Christian Monastic

The refectory is stone and silence. Thirty monks file in, hoods raised. They stand at long wooden tables. No one speaks. A bell rings. Grace is sung. Another bell. They sit. From the lectern, a single voice begins reading. The only other sounds: wooden spoons against bowls, bread being broken. For thirty minutes, eating becomes prayer.

This is the monastic meal, practised for seventeen centuries in monasteries across the Christian world. The silence is not absence. It is presence. The simplicity is not poverty. It is choice. The food is not about pleasure or even nutrition in the usual sense. It is sustenance for the body that prays, nothing more.

Christian monasticism began in the deserts of Egypt and Syria in the third and fourth centuries. Men fled the cities, the corruption, the compromise, the impossibility of serious Christian life in an empire that had co-opted the faith. They went into wilderness seeking God. What they found required stripping away everything that distracted: possessions, speech, relationships, comfort. And food.

The Desert Fathers

St. Anthony the Great, the father of Christian monasticism, lived for over eighty years in the Egyptian desert. His diet was bread, salt, and water. He ate once daily, sometimes only every few days. He saw no deprivation in this. He saw clarity. The logic was simple: gluttony was the first sin, the one that opened the door to all others. Combat gluttony and you combat the root.

The desert communities that formed around figures like Anthony and Pachomius developed radical approaches to food. Some ate only every two days. Some subsisted on raw herbs gathered from the desert. Extended fasts of forty days or more were recorded, though the elders discouraged competition in asceticism. The point was not to outdo each other in starvation. The point was freedom.

Yet these same ascetics who denied themselves everything practised radical hospitality. When a visitor arrived, the monk would break his fast to eat with the guest. Abba Moses, famous for his severe fasting, served wine to visitors during their stay. When asked why he broke his discipline, he replied: "Wine is for monks, but love is of God." The fast could be broken. Love could not.

This paradox runs through all Christian monastic food traditions: severe personal discipline paired with generous hospitality. The monk denies himself. The monastery gives to others. The refectory serves simple fare to the community. The guest house serves the best to visitors. "When you see your brother, you see God." You do not serve God poor food.

The Rule of St. Benedict

In the sixth century, Benedict of Nursia wrote a rule that would shape Western monasticism for fifteen hundred years. Compared to the Desert Fathers, his provisions were moderate. He understood that not everyone could sustain the radical asceticism of Anthony. He sought a middle way: demanding enough to shape the soul, sustainable enough to last a lifetime.

Two dishes. One pound of bread. This was the daily measure for the healthy monk. Adjustments were permitted for those doing heavy labour, for the sick, for those in special circumstances. But the principle remained: enough to sustain the body, not enough to indulge it. The monastery was not a place of deprivation. It was a place of sufficiency.

Meat from four-footed animals was forbidden for healthy monks. The reasoning was partly spiritual, meat was associated with wealth and indulgence, and partly practical: monasteries could not afford to raise livestock for slaughter. Fish was permitted in many interpretations. Eggs and dairy were used. The result was a largely vegetarian diet, heavy in grains, legumes, and vegetables from the monastery garden.

Reading at meals

The Rule specifies that reading should accompany every meal. One monk is assigned as weekly reader. He reads aloud while others eat in complete silence. The practice continues in many monasteries today.

The effect is profound. The meal becomes meditation. The food enters a body that is receiving spiritual nourishment simultaneously. There is no distraction, no social anxiety, no performance. The nervous system settles into receiving mode. Digestion proceeds under conditions of calm that modern mealtimes rarely achieve.

Monasteries developed sign language to communicate essential needs without breaking silence. Hand signals for bread, for water, for salt. The vocabulary was limited, nothing beyond necessity. The constraint served the purpose: the meal was not for conversation. The meal was for eating. The meal was for listening. The meal was for God.

Orthodox fasting

The Eastern Orthodox tradition maintains perhaps the most rigorous fasting calendar in Christianity. Approximately 180-200 days per year are designated fast days. This is not occasional discipline. This is how life is structured.

Four major fasting periods organise the year: Great Lent before Easter, the Apostles' Fast before the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, the Dormition Fast in August, and the Nativity Fast before Christmas. Additionally, every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year are fast days, commemorating the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ.

