SOURCE: "The Psychological Dimensions of the Rule of St. Benedict," The American Benedictine Review, Vol. 34, No. 4, December, 1983, pp. 424-35.

In the following essay, Sipe endeavors "to extrapolate ten essential psychological features that show [Benedict's understanding of the human experience" that are addressed by the monastic experience.]

Benedict of Nursia, born in 480 A.D., wrote a brief rule—an order for a way of life—for monks. In 1980, approximately 30,000 men and women around the world claim this rule as their guide. That one fact alone would be of interest: why do some things endure over long centuries? But it is not simply durability that impresses me as I look into the Rule of St. Benedict. Much of the history of religious life in western culture has been influenced in some way by the Rule. Bernard of Clairvaux, Bruno of Cologne, Ignatius of Loyola, and even Thomas Aquinas, who grew...