Living in a family is like living in a community of brothers in a monastery. This is suggested by a Benedictine Monk of Farfa Abbey, Fr. Massimo Lapps, who, keeping in mind the fundamental text written by the founder of the Order in Subiaco, St. Benedict, composed a revised version of the Rule focused on the family.
From work to rest—throughout the moments of each day, including meals, going out, prayer, and study—this "Rule for the Family", which is fascinating but always deeply realistic, harmonizes the actions and aims of all the components of society’s basic unit.
So, for example, chapter 35 of the Rule on work in the kitchen ("Let the brethren serve one another, and let no one be excused from the kitchen service except by reason of sickness or occupation in some important work. For this service brings increase of reward and of charity") is adapted to the daily context of the family, showing all the benefits. Father Massimo writes: "Applied to family life, this teaching of St. Benedict is not simply a standard practice to make the mother’s domestic work lighter by distributing the burden on all members of the family: more than this, it is a powerful educational tool, through which the children—but of course even adults—learn, not with words but with deeds, what it means to practice and acquire brotherly love, through the daily exercise of the virtues of charity, diligence, patience, care, precision." For Father Massimo, moreover, without this kind of practical integration, which actually affects everyday life, "catechism lessons are of little use."
