3
Defining Discipleship
At the beginning of his Rule, St. Benedict, the great
father of monasticism, says that he seeks to estab-
lish a "school of the Lord's service," a place where
the disciple may learn to follow Christ through
a complete way of life. By forming a community
dedicated to learning the Christian life, Benedict
sees the disciple as "progressing in the life of con-
version and faith that, with heart enlarged and in
ineffable sweetness of love, one runs in the way of
God's commandments." Every Christian, not just
the monks within the monastery, must learn how
to live the Christian life to be able to follow Christ
with enlarged heart and the sweetness of love.
We all need formation with a "school of the Lord's
service" to learn how to become disciples of Christ.
In a similar way, Saint Thomas Aquinas did not re
-
duce education to information. Rather, he thought
of it as the "upbringing and advancement to the
SECTION
1
The Need
for Discipleship
