We are a community of followers of the Way – followers of Jesus – sometimes called a monastic community, which simply means we believe that God is encountered in all the messiness of lives shared in community. A community that is dedicated to prayer and living a simple life under a new expression of the guidelines that St Benedict recorded 1500 years ago and now interpreted by Benedictines all over the world. The life of the Franciscans also resonates deeply with us, particularly through the Rule of the Society of St Francis (SSF) with its focus on simplicity and service. It has always been the life of the first followers of the Way as described in Acts 2:42-47 that has drawn people through the centuries to adopt a different way of life, to go against the prevailing flow of the World, and it is those verses that are a the core of what we do.
To love God is to follow a pattern of life that puts him at the very centre of everything we do. Consequently Benedict centres the life of a community around prayer (The divine office). This is gathered prayer that demands that we stop whatever else we are doing and go to the oratory and pray together as a community in relationship with one another and God. Some of those prayer times may only be ten minutes, but we have stopped and we have prayed.
The community Benedict imagines also makes time for personal prayer and devotion by following the pattern of the great silence. Everyone returns to their spaces after the office of Compline and remains silent until after the office Prime the next day.
Loving Neighbour means we are connected to our village, Llansteffan, we make friends with those who live around us and are involved with the life of the village. We try to share space around our table with those we live around. But this command has wider consequences too. Loving neighbour is intrinsically connected to God’s charge to be good stewards of all that he has made, that then impacts how we live our lives, in what we eat, how we use our resources, how much we travel and how we travel. Being good neighbours also means sharing our resources with those around us as much as we can.
Benedict imagines a community that is stable that is committed to being located in one place for the long term, and thriving alongside that place. Benedictine communities are rooted. And in our case in Llansteffan.
As a community we also try to impact the lives of those who have very little, reaching out to the street community in Carmarthen, working with those who find themselves homeless and struggling with addiction and mental health. (We are not a medical agency but we seek to help those who we talk to to access professional services as best we can)
Benedict recognises the value of manual work and we recognise the healing power of working outside in nature, of growing our food and being close to the earth.
We are very fortunate to have The Glasbren project at Lord’s Park Farm on our doorstep and we hope to develop our relationship with them in the coming months.