A monk (from the Greek μοναχός, monachos, "single, solitary" in Latin, monachus) is a person (male or female) who lives an ascetical life either alone (sometimes referred to as an anchorite or hermit), or with a number of other monks (called cenobitic monasticism). Monks have existed across all religions and forms of philosophy, although Christianity gave this group of people the name monk. From the earliest record of Christians in the Bible as found in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, we see the early Christians practicing an ascetical and common life both in the city and moving into the desert. Some of those moving into the desert would live in caves and become known as hermits or anchorites. Others would band together in cenobitic monasticism and share a common life. For these cenobites, they would live their life seeking God through prayer and work as outlined in a common rule of life. Various rules existed as did various forms of monastic structure. The Benedictines followed the Rule of St. Benedict and would usher in a growth in abbeys of men and convents of women all modeled on the witness and example of the monk St. Benedict and his monastic sister St. Scholastica. 

Some of us are called by God and the Church to live in an abbey with a vowed, public, single way of life that involves the wearing of a habit, the renunciation of all possessions, the commitment to daily personal and communal prayer, and to seek God under the Rule of St. Benedict and an Abbot. This formal structured way of life in a monastery is the one most people envision as a monastic life. Maybe you are being called by God to live life as a "vowed" monastic in an abbey or convent. If you are a single Roman Catholic male 20-45 years of age, then click on "In the Abbey" to learn more about our monastic life at Subiaco. If you are a female Roman Catholic with a similar interest, then click on "Women Monastics" to learn more about the two female monastic Benedictine communities we have in Arkansas.

However, there are still those Christians who are not called to renounce all possessions or live a vowed monastic life but are somehow still drawn to this way of spiritual growth. They may not be called to a fully immersed life as a vowed monk in an abbey, but nonetheless are drawn to the monastic life whilst still living in the world. They may have families, a variety of work, or even be Christian non-Catholics. Whatever their state of life, something/someone still calls them to the structured monastic way of life but lived out in the world and not in an enclosed abbey or convent. These people are known in Benedictine monasteries as "Oblates"... men and women associating themselves with a particular abbey or convent but seeking to live much of the monastic life in the world. They don't make vows, but they do make commitments to live a particular Rule of Life each day that is consistent with Benedictine monastic principles. To learn more about becoming an Oblate and living monastic life in the world, then just click on "In the World."