SERVING GOD

St Benedict calls the monastery a school of the Lord's service. The centre of our life is the worship of God. This is done above all in our times of common prayer, the Divine Office. St Benedict calls this the Work of God. All our work is for God, but this is what helps us give the whole day to him. Monks should be men of prayer and, besides prayer together, we also pray on our own every morning and evening in time set aside for private prayer as well as for lectio divina, a slow and prayerful meditation on Scripture. Here we learn to listen to God who speaks in our hearts. The heart of our prayer, and the heart of all Christian life, is the Mass, where we join ourselves with Jesus in offering ourselves to the Father, and sharing in the fellowship of his life as we gather around his altar.

We also serve the Lord in serving others, sharing in the mission of the Church to bear witness to the Gospel of Christ. Our work in the school and parishes (largely in our locality) are perhaps the most obvious ways in which this is to be seen, but they are not the only ways. From the beginning of our life at Douai, education has been a vital way of introducing people to a Christian sense of culture and vision of society, but we also do this in other ways through our study, in talks and publishing. Our parishes, together with our work as chaplains, and in giving retreats or spiritual conferences, are ways in which we contribute to the pastoral life of the Church. Most important for Benedictines is the work of hospitality, in our Guest House and in the St Bede Centre, which enables us to reach out to groups of people in need of spiritual refreshment. Bainesbury House is a separate retreat centre for groups of young people. Besides work in keeping the house, the Church and gardens in good order, the administration of a complex establishment is a demanding job in which our monks are assisted by very many lay-people in a number of departments, all of them contributing to a Household of God, in which our fellow men and women are welcomed as signs of Christ, and in his name.