The strictest fasting, xerophagy or "dry eating," permits only uncooked food: raw vegetables, bread, water. This is typically observed during the first week of Lent. Standard fasting prohibits all animal products, including fish, eggs, and dairy. Wine and olive oil are also restricted on many fast days, permitted only on weekends during fasting seasons.

What emerges is a cuisine of remarkable creativity within constraints. Lenten cooking uses no animal products, no oil on strictest days. It relies on vegetables, legumes, grains, prepared simply. The feast days that punctuate the fasts are therefore genuinely festive. Lamb at Pascha. Rich foods returning after weeks of abstention. The rhythm creates meaning. Deprivation gives abundance its taste.

The Trappist way

The Trappists, formally the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, represent the austere edge of Western monasticism. Founded as a reform movement within the Cistercians in the seventeenth century, they sought to return to the rigour of the original Rule. Their monasteries are places of silence, labour, and prayer. Their food traditions reflect this austerity.

Historically, Trappists maintained a fully vegetarian diet except for fish on Sundays and feast days. Eggs and dairy were used, but meat was absent. Modern practice has relaxed somewhat since Vatican II, with each community determining its own standards, but many Trappist houses remain vegetarian.

What Trappists are famous for is not what they eat but what they make. Trappist beer has achieved legendary status. Fourteen certified Trappist breweries worldwide produce beers that consistently rank among the world's finest. The tradition began practically: beer was safer than water (boiling killed pathogens), nutritious (monks called it "liquid bread"), and provided income for the monastery. During fasting seasons, when solid food was restricted, a rich beer might be the primary sustenance.

Trappist cheese follows similar logic: it uses the dairy produced by monastery herds, provides nutrition during fast periods when eggs and milk are permitted, and generates income. Port-Salut, Chimay, and dozens of other monastery cheeses continue traditions centuries old.

The Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, Thomas Merton's monastery, is known for its bourbon fruitcake and fudge. The monks work in silence, producing goods that support the community. The food production is itself a form of prayer. Work and worship are not separate. Everything the hands do can be offered.

The recipes

These dishes come from monastery kitchens across the Christian world. They are simple because simplicity serves the life. They are satisfying because the body must be sustained to pray. They are beautiful because beauty, too, is an offering.

Monastery Vegetable Soup

45 minutes Serves 6 Lenten

Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-Latourrette, a monk at Our Lady of the Resurrection in New York, wrote "Twelve Months of Monastery Soups." The title captures something essential: soup is the food of monasteries. It uses what the garden provides, it stretches limited ingredients, it warms and satisfies without excess. Every monastery has its soup traditions, varying by season, by region, by what is available.

Before You Begin

Survey your refrigerator. What needs to be used? What is languishing in the crisper? This is the monastic approach: nothing wasted. The soup is not a recipe to shop for. It is a method for transforming what you have.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 4 cups mixed vegetables
• 6 cups vegetable stock
• 1 tin white beans, drained
• Fresh herbs (thyme, bay leaf)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Crusty bread for serving

Method

1. Heat oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion, carrots, and celery. Cook for 5-7 minutes until softened.
2. Add garlic and cook for one minute until fragrant.
3. Add your mixed vegetables. Firmer vegetables (potatoes, turnips) first; tender ones (courgette, greens) later. Stir to combine.
4. Pour in stock. Add herbs. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
5. Cook until vegetables are tender, 20-25 minutes depending on what you used.
6. Add beans in the last five minutes to warm through.
7. Season to taste. Remove bay leaf. Serve with thick slices of bread.

The Teaching

Monastery soup is not glamorous food. It is sustaining food. It is the food that has fed monks through centuries of prayer, through winter darkness, through seasons of fasting. The simplicity is the point. When the soup is simple, the mind is free. When the body is satisfied without excess, it can turn toward what matters.

Simple Monastery Bread

3 hours Makes 1 loaf Lenten

Bread is the centre of the monastic meal. The Rule specifies one pound daily. The bread is broken, blessed, shared. It echoes the Eucharist: this is my body, given for you. Every meal carries this resonance. Every loaf is, in some sense, sacrament.

