Domestic Monastery

by Ronald Rolheiser

Our home, our duties and routines, our relationships, and the way we use our time, are the monasteries of our lives. It is through these practices that we build our relationship with God, that we find opportunities for contemplation, and deserts for reflection. In this beautiful little book Ronald Rolheiser turns on its head the idea that religious life is the preserve of monks and nuns. Our cloisters are the walls of our home and our work, the streets we walk, and the people with whom we share our lives. The domestic is the monastic. Chapters Monasticism and Family Life; The Domestic Monastery; Real Friendship; Lessons from the Monastic Cell; Ritual for Sustaining Prayer; Tensions within Spirituality; A Spirituality of Parenting; Spirituality and the Seasons of Our Lives; The Sacredness of Time; Life's Key Question.

Genres: Parenting, Christian, Nonfiction, Faith, Spirituality, Theology, Religion

112 pages, Paperback

Published October 31, 2019

About the author

OMI

Reviews

[Bailey L. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super short book— almost more of an essay length — which should really be a must read for any Catholic parent. The key point is that a monastery requires its occupants to live by a bell, and whatever they are doing must be put away when the bell rings to do chores, eat, pray, go to bed, etc. For most of us though, that bell is more like a little boy asking for hummus and pretzels, wanting me to hunt snails with him, and throwing up on himself because he tasted a dandelion. (My morning today :) …)

Parenthood is a sobering, humbling route to holiness, basically. And, our society’s obsession with creativity and newness, and its resistance to routine and ritual and the monotony of everyday chores, essentially takes us away from a life of humble obedience. It makes sense given too our society’s resistance to humility: routine, ritual, and chores don’t help us become more important. Instead we look to things that make us stand out and collect accolades and approval.

Last idea I’m noodling on: he breaks life into three sections: the first where you’re figuring out who you are, your vocation, and your career. Then he moves to the middle part of life where you are seeking to give your life away, be more generous, and stay strong in your commitments. It made me think about how unique it was that I was teaching college students when I too was at the tail end of the first stage. Being in the second stage now would make me somewhat of a different teacher, I think. But the truth is the people that shaped me the most, for the better, were actually in the third stage.

Some chapters really left me thinking, and I almost wish he had said a bit more on a few topics. However, I would much rather have a book that’s too short than the other way around :)

As you can see, I have a lot of thoughts for a book so short!

[Stephen Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

November 2025

Picked up on a whim, cut to the heart again.

July 2023

This is a concise, low-frills discussion of those monastic rhythms in which every Christian must participate for spiritual health. Using *time* as his thematic linch-pin. Rolheiser doesn’t say that one must turn the home into a monastery; rather, he points out the ways in which domestic life (filled though it may be with interruptions and spit-ups and endless acts of ordering and service) already reflects certain monastic sensibilities and can cultivate the same necessary “inner life” that one finds in the cloister. It is a brief, but it is no less illuminating for its brevity.

[Rebekah Barkman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief, yet profound—a shift in perspective for sure.
As a busy mother of 3 children (soon 4) and being one who longs for solitude and hours of uninterrupted prayer—it was so refreshing to read that the same thing that solitude and prayer works in a person is also attained (maybe more so) in the throes of motherhood. A monastery is a place set apart, and that is very much the case of a mother who learns quite quickly her time is not her own, but God’s (and her children’s).

[Adam Shields · Rating 4 out of 5]

Summary: Short book thinking about how we can arrange our lives to think about them as service to God.

This is a short book, about 90 pages and just under an hour as audio. It is cheap on both kindle and audiobook right now ($0.99 on kindle, $2.77 on audio). Sunday morning I could not sleep and after putzing around on social media for a while I put this on audio to listen to as I sat back and closed my eyes hoping to fall back asleep.

I don't think I feel back asleep but I also need to read this again and it is quick enough I probably will later this week. Thematically, this is simple, some meditations from the head of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio about how people outside of the monastery can incorporate some of the practices and ideas of the monastery in a non-monastic setting.

