“There was a man whose life was holy. His name was Benedict, and he was blessed by grace and by name.” With these words St. Gregory the Great begins the “Life of Saint Benedict”, found in the second book of his “Dialogues” which is the source for most of what we know about him. It continues: “Forsaking his father’s house and wealth, with a mind to serve only God, he sought for some place where he might attain to the desire of his holy purpose; and in this sort he departed, instructed with learned ignorance and furnished with unlearned wisdom” (Dial. St. Greg., II, Into.).
After receiving the monastic habit from a monk named Romanus, Benedict spent three years in solitude at Subiaco, where he matured in both mind and character, in knowledge of himself and of his fellow-man. In time people were attracted by his sanctity and came to Subiaco to be under his guidance. It is there that he began to establish monasteries. The remainder of Benedict’s life was spent in realizing the ideal of monasticism which he has left us in his Rule, which St. Gregory says is his real biography (ibid.,36).
The Rule of Saint Benedict very much resembles the wisdom literature of the Old Testament, especially the book of Proverbs. In our first reading today we heard, “My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands, turning your ear to wisdom, inclining your heart to understanding; then will you understand the fear of the LORD and find knowledge of God.”
(Prov.2:1-2; 5-6).
The opening words of the Rule begin, “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart” (Prol. 1).
The Rule is intended to be a guide to wise living in the practical situations of life. However it depends far more on the Gospel and the New Testament, not only concerned with life situations, but with living the monastic life wisely. It stems from lived experience of the monastic life and represents an effort to preserve and to pass on the wisdom learned from that experience. What today we call ‘generativity’.
One practical way in which the Rule can be relevant for us is that it provides a doorway to this whole body of wisdom concerning the spiritual life. It also provides a common source and a common language for those seeking to live the monastic tradition. Our tradition is embedded in our history. Without a history, persons and institutions have no identity. It is the same with religious communities. The weaker the knowledge of the past, the weaker our identity will be. As we prepare to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of our community next year, it’s important for us to remember those who came before us, from Petit Clairvaux to Our Lady of the Valley to Saint Joseph’s Abbey. Their legacy has formed us into who we are today.
Along with a common identity, all monasteries need a common vision in order to live and grow in unity. This vision is not an intellectual understanding or a program of life. As Saint Gregory said in the Dialogues about Benedict, he was furnished with an ‘unlearned wisdom’. According to Mother Martha Driscoll “Vision is more a matter of the heart than of the brain, or perhaps we should say that it is the fruit of the new unity between head and heart brought about by faith, conversion and transformation in the spirit. However, if that vision is only on paper, it does not become a living reality.”
Concerning the individual monk, Father Michael Casey writes, “First and foremost the call that comes to us today from Benedict’s Rule is to become what we are meant to be. To embrace whole-heartedly our Benedictine and monastic identity, and to assert our distinctiveness in respect of ‘this age’, which espouses so few of the values that characterize our seeking of God. Our conversatio and our citizenship, as St. Paul says in the letter to the Philippians (3:20), is in heaven.” For those of us who follow in the footsteps of Benedict there are aspects of a monastic outlook, a way of seeing, that should define and identify us. Benedict tells us in chapter four of the Rule: “The love of Christ must come before all else” (4:21). He is not only the ‘way’ but our goal. “The heart of all monastic observance is communion with Christ realized in prayer and in love for all the brothers”, according to Casey. (Strangers to the City, M. Casey)
Benedict describes the monastery as a school for the Lord’s service. However, this education is not academic. This ‘school’ in which we live is that place where Christ teaches us the way to eternal life. This ‘way’ demands obedience, perseverance, and at times, suffering. We also have our share of trials and disappointments, but it is here where our transformation, our ‘conversatio’ takes place.
In the history of monastic life since the time of Benedict there have been times of tremendous growth and expansion, times of decline and dissolution and times of reform and renewal. When monasteries have lost their bearings and turn from the ‘way of life’ the Rule lays out for them, prayer ceases to become a priority, observance slackens, secular values creep in and the purpose of the monastic vocation becomes vague, or as one writer describes it, “infected by the spirit of the times.” Perhaps the most serious of all is that the desire for holiness, both individual and communal evaporates. In the First Letter to the Corinthians Saint Paul insistently reminds us; “This is the will of God: your sanctification” (I Thes 4:3) Every monastery of every age needs to be reminded of this. Even St. Bernard had to remind his monks at Clairvaux that they were called to be saints, dedicated to living holy lives. He writes: “This community is made up not of the wicked but of saints, religious men, those who are full of grace and worthy of all blessing. You come together to hear the word of God, you gather to sing praise, to pray, to offer adoration. This is a consecrated assembly, pleasing to God and familiar with the angels. Therefore, brothers, stand fast in reverence, stand with care and devotion of mind, especially in this place of prayer and in this school of Christ where the Spirit is heard.”
(Sermon for St. John the Baptist, 1; SBOp. 5, 176, 17-22).
Lest we think we are something special a quick look around shows that God has not called the brightest and the best, but ordinary people, distinguished by one common characteristic – we have been called by Christ to this community, in this place, in this monastery. Jesus tells us that we have been chosen, not just given an invitation. “You did not choose me but I chose you”, he said to his disciples. (Jn 15:16) Sometimes it’s hard to know why we were ‘chosen’ to be monks. It would be impossible to live this life without God’s grace. It is he who brought me here and keeps me here. If we feel that we are where we belong, and that we are becoming what we are meant to be, then God has called us to this particular vineyard to take root and bear fruit that will last.
The final words of Jesus to his disciples in today’s gospel are the core of his message: “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another” (Jn 15:17). Saint Benedict tells his monks: “Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way; the love of Christ must come before all else. Rid your heart of all deceit. Never give a hollow greeting of peace or turn away when someone needs your love (RB 4:20, 26).
May the prayers of our Father, Saint Benedict help and support us so that “We can set out for the loftier summits of the teaching and virtues (in this Rule), and under God’s protection (we) will reach them. Amen”(RB 73.9).
