Reaching for God: The Benedictine Oblate Way of Life

Fifteen centuries of adhering to Benedictine insights on living a quest for the practical spiritual life have enriched our culture; this book tries to explain the means for attaining peace in this search. This peace is within everyone's reach if the principles are used.

Thoughtful and thorough

That info in this book cannot be found elsewhere. This is an example of modern spirituality watered down without the beautiful tradition wrapped into it. Generally, a way to tell that this is what you are walking into is when the author quotes Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Sister Roberta, unfortunately, does at times. I did appreciate her mention of notable characters who lived an Oblate spirituality, such as St. Thomas More. Yet, her analysis of the rule just comes off as just too much of a modernist interpretation that neglects the hermeneutic that has been narrated from the time of Father Benedict down to today. Granted, rigidity is not a good thing for the spiritual life, but watering the rule down is not either. A work of spirituality is supposed to be timeless, like the Rule itself. Sister Roberta does not take the reader to the timeless place the Rule seeks to do, but just tries to drag the rule into the 21st century. One just simply cannot do that. We can add our lens to the years of lenses added to read the rule, but not take them all out and just read with our own modern hermeneutic. The one thing I found useful was her explaination of the process of becoming an Oblate. The problem though is that this info is available online now. So really, one need only buy this book to get a commentary on the Rule.For those who want a really good analysis of the rule, check out "Commentary for Benedictine Oblates: On the Rule of St. Benedict" by G.A. Simon.

Consists of seven, independent sections that include The Rule, The Oblate Program, The History of The Oblate Movement,Benedictine Values for Oblates.

Loved this book! I learned so much from this book!

Very good book, full of a lot of good Information!!!