frith, an oblate of St Gertrude's Cottonwood, Idaho at . Another site well worth visiting has been set up by the Redemptorists at ; it offers seasonal meditations and retreats.

Douai Oblate published at Douai Abbey 28.02.99

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