DOM HUGH GILBERT, OSB. GRACEWING PRESS, 2014

St. Benedict begins and ends his Rule by appealing to "quisquis" - "whoever you are". Abbot, now Bishop Hugh takes this up as a running theme in his book of conferences on the Holy Rule. He reads the Rule here as a story, a narrative, a "Tale" of "Quisquis" - anyone at all - anyone, that is, who desires life; anyone who hears the call of the Lord, and aspires to answer it whole-heartedly and effectively. This is vintage Hugh Gilbert stuff. Here we have, as we'd expect, an unfolding of the inner meaning of St. Benedict's Rule, avoiding mere repetition of other commentaries not only through the entirely original approach, but also through the wealth of experience and learning and allusion Abbot Hugh brings to his subject. Some of the nineteen Chapters began life as conferences given to the Pluscarden community; others were delivered to other monastic communities during the course of preached Retreats; one, on the relationship between the monastery and the local Church, was delivered in Germany in 2012, when Dom Hugh had already given up his Abbatial Charge in order to become Bishop of Aberdeen. 

Those who already know the Rule very well will be pleased to find here a fresh treatment which offers an abundance of insight, while always bringing them back to the text. Those who do not know the Rule at all, or who are not monks or nuns, will nevertheless find nothing inaccessible here, and nothing that cannot easily be applied and adapted by Christians in any walk or condition of life.

Bishop Hugh writes: "The Rule must be constantly re-discovered, its deepest intentions explored and re-expressed. It is this living validity of the Rule these pages would like to serve".

209 pages.