Meditation creates community and unity flourishes in diversity. Meditators who begin to experience the personal transformation brought about through the daily practice may seek to express this in different ways.
Some feel attracted to the wisdom of St Benedict and his 1600-year-old “Rule” as a way of deepening and stabilizing the process of personal ‘conversion’.
The World Community is ecumenical but recognizes a special relationship to the Benedictine vision which was the first in the Church to form a stable form of religious life and has adapted in succeeding generations to the needs and qualities of the age.
The Rule describes a form of daily communal life, which sustains the monk in a daily seeking of God. Prudent and practical, its wisdom recognizes the need for balance in body mind and spirit and reflects this in the time-management of work, reading and prayer. More than a book of rules, the Rule distills a wisdom born of love, nourishing discipline and expressing itself in compassion.
The meditating oblates of the World Community find a way to express and deepen their commitment to this inner journey through this ancient and contemporary wisdom. It is a unique form of oblation however as it is oblation not to a physical local monastery but to a global monastery without walls.
Follow the links below to explore this further and if you would like to discuss the possibility of becoming an oblate of the World Community contact your national Oblate Coordinator or the International Coordinator, Trish Panton: pantonamdg@ozemail.com.au
Here are some general links to the Rule and the Benedictine way of life:
www.osb.org
www.monteolivetomaggiore.it/inglese1.html
www.saintbenedict.org/stboblates.htm
www.universalis.com