In Religious and Monastic Life Explained, Dom Prosper Guéranger offers a primer on the monastic life for the benefit of religious and laity alike. Guéranger presents the monastery as a "school of perfection," wherecommitment to the Divine Office, the Rule, and separation from worldly distractions are tools taken up by its pupils.
To overcome the key obstacles of attachment to worldly possessions, sensual pleasures, and self-will, the monastic is offered the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
"The separation from the world should be the literal fulfillment of this word of our Lord Jesus Christ: 'Everyone that hath left father or mother' . . . and of that other one: 'Come, follow me.'"
Dom. P. Guéranger (1805-1875): restorer of the Benedictines in France; he rendered an inestimable service to souls by his well known Année liturgique; The Liturgical Year.
