There is more than one author in the Goodreads catalog with this name. This entry is for Patrick ^3 Barry.
Patrick Barry OSB was born Noel St. John Barry in Merseyside during World War I. His father was a doctor from Ireland. Noel was sent as a boarder to Ampleforth and on completion of his education there, instead of becoming a doctor as expected, he joined the monastic community. He became a monk in 1939, taking the name Patrick. He took a degree at St Benet's Hall, Oxford and was ordained a priest in 1945.
He returned to Ampleforth to become a teacher of classics and the school librarian. In 1964 he was appointed headmaster of the school and remained in that post until his retirement in 1980. In 1985 he was elected sixth Abbot of Ampleforth, was re-elected in 1992, and retired from that office in 1997.
He then lived at St Louis Abbey, Missouri, USA, for ten years, with frequent visits to Santiago in Chile where three co-educational schools modelled on Ampleforth were established.
He returned to Ampleforth at the age of 91 and continued to take an active part in the monastic community until his death at the age of 98.
The book is an excerpt from The Benedictine Handbook. 3/4 of it is the Rule, a translation I didn't care for. There are my others I like a lot better. I didn't realize this book included so much of the Rule. I also didn't find much for practical advice in the seven short chapters of reflection on the Rule.
This book was ok. It had potential, but I felt it fell far short of it.
It is essentially a collation of short essays reflecting on different aspects of the benedictine monastic system/rule. Some of these were thought provoking, but others I found a little too abstract or bland. Also the structure of the book was not immediately obvious and ended up being confusing.
No one can improve on The Rule except with a good introduction. The short closing articles are variable, but I profited from the ones on perseverance and the art of lectio divina.