Our Rule of Life

We looked at our roots here as a Benedictine foundation and saw that, alongside the three vows monks and nuns take – stability, obedience, conversion - there is a way of living, a rhythm of life – prayer, study, work, hospitality and renewal – through all of which they live out their vows.

This is their Rule of Life. We took this as our template.

‘It feels balanced, right, I feel held.’ Member of the Cathedral Community

We looked at the cathedral’s vision statement – to live in tune with heaven and in touch with daily life - and saw how it balances grasping the heel of heaven with having our feet firmly on the ground. We saw how this could give us an identity as a community, something to help us say, “this is who we are, this is our story,” just as the vows the Benedictines make identify them as a monastic community.

So this statement became the guiding principle for our Rule. Around it, the Benedictine rhythm of prayer, study, work, hospitality and re-creation, helps us be mindful of how we live our faith each day and how we try to keep our lives in balance. A sort of checklist.

Over several months, members of the Cathedral Community came together and explored all the elements of our proposed Rule further, giving their feedback and trying out our new Rule during Lent 2017.

Each of us will make our own individual response to our Rule. What each person chooses to do will look very different. But committing to our Rule both helps us to build up our common identity as a cathedral congregation – or a wider community if you are joining us online - and be accountable, in love, to one another.

So we will need the help of God and the support and encouragement of one another if we are to keep to our Rule. We might ask someone to talk through our Rule with us on a regular basis. (In the Celtic Christian tradition, such a person was called a ‘soul friend’.)

As a Cathedral Community following the Rule, we will create opportunities to meet regularly and informally to discuss aspects of the Rule together and grow in faith. We will make our journey together.

‘Christ has no body now on earth but yours, no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which is to look out Christ’s compassion for the world; yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good; yours are the hands with which he is to bless now.’ Teresa of Avila (16th Century Spanish nun)