There are good looks at being a parent and how parenting (or other relationships) primes us to sacrifice for others.  Also how there are seasons of life and looking at those seasons (or times of day) can be used to be thought of like the liturgical year or the prayers of the hours.

There are weaknesses to books like this. Monasticism isn't the same as life outside of the cloister. There are parallels that can be drawn but pulling at them too strongly causes them to break down. Encouragements to live sacrificially for your children or to think of the structure of your day as a form of prayer method are good for people that are not prone to codependency or OCD. There are people that absolutely shouldn't read books like this, and others that would benefit.

In a time when I have been having a hard time sitting down and reading heavier material, short books like this are helpful.

[Melody Schwarting · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brief book on how the home is a monastery, not how it can become a monastery. Rolheiser writes from the outside, as someone who has taken religious orders, and he points to more detailed resources. Thus (like a story he mentions in a late chapter) he remains silent on many points out of his lack of experience. This would be encouraging for that contemplative parent-friend, and is good food for thought for anyone in a household.

[Justin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is how more books should be written - not 200 pages of filler but 90 pages of condensed thoughts and meditations. Loved his comparison of monastic life to the rhythms of marriage, work, and parenthood. Would recommend this quick read - will definitely be picking it back up to reread in the future.

[Maddie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish this book was more fleshed out, but it was written to parents and speaks often of the younger years where it can be difficult to read anything longer than 80ish pages. The lesson of the home is similar to the lesson of the monastery. Every grab of a hand, every interruption to a task with “mommy I need you”, every cry for a need to be met is the ringing of the monastic bell. It is the reminder time is not your own. Your life is not your own and God can use it to work out the deep desire for self and control similar to the monastic bell that rings for dinner, prayer, study, work, or sleep for the monk/nun.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Certain vocations for example, raising children offer a perfect setting for living a contemplative life. They provide a desert for reflection, a real monastery. The mother who stays home with small children experiences a very real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is certainly monastic. Her task and preoccupations remove her from the center of social life and from the centers of important power. She feels removed. Moreover her constant contact with children, the mildest of the mild, gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony, with the mild and learn empathy and unselfishness. Perhaps more so even than the monk or the minister of the gospel, she is forced,almost against her will, to mature.”


“Prepare for death by living more fully now. Work at loving more deeply, less discriminately, more affectionately, and more gratefully.”

This short but sweet book will be a reread for sure.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only issue with this book is that I wish it were longer! So many excellent one liners that really made me contemplate my death and the way in which I love more deeply.

[Corinne Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recommend for all parents. Especially those with young children. An encouragement to my faith, as I’m learning to navigate what faith now looks like, married with young children, who are always in need. Leaving singleness, entering marriage, and then having kids has been the hardest transition period of life but has brought the deepest roots of faith I’ve known.

I love the comparison between monastic life and domestic life. They are both Holy callings, but I’ve forgotten that my calling is Holy, and now I’ve been shown the beauty of my calling to be a wife and a mother. This book has made me even more excited about the path I have chosen to take and look forward to how domestic life will continue to shape me in the future.

[Haley Baumeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

After seeing this tiny little book being recommended more and more, I can say it’s a little gem worth reading. Simple and straightforward language, yet painting a compellingly beautiful picture. I nearly cried for feeling seen.

[Elena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Undoes the shame some young Moms feel navigating the demands of the day and the lack of available space for a traditional “quiet time”. Brief, profound, freeing, and affirming. Would recommend to any parent of young kids.

[Kaley Fry · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐

Okay! So Ronald really understood the assignment of writing in a simple, succinct manner that even the most brain-addled and weary of parents could take in.

I struggled, however, to follow the overall thread and themes between the chapters. There was also some repetition that would have been fine in a spoken sermon, but felt odd in written form.

I truly appreciated the author's recognition of the sanctifying work that parenting has the potential to do in your life. "Raising small children, if done with love and generosity, will do for you exactly what private prayer does" (Ch 1)

Our home (like a monastery) "is a place to learn the value of powerlessness, and a place to learn that our time is not ours, but God's" (Ch 2).

"Love and prayer work the same...[both] can only be sustained through ritual, routine, and rhythm" (Ch 5).

