Chapter Seven
CHAPTER SEVEN
What has gone before in the earlier chapters has predisposed me to listen, and I have found a master who is at once gentle and understanding, tough and demanding. Benedict now gives me one
__ of the longest, perhaps the most crucial, of the chapters in the Rule. It is the final part of this opening section of the Rule that deals with underlying, spiritual questions. I am therefore now ready to undertake this exploration into humility, which is better translated as exploration into reality, into the reality of being. earthed i in myself and God. The derivation of the word from Aumus, | "earth,'' is enormously reassuring. For so often the idea of humility that springs to mind is servile and unattractive, while to be earthed, centered, with my feet on the ground immediately appeals to me. Here we are given one of the most profound explorations into self-knowledge, that true self-knowledge that is not in the least narcissistic but leads me on to the true self and so to God.
Benedict opens this chapter with a quotation from the Gospel of Luke and, in the context of everything that has preceded it, this is just what I should expect, that what I am about to hear should be based on the Word. He takes it from that episode in Luke where Christ is speaking to the Pharisees, those people who were comfortably and complacently self-righteous. But the externals of self-righteousness will not stand up to the judgment of the Word that cuts like a two-edged sword. The Word reverses everything: high becomes low, rich becomes poor, the empty are filled so that, as the Sermon on the Mount shows, the value system of the world is totally upset.
Ever since I can remember I have grown up in a world that is highly competitive, that likes success, that encourages me to play roles. I like to be busy, appreciated, applauded. It is important to me that I am seen to be a success at school and college,
in my work, my career, my salary, in the sort of household I run, in the social life I lead. I am looking for applause and selfvalidation. Yet Benedict is ~asking of me the honesty that means that I cease to play games, whether with myself, with others, with God. Unless I desire this with the whole of my being, to the extent that I am willing to undergo a holocaust to achieve it, as one
Cistercian abbot puts it so dramatically, then it is hardly worth beginning. For it will mean embarking on a ruthless campaign against all forms of illusion, and this is a thoroughly alarming undertaking. It is also a lengthy undertaking, in which there are no shortcuts. ''Our rebirth in integrity takes time and many repentances."'
But the quotation from the psalms in verse 4 shows me that this is a gentle exercise. The psalmist is saying that he eschews whatever might be pretentious, presumptuous, arrogant, and instead his soul rests tranquilly, trusting in God just as a small child will lie trustfully on its mother's breast. The reference to weaning is confusing if it suggests any form of dependency.. Christ, always Benedict's model, demanded that we become as little children (he himself totally trusted the Father), but with that maturity which he hopes for from all of us. When so often my own life seems to be dominated by struggle, expectation, external demands, I want now to stay with this image of the gentle, tender, and trusting relationship of mother and child, and to tell myself that this same absolute, unconditional trust in God is the prerequisite for embarking on Benedict's ladder.
Once again what Benedict is looking for from me has nothing to do with external behavioral patterns, but with the disposition of my heart. Humility makes no sense if it is regarded as an end in itself; it is the way of the disciple, part of the learning process of anyone who is following the master who says, ''Learn of me, for I am meek and humble of heart.'' Here, if I am willing to listen and to follow, is a ''return to truth.'' When there are so many alternative therapies and techniques that promise selfknowledge and self-awareness, what is it that Benedict is offering me? There are three aspects of his approach that I greatly like and find reassuring. First, it is strictly scriptural, and that brings me firmly back to base all the time. Second, he is presenting me with an interior journey, a process that will never end, yet one that does not necessarily involve the familiar pattern of movement toward some successful and predetermined goal. I see the
steps as indicators carrying me forward, yet as I come to each I never leave any behind, for I simultaneously need all of them all the time. Perhaps I should think more of a spiraling and neverending inward process, a process that will go on until death. Third, it is an undertaking that involves the whole of myself, body as well as mind and spirit. If I look at Psalm 130 (131), which is quoted in verse 2, I can see what a total commitment this is, for the heart in its ancient usage was the center of the personality, and I take eyes to indicate the way in which I see the world and relate to others, and walk to include all my physical activity. The two sides of the ladder, which is essentially what this chapter is all about, are the body and the soul. Both are needed, neither must be pulling against the other, for both have a vital role to play and are equally important.
In verse 6 Benedict brings us to the image of the ladder, that ancient classical symbol of unity and integration. It reaches from earth to heaven, and for Benedict, of course, the ground on which _ it was placed was the monastic enclosure, but for those of us outside any religious community, it can just be taken to mean the place of our ordinary life and work, wherever we may find ourselves. It was St. Augustine who gave us those marvellous words,
"Do you seek God? Seek within yourself and ascend through yourself.' " Like the child now weaned I have to take on the re-~ escape and no postponement. It lies with me.
