Saint Benedict's model for the monastic life was the family, with the abbot as father and all the monks as brothers. The spirit of Saint Benedict's Rule is summed up in the motto of “peace” and the traditional “pray and work”.
Saint Benedict's Rule organizes the monastic day into regular periods of communal and private prayer, sleep, spiritual reading, and manual labor. So, from the 24 hours a day, Benito states that 8 should be dedicated to manual labor, 8 to prayer, especially to the prayer of the divine office, and 8 to the rest of the monks.
The center of everything, of the monk's whole life is Christ. Within the Monastery it is very important to keep the obedience to the abbot, silence, humility and peace, essential characteristics in the life of the monk and in his coexistence with his brothers in the Monastery.
