The Monastery of the Heart: Benedictine Spirituality for Contemporary Seekers

Every century, every culture has sought the spiritual dimensions of life in particular ways, through teachings and lifestyles it could embrace. Across the ages, for some women and men the longing to unite with the Divine took the form of an existence in solitude and prayer. For others, it lay in communal life and worship. For many, it was an attempt to withdraw from the secular world in order to be better attuned to the sacred.

But for one seeker in sixth-century Italy, for Benedict of Nurs...