SOURCE: "A Guide: The Rule of St. Benedict," The American Benedictine Review, Vol. 36, No. 4, December, 1985, pp. 372-93.

In the following essay, originally published in 1981, Zegveld presents an overview of the fundamental concerns in the Rule of St. Benedict and explores how the Rule is to be interpreted and obeyed in the modern era.

The Call

In the writings of the New Testament a strong undercurrent of longing for the Kingdom of God makes itself felt, a longing for a new world, a new society entirely penetrated by the spirit of Jesus Christ, a desire for a new heaven and a new earth, in a word, for a life based on the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount. On the other hand, they also present, without any illusions, a clear view of humanity and the world of humanity as they actually exist: laboring with egotism, with the debilitating...