Question

How would you characterize the lifestyle of Benedict's idea of the right monastery?

Answer 1

The lifestyle of Benedict's idea of the right monastery revolves around a strict schedule for daily life that includes prayer, study, and useful work. Monasteries became economically influential and self-sufficient as they owned land and sold their products.

Step-by-step explanation:

The lifestyle of Benedict's idea of the right monastery can be characterized by a strict schedule for daily life that revolves around prayer, study, and useful work. Benedict's book known as the Rule lays out how monks should live, emphasizing a balance between prayer and useful work, self-sufficiency of communities, and education for copying out books in Latin.

Many monasteries became economic powerhouses, owning large tracts of land and selling their products at a healthy profit. Christ is the focal point of the monk's entire existence. The abbot's obedience, silence, humility, and serenity—qualities that are fundamental to a monk's life and harmonious coexistence with his fellow monks—must be preserved within the monastery.

Answer 2

Saint Benedict's model for the monastic life was the family, with the abbot as father and all the monks as brothers. The spirit of Saint Benedict's Rule is summed up in the motto of “peace” and the traditional “pray and work”.

Saint Benedict's Rule organizes the monastic day into regular periods of communal and private prayer, sleep, spiritual reading, and manual labor. So, from the 24 hours a day, Benito states that 8 should be dedicated to manual labor, 8 to prayer, especially to the prayer of the divine office, and 8 to the rest of the monks.

The center of everything, of the monk's whole life is Christ. Within the Monastery it is very important to keep the obedience to the abbot, silence, humility and peace, essential characteristics in the life of the monk and in his coexistence with his brothers in the Monastery.