Saint Benedict’s Rule, which was the most basic piece of government in the lives of thousands of medieval Christians, visualises the good life as a return to paradise, a return made possible through the merits of the Redeemer, and essentially an imitation of His life. The lost image of God was found again when the novice heard the voice of his master, calling clearly for the first time: ‘If today you will hear his voice, harden not your hearts’. The Redeemer has put everything at the novice’s disposal in the church and, more specifically, in the monastery. The monastery is a quintessence of the church in its life of community, its consecration to the one thing necessary, and its gradual preparation for the fulness of the beatific vision.

The ideal groundwork for Saint Benedict’s theology of conversion was already in existence, already a tradition, in Augustine’s teaching of a divine image deformed at the fall, and in constant process of reformation until the final union with God whose image the soul is. There is a catena from Saint Paul . . . ‘Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed, so that the image may be reformed by Him who formed it.’ ‘When the vision of God is perfect, the soul’s similitude to God will be perfect also. Now we see in a glass darkly... We are transformed from glory to glory in the same image. This is happening from day to day in those who strive after God.’