Before You Begin

Clear your schedule. Bread takes time: not your active attention, but your presence. You will knead for ten minutes, then wait. You will shape, then wait again. The waiting is the practice. The bread teaches patience to hands that want to rush.

Ingredients

• 500g strong bread flour
• 10g salt
• 7g instant yeast
• 325ml warm water
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Method

1. Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Add yeast on one side. Pour water on the opposite side. Add oil.
2. Mix until a shaggy dough forms. Turn onto a clean surface.
3. Knead for 10 minutes. Push away with the heel of your hand, fold the dough back toward you, rotate, repeat. The dough will transform from rough to smooth.
4. Place in a lightly oiled bowl. Cover. Let rise for 1-1.5 hours until doubled.
5. Punch down the dough. Shape into a round or place in a loaf tin. Cover and let rise again for 30-45 minutes.
6. Heat oven to 220C (425F). Slash the top of the loaf with a sharp knife.
7. Bake for 30-35 minutes until deep golden and hollow-sounding when tapped underneath.
8. Cool on a wire rack. Wait at least fifteen minutes before cutting.

The Teaching

Bread is transformation made visible. Flour, water, salt, inert ingredients, combine and rise and become something that sustains life. The yeast does what you cannot force. Your work is to create conditions. Then you wait. Then you witness. This is the monastic understanding: we do not make things happen. We create conditions for grace.

Braised Lenten Vegetables

40 minutes Serves 4 Strict Lenten

During the strictest fasting days, Orthodox cooking uses no animal products and no oil. The challenge is to make this satisfying without the richness that oil provides. The answer is technique: long cooking that develops natural sugars, careful seasoning that brings out inherent flavours.

Before You Begin

This is food for a fast, but not a punishment. Enter the cooking with intention. The constraints are the teacher. Within the limits, discover what is possible.

Ingredients

• 4 medium potatoes, cubed
• 3 carrots, thick-sliced
• 2 parsnips, cubed
• 1 small celeriac, cubed
• 1 onion, quartered
• 4 cloves garlic, whole
• 1 cup vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• Fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme)
• Salt and pepper

Method

1. Preheat oven to 200C (400F).
2. Arrange all vegetables in a large baking dish. Season with salt, pepper, and paprika. Tuck herb sprigs among the vegetables.
3. Dissolve tomato paste in the vegetable stock. Pour over vegetables.
4. Cover tightly with foil. Bake for 30 minutes.
5. Remove foil. Stir gently. Return to oven uncovered for another 20-25 minutes until vegetables are caramelised and tender.
6. The edges should be golden, the vegetables soft, the liquid reduced to a glaze.
7. Serve hot as a main dish, or alongside bread.

The Teaching

Lenten cooking teaches that restriction is not deprivation. Within the constraints emerge discoveries: how vegetables can satisfy without fat, how slow cooking develops sweetness without sugar, how simple food can be complete. The fast strips away the excess. What remains is essence.

Pascha Sweet Bread (Kulich)

4 hours Makes 2 loaves Easter Feast

When the fast breaks at Easter, it breaks gloriously. After forty days of abstention, the Pascha table groans with abundance: lamb, eggs dyed red, rich cheeses, and towering loaves of kulich. The white icing dripping down the sides symbolises the purity of resurrection. The bread itself is rich with butter and eggs, everything denied during Lent returned in celebration.

Before You Begin

This is elaborate bread for an elaborate occasion. It is not everyday food. If you make it outside Pascha, know that you are reaching for celebration. Joy needs no excuse.

Ingredients

• 500g strong bread flour
• 100g sugar
• 7g instant yeast
• 150ml warm milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 100g butter, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Half tsp salt
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 50g raisins (soaked in rum)
• 50g candied peel
• Icing: 200g icing sugar, 2 tbsp lemon juice

Method

1. Combine flour, sugar, yeast, and salt. Add warm milk, egg yolks, vanilla, and lemon zest. Mix to form a shaggy dough.
2. Knead for 10 minutes. Begin adding softened butter in pieces, kneading it in gradually. The dough will become very soft and sticky. This is correct.
3. Continue kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic, pulling away from your hands. This takes 15-20 minutes total.
4. Fold in drained raisins and candied peel. Place in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise for 2 hours until tripled.
5. Divide dough in half. Shape each into a ball and place in tall, cylindrical moulds (coffee tins work well, lined with parchment). Fill moulds only one-third full.
6. Cover and let rise until dough reaches the top of the moulds, about 1 hour.
7. Bake at 180C (350F) for 35-40 minutes until deep golden. A skewer should come out clean.
8. Cool completely. Mix icing sugar with lemon juice until pourable. Drizzle over the tops, letting it run down the sides.

