We have a monthly meeting to support those who are involved in the Benedictine life, including oblates from  the two Anglican Benedictine Communities in Australia. the meetings are usually held at St George’s. We try and meet once a month to provide a support for those who are called to follow the Benedictine way whilst living in the world.

Our next meeting of our Benedictine oblates will be on Thursday 19 March, 2026.

This is a good little clip about oblates from PBS in the USA.

Extract from the Guidelines for Oblates

In June 1971, a group of Directors of Oblates came together at St. Procopius Abbey, Lisle, Illinois, to consider how Benedictine Oblates might best be served in the light of Vatican II. One year later a second meeting was held, this time at St. Mary’s Abbey, Morristown, New Jersey, to review papers that had been written in the interim and to exchange ideas pertinent to Benedictine Oblates.

The second meeting resulted in a document of Guidelines for Oblates of St. Benedict, and this document has since been generally endorsed by a considerable number of Directors of Oblates in North America. It is intended to serve as both Constitution and Guidelines for the spiritual life of Oblates, and it is hoped that its availability will assist all Directors of Oblates in their efforts to interest men and women who, while retaining their position in the world, wish somehow to identify with a given Benedictine monastery or convent.

Constitution

1. Oblates of St Benedict are Christian men and women admitted into spiritual union and affiliation with a Benedictine community of monks, nuns, or sisters so that they may share in the spiritual life, prayers, and good works of the community.

2. Oblates do not usually live in the monastic house of the community, yet they remain one with the community while they continue faithfully to carry out the duties of their particular state in life and occupation, wherever they may be. We are therefore not concerned here about those who wish to live as Oblates with the community in the abbey or convent itself. Such cloistered Oblates must qualify for community life, be accepted by the vote of the community, and be ready to work and pray under the same conditions as the monks, sisters, and nuns themselves.

3. Within the framework of their daily lives in the world, Oblates strive to lead full Christian lives enlightened by personal efforts to understand Christ’s teaching in the Scriptures as interpreted by St Benedict in his Rule for monks. Oblates are guided and inspired by their continued spiritual association with the monastic community.

4. Oblates are a “spiritual arm” of the Benedictine community, reaching out into all areas of life, seeking to share with others what they themselves gain as Oblates of St. Benedict. Their affiliation with a community of monks or Benedictine women is not therefore for their own personal good alone. It is chiefly by their Christian example, even by their very presence among others, that they hope to bring St Benedict’s ideal of service to God and man into the world where they live and work.

5. Since Oblates of St. Benedict primarily offer themselves for the service of God and others, they will therefore strive for God’s honour and glory before all else, keeping in mind the Benedictine motto: “That in all things God may be glorified.”

Oblates New sheet for March

The Benedictine GROUP

SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Daily Rule, Daily Office, Sacramental Life

In so far as our state of life allows

St Joseph, 19 March, 2026

Our group met this day at St George’s, with a lunch in the grounds under the beautiful autumn sky. We had twelve at mass and seven stayed for lunch.

Our reading today was chapter 40, on the measure of drink. St Benedict shows his gentle side, telling a community how much wine they ought to have. Basically, he says, work it out for yourself! St Benedict is rarely prescriptive about community life unless it is essential; he realised that all communities have different needs, and the Rule must bend to what is needed by God in any place. I think it is also a very Anglican way as well, work things out as God calls to you wherever you are. It is also good for us as oblates; to find a balance in the place we are called to live and serve God.

But there is a good extra point in the reading today – 

But where the circumstances of the place are such that not even the measure prescribed above can be supplied, but much less or none at all, let those who live there bless God and not murmur. Above all things do we give this admonition, that they abstain from murmuring.

We are to bless God even when things are difficult. Benedictines are essentially half-glass-full people, not half-glass-empty people. Truly, religious communities are places of joy and laughter, even with difficult people, the Spirit lives and laughs in these places. I think that the lessons on humility also help here, we learn to take a humble place, so whatever treasures we are given in wealth or food, or not given, we rejoice in the gift in our humility.

Which touches on our saint of the day, St Joseph. He disappears from the Gospels after the visit to the Temple when Our Lord was a boy, we know nothing of what happened to him or why. But Our Lord always uses “Father “with a special love, he talks of his heavenly Father in terms that shows he understood how Joseph had been a good model to him, loving and caring, like his heavenly Father.

Over lunch we shared the news from Camperdown, which was celebrating its 50th anniversary – there was a lovely article from the Camperdown Chronicle. Sr Raphael will be in the UK between April and May.

Joan Teresa will be at Port Eliot between 28 May and 1 May in the Caravan Park and intends to catch up with our oblates on the Coast and will welcome any other oblates wandering through the area during her stay.

Our next meeting will be at St George’s on 16 April at 12 noon. We hope also to hold a meeting at Goolwa later this year, at a time convenient to the members in that area.

God bless,

Fr Scott.