Our sisters and brothers in the Northumbria Community offer this beautiful description of what it means to have a Rule of Life:

“A Rule of life is absolutely essential to any monastic expression, and is a spiritual rather than a legislative document. It says this is ‘who we are, this is our story’ and reminds us of those things God has put on our heart, and calls us back to the story that God has written as foundational. Monastic stability is to be accountable to a Rule of life as a framework for freedom, not as a set of rules that restrict or deny life, but as a way of living out our vocation alone and together. It is, to use the words of St Benedict, ‘simply a handbook to make the radical demands of the gospel a practical reality in daily life’.”

 (for more on the Northumbria Community, click here – https://www.northumbriacommunity.org/who-we-are/our-rule-of-life/our-rule-of-life-is-at-the-heart-of-who-we-are/ )

Our Rule of Life