The Teaching

Kulich is excess made holy. After weeks of restraint, the body receives richness and knows that abundance is also blessed. The fast was not punishment. It was preparation. The feast is not indulgence. It is completion. There is a time for emptiness and a time for fullness. Both serve. Both are given by grace.

The teaching

What does the Christian monastic tradition offer the Terra Form§ practitioner?

First: the power of rhythm. The alternation between fasting and feasting trains the nervous system in flexibility. The body learns that it can do without, that hunger is not emergency, that emptiness has its own gifts. When the feast comes, it is received with full capacity, not numbed by constant stimulation, but alive to the richness. This is the Hunger Teacher working across time, shaping the organism through oscillation.

Second: the value of silence. The silent meal removes the performance anxiety that accompanies social eating. When no one is watching, when no conversation is required, when the only voice is the reader's, the nervous system settles into a depth of calm rarely available at modern tables. This is the Silence Teacher at the meal: creating acoustic conditions for the vagus nerve to do its work.

Third: the sacrament of simplicity. Monastery food does not try to impress. It tries to sustain. The monk is fed so that the monk can pray. Everything else is stripped away. What remains is enough, and enough, it turns out, is precisely what the body needs. Not more. The Floor Teacher is present in this radical stripping: the edges are clear, the boundaries firm, the essentials revealed.

Fourth: the hospitality that transcends asceticism. The monk who denies himself still feeds the guest. Personal discipline does not justify neglecting others. The practices are for your liberation, not your isolation. The fast is real. The feast for the stranger is equally real. Both are holy.

Bread and silence. This is the monastic meal. It has sustained saints for seventeen centuries. It waits for you.

Contemporary Monasteries: Living the Tradition in America

Christian monasticism did not freeze in medieval Europe. The Rule of St. Benedict continues to shape communities across North America, communities that preserve ancient food practices while adapting to contemporary context. These monasteries demonstrate that the contemplative meal remains viable in the twenty-first century.

Abbey of Gethsemani: Merton's Monastery and Trappist Austerity

The Abbey of Gethsemani, established in 1848 in the hills of Kentucky, gained global attention through one monk: Thomas Merton. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), introduced millions to contemplative life and sparked a wave of monastic vocations. Merton's writings on silence, solitude, and simplicity shaped how Americans understand monasticism.¹

In The Sign of Jonas (1953), Merton documented daily monastic life, including meals. Trappist practice at Gethsemani followed the ancient rhythm: two meals on regular days, one during Lent. Meals eaten in complete silence while a monk read from scripture or spiritual texts. Food was simple: vegetables from the monastery farm, bread baked daily, cheese made from their dairy herd.²

Merton wrote about how monastic simplicity functioned as ecological wisdom decades before sustainability became mainstream concern. The monks grew what they ate, wasted nothing, and lived within the land's capacity. Fasting seasons aligned with agricultural scarcity. The feast days celebrated harvest abundance. The liturgical calendar was also agricultural calendar.³

Today, Gethsemani continues this tradition while supporting itself through food production: bourbon fruitcake, fudge, and cheese sold to support the community. The monks maintain silence during meals, gather three times daily for communal eating, and preserve the Trappist food practices that Merton documented.

Monastery of Christ in the Desert: Benedictine Life in the Wilderness

Thirteen miles down a dirt road into New Mexico's Chama River Canyon sits the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, one of the most remote monasteries in North America. Established in 1964, the monastery embodies desert monasticism: isolation, simplicity, and radical dependence on what the environment provides.⁴

The remoteness shapes everything, including food. Supplies arrive weekly. The monastery maintains gardens during the brief growing season, but winter meals rely on preserved foods, grains, and what can be stored without refrigeration. This scarcity echoes the Desert Fathers' experience: hunger as teacher, simplicity as liberation.

