In chapters 2 and 4 of the Acts of the Apostles, Saint Luke presents the first Christian community of Jerusalem, saying that «the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul.» Cenobitic monastic life strives to reflect that ideal.
Saint Luke continues, «Nobody said that anything he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common.» For us, the vow of poverty makes this state possible. No monk, not even the abbot, has any income. Each monk asks the cellarer for his different needs and for the needs of his occupations though, the cellarer can legitimately refuse him at times.
This necessity to subsume the individual in the common good is found not only in our choral activity, but in our economic and intellectual work as well: if it is true that each one is asked to give the best of his talents and energy in every domain, it is also true that we must forever be on the lookout for our brother, serving him with charity, bearing him with patience, doing what is necessary so as not to make him feel we are better than he in this or that sphere. This evangelical expression of fraternal charity is best described in the celebrated chapter on good zeal in Saint Benedict's Rule:
«Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, there is a good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and life everlasting. Let monks, therefore, exercise this zeal with the most fervent love.
Our approach to monatic life is fully human, and gestures of fraternal affection are certainly not absent from our day. At moments of joy are sorrow, each monk can count on the expression of his brothers' support and presence. This attention sometimes takes touching forms: a small bouquet at a brother's place in refectory on his feast day, a note left at his door...And Dom Guéranger, contrary to other monastic traditions, insisted on the importance of daily recreation and the weekly walk as moments during which the monks bind more closely as a family.
Is Benedictine life an ideal society? Monks are certainly not saints, rather sinners who strive towards conversion, relying on grace and on the light of the Gospel. Saint Benedict wrote, «Laudes and Vespers ought not be ended without the integral recitation of the Lord's Prayer by the superior, out loud, because of the seeds of discord forever springing up.» In this way, the brothers, held to the promise they make with the words 'Forgive us as we forgive,' will be purified of this sort of fault. No monastery is without its negative aspects, yet each monk is here endeavouring to grow in the same vocation, under the paternal vigilance of the abbot of whom the Rule says, «He will balance all things in such a way that the strong will seek to go further, and the weak will not be discouraged.»