Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of Saint Benedict

To those interested or fascinated by the monastic life as well as those who follow the Rule of St. Benedict as monks, nuns, or Oblates, Strangers to the City is an illuminating read. Fr. Michael Casey, O.C.S.O., is a Cistercian monk of Tarrawarra Abbey in Australia, a spiritual writer on monastic topics and a much sought-after retreat master and lecturer. Strangers to the City is his reflection on the monastic life. One might first think that such a book would have nothing to say to those not living the monastic life or as Oblates; this is not true. The Rule of St. Benedict is a guide to living the Gospel, and all Christians are called to live the Gospels, not only monks or the other religious or clergy. Casey discusses the values of asceticism, poverty, leisure, chastity, obedience, sharing, caring, meditation or lectio Divina, contemplation, and other topics. In addition to his own reflections, he brings in the reflections of the monastic fathers and mothers to show how one can live a spiritual life based on the Rule of St. Benedict.

Casey's book can be very academic at times with intellectual verbiage. The general reader should not be scared off by this, though; non-intellectuals can gain much from this book.

Casey shows how the Rule of Benedict is nothing to be run away from. One of the key words of the Rule is moderation, a well-tried rule that has passed time's test. St. Benedict was not Into extremes, and Casey shows how Benedictine moderation, balance, peace, and simplicity can help our chaotic world. A bibliography is not included, but the end-notes can serve very well for that.

Fr. Michael is the author of An Unexciting Life: Reflections on Benedictine Spirituality (2005), Fully Human, Fully Divine: An Interactive Christology (2004), A Guide to Living the Truth (2001), Return to the Heart (2001), Truthful Living (1998), Sacred Reading (1996), Toward God (1996), and other books and articles.

Strangers to the City is part of the Paraclete Press A Voice from the Monastery series and is highly recommended to those curious about the monastic life as it is lived under the Rule of St. Benedict. It also belongs in any library's collection on monasticism.

WITH A POPE named Benedict, now seems an opportune time to look at three books that explore the values St. Benedict and his followers hold dear.

The focus of Strangers to the City is captured in the title of Chapter 1: Distinctiveness. Our way of acting as Benedictines (and indeed as Christians) should be different from the world's way.

In tile sixth century a young man named Benedict left the city of Rome where he was studying. Benedict rejected the decadent beliefs and priorities dominant in his day and began a journey that would gradually align his life with gospel values and ultimately lead him to union with God.

Do you experience a lack of balance, stability, moderation and peace in your life? Casey's book may well be the compass that will point you in a new direction. In so doing, you may discover an exhilarating freedom that comes from choosing the priorities that Benedict found helpful in his search for God.

This is a deeply challenging book for anyone discerning a call to monastic life or desiring to deepen a monastic commitment made years ago.

In this book of descriptive spirituality, Casey, a Cistercian monk from Australia, explores the Rule of St. Benedict, examining the virtues and values contained in the Rule that can serve as tools to carve out a life of Christian discipleship. The Benedictine Rule enables the monk to chip away at self-absorption and self-deception and to chisel oneself, at least in rough outline, into the image of the Christ. Such chipping and chiseling is a lifelong task of self-transformation, which, the monk discovers, is ultimately not his own work but the work of God. Casey maintains that in this work of transformation one becomes, to use Benedict's phrase, a stranger to the city : the values of the city, the goals of the city, and the claims of the city are alien to the monk and, ultimately, to God's transforming work. Casey proposes that the transforming work of the monk must also be the transforming work of the ordinary Christian, whose call to holiness is no less real or arduous. Casey is a very good writer, and he makes the notion of monasticism something that can resonate with the common experience of us all as we try to make some sense of ourselves and our lives. Suitable for libraries of churches, retreat centers, and religiously affiliated schools.