Three Rebel Monks

In Three Rebel Monks, Raymond begins the narration of the Cistercian legend, with the departure of a group of monks from the Benedictine monastery of Molesme, in search of a solitary place where they can seek God with greater authenticity and simplicity, according to the Rule of Saint Benedict in its purity. With this work, M. Raymond begins the trilogy entitled The Saga of Citeaux and composed of Three Rebel Monks, The Family that Reached Christ and Burnt Incense. With the name "saga", the author expresses his intention to poetically trace the history of the primitive Cistercian Order that, over time, would receive from the monastery of La Trappe the name of Trappist, by which the white monks are known. In Nordic literature, the saga is a genre equivalent to the epic of southern and western Europe. But they usually lack an individual protagonist: the hero of the saga is a collective, a family, a tribe, a people. In telling the story of the founders of the Cistercian Order, M. Raymond used this ancient literary genre and, taking extraordinary events from real life, infused them with a poetic and legendary spirit of the highest emotional value. His intention, in composing the trilogy, was to divulge the history of the first European Cistercians of the 12th century, and that of the first American Trappists in the 19th century. In Three Rebel Monks, Raymond begins the narration of the Cistercian legend with the departure of a group of monks from the Benedictine monastery of Molesme, in search of a solitary place where they could seek God with greater authenticity and simplicity, according to the Rule of Saint Benedict in its purity. The monks who promoted this reformist movement were: Robert, to whom we owe the most austere orientation of Benedictine monasticism, Alberic, to whom we owe the first organization of the typical observance of the Cistercians, and Stephen Harding, the creator of the organizational chart of the Cistercian Order that constitutes it as such.

M. RAYMOND, O.C.S.O NÚ

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