St. Benedict Collection

There are few figures as influential in the development of Christian culture as St. Benedict, the father of Western monasticism. The monasteries he founded and the Rule he wrote for them have shaped the religious life of the Church for centuries, and his musings on prayer, work, and community life are of timeless value.

This St. Benedict Collection contains the Rule in its entirety, as well as the biographical Life of St. Benedict written by St. Gregory the Great. Captured in these works is above all a life radically ordered toward God, and in this way Benedict provides a paradigm of Christian living from which believers of any vocation can learn.

St. Benedict of Nursia (480–547) is considered the father of Western monasticism. An Italian monk, he founded over a dozen monasteries and authored an extensive rule for communal living, which is used widely by religious orders even today. 

Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries and the host of CATHOLICISM, a groundbreaking, award-winning documentary about the Catholic faith. On July 21, 2015, Pope Francis announced his appointment as Auxiliary Bishop in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, and on June 2, 2022, he appointed Bishop Barron the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester (Minnesota). Ordained in 1986 in the Archdiocese of Chicago, Bishop Barron received a master’s degree in philosophy from The Catholic University of America in 1982 and a doctorate in sacred theology from the Institut Catholique de Paris in 1992.