Resources for Oblate Novices updated

A ramp walkway into Saint Leo Abbey

The blog of resources for Oblate novices has been updated with the addition of the little booklet "The Benedictines" to the list of basic books for starting an Oblate library.

Dom David Knowles, "The Benedictines," A Digest for Moderns, Second Edition. Forward by Marion R. Bowman, O.S.B. Abbot of Saint Leo Abbey, The Abbey Press, Saint Leo, Florida.  There is a 1962 online version (but this online version omits chapters 5 and 6, the last two chapters). The booklet is available at the Saint Leo Gift Shop.

In addition, the entry for The Conferences by John Cassian has been expanded as follows:

Egypt's greatest gift to the world was monasticism that developed in the 300s AD in the Egyptian wilderness. The monk John Cassian (360 to 435 AD) brought that monastic life and culture to the West. Cassian's Conferences were a significant source for St. Benedict's famous Rule (written about 530 AD). St. Benedict urged his monks to read the Conferences, we should too. Seeking God is the monastic path. The Egyptian Desert Fathers marked the way for monastics since the earliest days of Christianity. Available online.

The Conferences is also available in a new translation by Boniface Ramsey.  This is the "first complete translation of The Conferences of John Cassian to appear in English, as well as the first extended commentary on an annotation of The Conferences since 1617."

The Conferences in Ramsey's new translation is available in hardcover, Kindle (on the same page as the hardcover) and Google books.

The third update is to add item 9 on the list of resources.  These are two commentaries on the Rule of Saint Benedict:

Benedictine Monachism by Cuthbert Butler. (1919)  (Bio of Cuthbert Butler)  Edward Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine monachism : studies in Benedictine life and rule (London, New York: Longmans, Green, 1919).

Commentary on the Rule of Saint Benedict by Paul Delatte (1921 translation) (Bio of Paul Delatte, but the page took a long time to download so once at the site a PDF was created from the Solesmes website and is here) Dom Paul Delatte, The Rule of St. Benedict, trans. Dom Justin McCann (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1921).