Christ in the Desert demonstrates how environmental constraints create contemplative practice. You cannot overeat when food must be transported thirteen miles on dirt roads. You cannot waste when the next supply delivery is seven days away. You cannot demand variety when you eat what the desert allows. The monastery's Benedictine hospitality, "all guests are received as Christ," functions within these limits, making generosity more meaningful.⁵

The monks bake artisan bread and brew craft beer to support the community, continuing the medieval tradition of monasteries as centers of food craft. Their online bakery ships bread nationwide, connecting desert contemplation to urban kitchens.

Weston Priory: Community, Song, and Vermont Simplicity

Weston Priory, founded in 1953 in Vermont's Green Mountains, became known for two things: its liturgical music (the monks record albums of their chants and songs) and its commitment to social justice. The Benedictine community here emphasises the communal dimension of monastic life: meals eaten together, work shared, decisions made collectively.⁶

Weston Priory's food practices reflect Vermont agrarian tradition adapted to monastic rule. The monks maintain organic gardens, preserve summer vegetables for winter, make their own bread and cheese. Meals are simple but satisfying, rooted in what the land provides, what the season allows, what the body needs.⁷

The priory teaches that monastic simplicity is not ascetic deprivation but right relationship with the earth. Eating locally is not dietary fad; it is how communities survived for millennia. Growing your own food is not lifestyle choice; it is reconnection with the source of life. The monks live what many contemporary movements advocate: food as relationship, meal as gratitude, table as community.

New Camaldoli Hermitage: Solitude and Silence on the California Coast

Perched on the cliffs of Big Sur, overlooking the Pacific Ocean, New Camaldoli Hermitage represents the eremitical (hermit) tradition within Benedictine monasticism. Founded in 1958 by monks from the Italian Camaldolese order, the hermitage balances solitude with community: monks live in individual hermitages but gather for liturgy and one communal meal daily.⁸

The meal structure reflects this balance: monks eat breakfast and lunch in solitude, then gather for dinner in community. The evening meal is eaten in silence, followed by recreation time when conversation is permitted. This rhythm honors both the hermit's need for solitude and the communal dimension of Benedictine life.

New Camaldoli supports itself through food production: they operate a commercial fruitcake bakery and sell olive oil from their groves. The fruitcakes, dense, alcohol-soaked, studded with fruits and nuts, follow medieval preservation techniques. The olive oil production connects the California hermitage to Mediterranean monastic roots, where olive trees and contemplation have grown together for centuries.⁹

Society of Saint John the Evangelist (SSJE): Anglican Monasticism in Cambridge

SSJE, founded in 1866 in England and established in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1870, is the oldest Anglican monastic community in North America. The monastery demonstrates how Protestant traditions rediscovered monasticism after the Reformation, preserving Benedictine structure while integrating Anglican theology.¹⁰

SSJE monks gather three times daily for meals, maintaining the Benedictine practice of lectio divina (spiritual reading) during dining. The reading is not background noise; it shapes the meal, directing attention toward sacred texts while the body eats. This double nourishment (food and word) embodies the monastic principle that humans need more than bread alone.¹¹

The monastery's location in urban Cambridge creates different challenges than rural monasteries face. SSJE cannot grow all their own food, cannot preserve the isolation of desert or mountain communities. Instead, they demonstrate urban monasticism, contemplative practice sustained amid Harvard Square's bustle, silence maintained despite subway proximity. Their food practices prove monastic wisdom works in cities, not just wilderness.

Taizé Community: Ecumenical Monasticism and Youth Pilgrimage

While Taizé is based in France, its influence on American Christian communities warrants inclusion. Brother Roger founded Taizé in 1940 as ecumenical community: Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Christians living under the same rule. The community became pilgrimage destination for young people worldwide, hosting over 100,000 youth annually who come for week-long retreats.¹²

Taizé's meal practices shaped a generation of young Christians' understanding of contemplative eating. Three times daily, thousands gather in the community hall for simple vegetarian meals eaten in silence or accompanied by Taizé chant music. The food is humble: soup, bread, cheese, fruit. But the scale is unprecedented: monastic hospitality extended to masses of young pilgrims.¹³

Pilgrims return home carrying Taizé's practices: simple meals, communal eating, food as opportunity for prayer rather than entertainment. The community proved monastic food wisdom could be shared with non-monastics, that contemplative meals could happen outside monastery walls, that simplicity and silence still speak to modern youth seeking depth.

