Chapter Three
CHAPTER THREE
Benedict was at pains in chapter 2 to show that there must be a balance between the abbot and the Rule. Here he is continuing that theme and showing that it must also take into account the living community that he has just been describing. The abbot is shaping that community so that it too becomes a bearer of the spirit to which the abbot must listen. Now there must be a very delicate balancing between the superior and his personal gifts, the insights of the living community and the Rule that is the bearer of the accumulated wisdom of tradition. It is as if on the institutional level Benedict is already showing me what is so central to his whole way of life, and that is the vital necessity of holding differing things in balance. Later on the importance of that balance will emerge with reference to the role of body, mind, and spirit, or in the three-fold Benedictine promises. It is a warning against going to extremes or allowing polarization in any shape or form. Any balancing act must be a delicate operation, and I enjoy seeing the delicacy with which Benedict handles it in this chapter.
Already Benedict has given us a description of how the abbot is to exercise discernment in his handling of those in his pastoral care. Discernment is much talked about today, particularly in Jesuit circles. In fact, it goes back well beyond Benedict to the Desert Fathers. It was a key qualification for the abba, father. We do not see here a discernment process such as the Jesuits have devised, but we are given something that will help us with the underlying attitudes and approach that we might need. In this chapter discernment is being exercised in a corporate situation, in the context of community. The purpose of consultation and consensus is to open the heart and mind so that the Holy Spirit may reach us in whatever way it may come. This is an exercise
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in listening. For Benedict that means listening with a total openness. God is no respecter of persons. He may choose to reveal truth to the youngest.
If we have really taken seriously the expectation to respect the value of each individual member of the community, as chapter
2 has been encouraging us to do, it is now being put to the test.
It is only too easy when policy is being made, when a vision is / being created, for the articulate and the astute to dominate, and for the weak, the shy, the marginal to be forgotten or put to one side. But if there is to be a communal vision that is truly a shared vision, then it is up to the abbot to make that accessible to all by finding a way to broaden the participation of all. I like to think of it in these terms as a reminder that mere intellectual understanding is not the point; rather, it is the focus of the ideal, the goal of the shared journey.
''The Lord reveals'' is the key phrase here. Openness to the working of the Spirit in both individual and in community is vital, life-giving. Without it there will be a closed-up person, a closed-up community, lacking the growth that Benedict holds out so urgently in the prologue. God chooses many different ways to reveal himself—in a blinding flash on the road; in a still, small voice; in human form; through another. There is nothing neat or predictable in any of this. It is a reminder that without attentiveness at that moment or on that occasion, the gift of God will pass by me ignored. Benedict wants all of us to be open, alert, attentive. The daily saying of ''Today if you will hear my voice
* is a constant, daily reminder of this responsibility that I must learn to listen to the will of God. If I live daily, hourly in this way it will predispose me to be ready for those times when it becomes particularly urgent to discover what God's will means for me, and for others.
The worth of each, the need for authority, the overriding necessity to find the will of God—how are all these strands to be woven together in day-to-day community life, particularly when it comes to decision making? Benedict shows himself to be a shrewd realist, for without abandoning any of his ideals, he manages to present a workable system—and indeed one which any community today (family, parish, school, etc.) could do well to learn from. The essential process is that of consultation, listening. Benedict shows that he knows human nature sufficiently well to insert a note of caution. Those who are speaking should exer-
cise restraint and present their opinions with humility (4). Then having listened the abbot must take time, ponder, weigh it within himself (an important concept here, which perhaps recalls what lectio is doing, chewing over slowly and meditatively), until he decides the wiser course. He is to do this with prudence, with foresight, and with fairness. He, just as much as the other monks, is under the Rule. Nor is he to forget that at the day of judgment he will have to answer for his actions. These are considerable restraints that leave little room for arbitrary behavior.
The actual moment of consultation is not isolated and apart from the rest of the ongoing life of the community; rather it grows out of the openness and growth that should be there all the time.
In the more day-to-day decision making, the abbot is to rely on the pars sanior (12), the wiser and more experienced. Recognizing what shall be deemed ''less important'' will therefore depend on his own sensitivity to others and to being in touch with what is going on in the community.
I feel this can be done only with an enormous amount of suffering. I see no other way out of it. You know it is trial and error and if anybody thinks the superior plays God in this, he is utterly wrong. The superior goes through enormous turmoil trying to analyze and find out what the Spirit wants at any given moment.
The words of a contemporary abbot may strengthen me when I find myself with this responsibility on my own shoulders. aa