Cassian — from the desert to the Internet. A Benedictine oblate blog.

I appreciate John Cassian’s simplicity and his linking of ideas which later were woven into the Rule of St. Benedict.

The monastic life is to be prepared for prayer. This is key because the monk’s or oblate's life is structured to promote prayer without ceasing.

Prayer without ceasing is a foundational part of what monasticism is all about.

As a Benedictine oblate who lives in the world and has a full time job, the Rule of St. Benedict and the Divine Office provide that structure for me. Others rightly will find a different spirit or charism in the Church for them — a way other than oblate monasticism — it is a big Church.

But Cassian set out to bring the monasticism of the earliest Egyptian desert fathers to the West — he succeeded very well and I am now blogging about it on the Internet.