The Living Tradition: Adaptation Without Abandonment

These contemporary monasteries demonstrate that Christian monastic food practices remain vibrant. The Rule of Benedict, written in the sixth century, still structures meals in twenty-first century America. But the tradition lives precisely because it adapts: New Camaldoli makes olive oil in California; Gethsemani produces bourbon fruitcake in Kentucky; Christ in the Desert brews craft beer in New Mexico.

The monasteries preserve the contemplative essence: silence, simplicity, communal rhythm, fasting and feasting, while embodying it in forms their particular places allow. This is tradition rightly understood: not frozen repetition of medieval practice, but living transmission of perennial wisdom through changing circumstances.

The table is set. The reading begins. Take your place.

The Seven Teachers in Christian Monasticism

How each Teacher manifests in this tradition of bread and silence.

Sources and Further Reading

Primary Texts & Classical Sources

• Benedict of Nursia. "The Rule of St. Benedict." c. 530 CE. Translated by Timothy Fry. Liturgical Press, 1981.
• Ward, Benedicta, trans. "The Sayings of the Desert Fathers." Cistercian Publications, 1975.
• Schmemann, Alexander. "Great Lent: Journey to Pascha." St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1969.

Thomas Merton & Abbey of Gethsemani

• [1] Merton, Thomas. "The Seven Storey Mountain." Harcourt Brace, 1948.
• [2] Merton, Thomas. "The Sign of Jonas." Harcourt, 1953.
• [3] Merton, Thomas. "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander." Doubleday, 1966. [Ecological wisdom in monastic simplicity]
• Abbey of Gethsemani. "Monastic Life and Practices." Abbey of Gethsemani, accessed 2026. monks.org

Contemporary American Monasteries

• [4] Monastery of Christ in the Desert. "History and Founding." Christ in the Desert Monastery, accessed 2026. christdesert.org
• [5] Kardong, Terrence G. "Benedict's Rule: A Translation and Commentary." Liturgical Press, 1996. [Documents Benedictine hospitality tradition]
• [6] Weston Priory. "Community Life and Prayer." Weston Priory, accessed 2026. westonpriory.org
• [7] Brother Mark. "The Weston Priory Cookbook." Weston Priory, 1988.
• [8] New Camaldoli Hermitage. "The Camaldolese Life." New Camaldoli Hermitage, accessed 2026. contemplation.com
• [9] Roest, Cyprian. "Camaldolese Extraordinary: The Life, Doctrine and Rule of Blessed Paul Giustiniani." iUniverse, 2002.
• [10] Society of Saint John the Evangelist. "The Rule of SSJE." Cowley Publications, 1997.
• [11] Bro. Curtis Almquist, SSJE. "Walking Home: Meditations on the Spiritual Life." Cowley Publications, 2006.
• [12] Taizé Community. "The Sources of Taizé." GIA Publications, 2000.
• [13] Brother Roger. "The Rule of Taizé." Taizé Community, 1961/1990.

Monastic Food Traditions

• d'Avila-Latourrette, Brother Victor-Antoine. "Twelve Months of Monastery Soups." Broadway Books, 1996.
• d'Avila-Latourrette, Brother Victor-Antoine. "From a Monastery Kitchen." Harper & Row, 1989.
• Gannon, Catherine, OSB, ed. "In God's Kitchen: The Monastery of Our Lady of the Resurrection." Paulist Press, 2005.
• Stewart, Columba. "Prayer and Community: The Benedictine Tradition." Orbis Books, 1998.

Additional Reading on Monastic Life

• Chittister, Joan, OSB. "The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century." Crossroad Publishing, 2010.
• Casey, Michael, OCSO. "Strangers to the City: Reflections on the Beliefs and Values of the Rule of St. Benedict." Paraclete Press, 2005.
• Dysinger, Luke, OSB. "Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus." Oxford University Press, 2005.