Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.
(The Rule of St. Benedict - Prologue)
The Benedictine vocation consists in a participation in the way of life traced out by St. Benedict, the charism and grace he received among God's people. It is a call to seek intimate union with God; a call to seek God's glory through a humble and obedient life that liberates mind and heart to attend constantly to the Lord. It is a call to give a voice to all creation, especially to the Sacred Heart of Christ, in praising and glorifying the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit.
Benedictine life is communal in form, the brethren living together and sharing alike the goods (and the wants) of the monastery. The chief exercise of the day is the performance of the Divine Office in Choir. In addition to the hours spent in public and private prayer, St. Benedict wished his monks to work, as such, and any form of labor compatible with community life and the performance of the Liturgy is proper to a Benedictine monastery. For example, the apostolate of a school is suitable because it enables the monks to keep up their communal and liturgical life, as well as perhaps the most valuable contribution of all to the well-being of society - the Christian education of the young. Those who teach need not go away from their monastic home to work, and they can, for the most part, attend the Community’s celebration of the Divine Office. Their life of prayer and study provides the best background to their teaching. Their influence, and that of the Community as a whole, on the school is particularly stimulating. Besides teaching; manual work, arts, crafts, giving conferences, hearing confessions, spiritual direction, writing, research, and many other forms of activity are to be found among members of a Benedictine Community.
One who has a Benedictine Vocation believes that God in His love and mercy calls one to seek Him, and nothing less than Him, by a life of constant union through prayer, and through work done always in the spirit of prayer. To attain this union with God and likeness to Christ, the one who has a vocation realizes that he must use the means taught by Christ in the Gospel, and employed by Him as well; humility, self-abnegation, obedience, chastity, patience, poverty and of self-denial — all accepted and practiced out of love for Him.