CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER ONE
Benedict begins the text of the main body of the Rule by describing four different kinds of monks. It seems clear that he is writing out of his own personal experience. It is therefore possible to read this chapter as giving us a picture of the strengths and weaknesses that he found in contemporary monasticism. But I can also approach it at another level and see in it differing attitudes and approaches to Christian discipleship. In that case I find a yardstick, as it were, to consider differing approaches to my own discipleship, perhaps at successive times in my life, which will help me to become aware of them so that I can either embrace or reject them.
He starts with what he most approves, the cenobites, those living in community, even though he deals with them only briefly since it is for them that he is writing all that is to follow. The Rule is about living with others and its demands. There is no escaping this. We are all social beings and we are all part of this inter-connectedness. But he also knows that for some there may come a time when they leave this shared life and go out to live alone, the life of the hermit, the solitary. In those years in the cave at Subiaco, he had lived alone, a time of solitude and silence. Benedict always writes out of his own experience, never in the abstract. That is one of the reasons why we can hear what he is saying to us today.
Nor does he ever romanticize or pretend that things are going to be easy. In speaking of the solitary life, he calls it a battle and he uses military terms, as he has done already in the prologue
(3,40) and as the New Testament does so frequently. It is no bad thing to be reminded of the idea of spiritual warfare, which is something not much written or talked about today, for it will prevent any illusions about just how tough the fight against evil is
Us)
bound to be. The battle goes on both with the body and the mind.
Here it is useful, as throughout the Rule, to put this into its biblical context and to recognize that Benedict is not speaking of a dualistic division of body and soul as the Greeks might. Throughout the Rule, in fact, Benedict is always taking us away from the dualism that would juxtapose the material and the spiritual. He is using these words in the sense in which they would be used in the New Testament so that if we think of flesh as it is used in Galatians 5:19, or thoughts as it is used in Mark 7:21, we shall come closer to what Benedict is intending.
''They have built up their strength.
. Self-reliantnow. . . single-handed .
.'' (5). When Benedict here speaks of selfreliance, he will probably touch many people who find themselves living the solitary life, and not necessarily by choice. Because of old age and the greater length of life, or because of divorce, marriage break-up, exile, financial failure, economic dislocation, more and more people are alone today. It is then, above all, that we need to hear this assurance that we can stand on our own feet, yet also simultaneously be reminded that we can do nothing without God's help.
When he comes to his third category, Benedict becomes extremely fierce and uses very strong language. He is describing the sort of monks who lie to God with their tonsure, that is, the outward claim belies the disposition of the heart, and as we shall see
Benedict is always more concerned with motive, disposition, and attitude than with such externals as dress or behavior. His concern here is with exposing what is false. He has no time for pretence. He challenges any self-deception. It is all too easy to claim that a way of life is the Lord's when in fact it is for one's own interest or convenience. If I put my own self-interest first and make that my point of reference, then I am living a life entirely in relation to self. That means that I have neither rule nor teacher as a touchstone and therefore that I lack the humility to turn to the handed-down tradition of lived-out experience of others.
Benedict uses the two images of lead (6) and of the sheepfold (8), which help me to reflect on what this can mean in my own life. First, he makes a contrast between lead and gold. Lead that looks so strong is in fact soft and pliable and therefore not to be relied upon when demands are made on it, whereas gold tried in the furnace is strong and pure. He is in effect asking me of which I am made. Then there are two sheepfolds, my own and
God's. We are all encouraged to become more and more inwardlooking; narcissism is rife and the tools for self-analysis and selfhelp are so readily available that I can only too easily enclose myself in a sheepfold of my own making. A sheepfold, if I build it for myself, suggests a safe haven into which I can settle comfortably, penned up in my own self-chosen world, finding a moral reason for doing whatever strikes my fancy. If, however, I choose to be in the Lord's sheepfold, then I must listen to the voice of the shepherd rather than my own voice. So Benedict presents me with this choice, and it is only too clear what his message is.
Finally, he looks at the life of the gyrovagues and paints a vivid picture of people who drift aimlessly, never settle down, live off others. Ultimately this is running away from commitment.
One of the foundations of the Benedictine life is stability, which involves not simply remaining in one place but a deeper stability, the stability of a mind that stays still and does not endlessly search, | constantly switching from one thing to another, hoping for something new or better somewhere else. Benedict has no illusions about the damage that this can do. Today when there is so much on offer, so much to read, so many alternative spiritualities, therapies, self-help manuals, we could all very easily spend our time drifting from one to the other, picking and choosing what appeals and whenever anything becomes too demanding moving on to something new. Benedict uses the word miserrima, which can be translated as wretched (Fr. Luke Dysinger) or lamentable (Sr.
Catherine Wybourne). Indeed I appreciate this vivid word, for I know only too well from my own experience that a life without boundaries can never become a life that is constructive, creative, or life-giving.
But Benedict does not want to spend any more time on such people. Instead he is anxious to set out on his task of drawing up a plan, with the help of the Lord, to explore this Rule that is written ''for the strong kind'' (13).