A Bit of History:
While the monastery in rural Vermont, which is our home, was founded in 1953, our life together is rooted deeply in a monastic tradition that reaches back to the first centuries of the church.
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| The Priory first buildings |
These followers of Jesus sought out habitations in the wilderness of Egypt and the Near East. There they were first called "monks," from the Greek word monos , "one," which may refer to the solitary location of their original dwellings, or to the singleness and goal of their search for unity.
As monasticism grew and spread throughout the early church, this way of life was formulated into a genre of wisdom literature, called a monastic Rule. Far from being a list of prescriptions, or "rules," a monastic Rule seeks to distill the values of the Gospel, the monastic tradition, and the lived experience of communities, as a guide for present and future generations.
Among these, by far the most lasting and influential has been that of Benedict of Nursia, the sixth century founder of a monastery on Monte Cassino in Italy. This is the Rule still read aloud each morning at Weston, and which continues to inspire the community's life.
Weston's link with the centuries-old succession of monasteries deriving from Benedict's original community is the Abbey of the Dormition, in Jerusalem. Abbot Leo Rudloff, OSB , while abbot of the Dormition, founded the new community in Weston in 1953.
His modest funds were sufficient for the purchase of a small abandoned farmhouse. This, with much work, became the monastery: the house providing living space for the first monks, and the attached haybarn becoming the first chapel.
Life Together in One Heart:
The experience that roots and calls forth the brothers' life of prayer, work, hospitality, and out-reach is that of community.
At Weston, community is the basic choice to offer oneself to one's brothers in joyful service, in a common vision and hope, and in abiding faithfulness.
To create a community of fraternal love and service; to be persons of prayer, celebrating faith in worship, silence and reflection; to offer gospel hospitality, receiving all guests as Christ; to live by the work of their hands, sharing their gifts for the good of all; to be a sign of the Beatitudes - nonviolence, justice, and peace - responding to the voice of God in the cries of the poor: these basic elements of the Rule of Benedict have given shape to the Weston community.
The monks of Weston Priory continue to search together for the deeper meaning of the Gospel, and through signs of the reign of God, through faithful commitment to one another, and in care and concern for the world around them,
THAT ALL MAY BE ONE!
