by Patrick Henry. Published by Liturgical Press, 2021. Reviewed by Jenny Dawson

I loved this book. As a long-time Lay Cistercian Associate of the Southern Star Abbey at Kopua, I expected to find Benedictine gems in it. I wasn’t disappointed. It enlarged my learning of a year ago when the Kopua Associates hosted a meeting with four other lay Benedictine groups: there is no single way to be Benedictine even in a small place like Aotearoa.

Monasticism is popular today — to read about, to visit on retreats or to be inspired — but not as a life-long commitment to the cloister for most of us. Henry talks of the Benedictine charism as being attractive because it is ecumenical, intergenerational, experimental and diverse.

I was fascinated that in this book Henry is responding to Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation. I had not read Dreher but could pick up the contrasts between his binary approach (one monastery, one way, focusing on restoration) and Henry’s “both/and” approach that describes the Benedictine options today in terms of “adventure in a salt-water marsh”. With Joan Chittister and Kathleen Norris, I highly recommend this book!

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 267 February 2022: 27