Some lovely, wise ideas to contemplate!

Also: I am probably not the target audience (not being a catholic), so take my review with that caveat!

[Lucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

10 chapters. 100 pages. And full of reflections on how our homes are already echoes of the monastic life. The challenge is: will we choose to see it that way?

[Hanna Richter · Rating 4 out of 5]

When both Bailey and Lucy tell me I should read something, I listen. Started and finished in one sitting last night. Reading the first chapter I almost could've cried from feeling so seen and known. The whole book had many things written that I'd been praying about and wrestling with recently. Aside from a few questionable theological things, I loved it!

[Deidre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could recommend this little look for every mom, every parent really! So practical, encouraging and Biblical!

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

*3.5 stars*

Not quite the little book I was expecting but worthy of a read still. Full of quick wisdom and good reminders.

[Kelsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

“A parent must ever say in word and attitude, ‘Return as far as you can and I will come the rest of the way.’”

[Parker McGoldrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

My time is not my own.

[Jose Ovalle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good stuff on home as monastery ideas. Will probably read those parts again. There just wasn’t enough of that in here. The rest of this book was really bad exegesis and a chapter on friendship that was super weird and pretty much completely useless

[F.C. Shultz]

“Go to your cell, and your cell will teach you everything you need to know: Stay inside your vocation, inside your commitments, inside your legitimate conscriptive duties, inside your church, inside your family, and they will teach you where life is found and what love means. Be faithful to your commitments, and what you are ultimately looking for will be found there.”

“There’s a rich spirituality in these principles: Stay inside your commitments, be faithful, your place of work is a seminary, your work is a sacrament, your family is a monastery, your home is a sanctuary. Stay inside them, don’t betray them, learn what they are teaching you without constantly looking for life elsewhere and without constantly believing that God is elsewhere.”

“Prayer is like eating. There needs to be a good rhythm between big banquets (high celebration, high aesthetics, lots of time, proper formality) and the everyday family supper (simple, no-frills, short, predictable).”

“In essence, she suggested that raising children, being a mom or a dad, is a privileged means to holiness and—this is my addition—a more natural path to maturity than is to be found in monasticism.”

“How do I live the last years of my life so that when I die my death will bless my loved ones just as my life once did?”

[Meagan Mankin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Basically an essay about the parallels between what can be learned in a monastery and what can be learned at home. Full of some simple, beautiful truths. I really liked these 4 questions for the “middle season of life” when you’ve already answered many of the “primary questions” of life (who am I? who will I marry? where will I live? what am I called to do? etc.).

“How do I give myself over more generously and purely?
How do I remain faithful?
How do I sustain my commitments?
How do I give my life away?”

[Grace Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nice little read. Parenthood is often repetitive, monotonous, and can seem like what you are doing day to day is not so important. Your time is not your own, and there’s a lot of doing what you need to do because you need to do it. Much is the same with a monastic life, where the most spiritual work is being completed. The author encourages the tired parent that what they are doing is important and spiritual even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Very succinct and digestible; I wish more books were written like this!

[Dorothy Vandezande · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of gems in this little book. ❤️

[Campbell Lakatos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rolheiser does a delightful job illustrating the value of the often mundane task of parenting in spiritual formation. It’s its own type monastery that teaches countless lessons if we attune to them.

[Natalie Herr · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read full of gold- worth picking up just for the monastic bell imagery. It’s such helpful imagery for the daily grind of parenting.

[Wilhelm · Rating 5 out of 5]

wird nicht beim einmaligen Lesen bleiben!

[Ella Edelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like taking a deep breath. Full of hope, wisdom, and life-giving encouragement. Incidentally, a really excellent way to follow up Comer's Practicing the Way. (Big thanks to my dad for this one).

[Michael Wenig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, pithy, wise. Nice. It’s nice to reflect on this season of life with young kids accomplishing the same (or more!) of what a monk might experience in a monastery.

[Lara Ryd · Rating 4 out of 5]

I listened to this for free on Spotify, but I think I'm going to buy a copy. There is enough profundity in this little book to return to it again, more slowly.