Having presented me with this ladder, Benedict again reverses everything, and I find that up is down and ascending is descending. This is the self-emptying of Christ himself, which Paul celebrated in his wonderful hymn in Philippians and which Benedict will be quoting in the third step. While it must ultimately remain a mystery, it is yet also something whose truth I experience in my own life when loss, displacement, and letting go become a place of new truth, a step forward into a deeper understanding of God and of myself. Of course, this need not necessarily be so, and this can also be a negative process, destructive, full of recrimi-_" nation, resentment, and confusion..I know how much I need help _ in this painful exodus toward total freedom, and it is in order __ to find it that I turn to these twelve steps to initiate, for me, ''a process of deliverance.''
That small phrase gives me a keynote with which to encounter this chapter. To work through Benedict's ladder is therefore
going to be a journey into freedom. I have to realize at the outset that this is not some once and for all exercise, but something that I shall continue to do time and time again throughout my life.
Although the steps are presented sequentially, they are also integral one with the other, so I shall be moving on all of them together, both simultaneously and consecutively: ae, ( Step 1, verses 10-30 What is the spring of my thinking and acting? Benedict at once asks whether I keep a fear of God, a sense of his presence always, always uppermost in my mind. Without this, all that will follow will be utterly useless, hollow. I may deceive others, and I may deceive myself, but God knows my innermost thoughts, ''From afar you know my thoughts'' (16). This is the God who sees me and knows me at every moment of my life.
In the prologue Benedict had established that he wanted us all to awake from sleep and be alive, alert, aware. The opposite of this is forgetfulness, oblivio, which is a comfortable almost complacent way of drifting along. Memoria, mindfulness, on the other hand is going to wake me and help me to live fully attuned to the presence of God in my life and what that is asking of me.
As I read this I am struck by the force with which_Benedict addresses me. He strikes home again and again, repeating himself, hammering it in—always, always he says at intervals in verses
13-18. In the Latin the word semper sounds almost like the blows of a hammer. Am I always, always aware of the presence of God?
~ Benedict is shaped by the psalms, steeped in them, so it is hardly surprising that verses 14-18 are a mosaic of quotations from the psalms insistent on the God who searches me, probes my innermost depths, knows all my thoughts. The implications of what this means are quite terrifying. All my subterfuges are unmasked.
All the ways in which I delude myself are revealed for what they are—escapes from making real that phrase of the Lord's Prayer that I pray daily that it may be God's will and not my own that I follow. So the next group of verses (19-22) takes on this theme of my own self-will and the will of God for me. If I consciously ask whether what I am doing is part of the working out of the will of God in my life or not, then I have a rigorous guideline to apply. Verses 23-25 remind me once again that it is the whole of myself with which Benedict is concerned, total, all the senses.
The final verses of this first step return again to Benedict's insistence on mindfulness of God's presence in my life. This is the God who is always looking down on me, watching me. If my response is one of vigilance it is because this is a presence of love, that of a father who so believes in his child that he puts on us the expectation that we will respond to that love. He waits patiently believing in me. How can I then fail to respond to a loving father who knows me through and through, watches and waits?
Step 2, Verses 31-33 \ It might be all very well to think about this, to recognize it all in theory, but Benedict is looking for good thoughts to be translated into good actions. Therefore, if I am not to live a life that is a sham, I must take this second step, submission to God's will.
But I must do this for the most fundamental reason of all, the reason without which nothing in the Rule can ever make sense, and that is that in all these things I am following Christ. I model myself on him, the Christ who says, ''I came not to do my own will.
.'' This means that I am being asked to give up my selfwill. This is not my free will which is one of God's greatest gifts to me.
The question is that of responsibility: How am I going to use it? I have the choice to use it to serve my own drives and impulses and assert my independence (which in the end means my selfcenteredness), or to use it to return to Christ. If I have a firm grasp on this second rung, I find myself pointed toward God rather than my own self; I open myself up to letting my life be guided by the law and governance of God rather than my own wants and concerns. I am being asked to make my life an earnest search for the will of God. That would never be possible if I did not have the pattern of Christ himself and his own relationship with the Father. But how deeply attached am I to my own ambitions and desires? Until I can be honest about this I am not ready to go any further.
Step 3) verse 34 How do I know what is God's will? Where do I begin to find it, search it out? Benedict continues to develop this point: it lies in the imitation of Christ's own obedience. When I turn to look at Christ, I see that in his life the motive force is love, which iss
of course, the point that Benedict is making. But the working out of this obedience in my own life is something that needs the sup- | port of human guidance and direction. This does not have so much
| to do with the acceptance of authority as with the renunciation | | of power. I do not necessarily have the final answer, the clearest
| understanding. I have to be ready to listen to the words, directions, insights of the one who is the voice of Christ for me. To resist those who can bring that help and guidance in my life (parents, teachers, Church) is, in Joan Chittister's words, ''a dangerOus excursion into arrogance and a denial of the very relationships that are the stuff of which our sanctity is made."'
Christ's obedience was obedience unto death. This gives me the perspective. I am being asked to let go of something in me ! that must die before the new can be born. Two things help to make this possible: that the motive force is love; that I do it in imitation of Christ. At this point in the commentary, it becomes impossible to deal in words. I find that I simply need to stand in silence at the foot of the cross, the place where words cease. I ask myself whether I am ready, for the love of God, to face up to whatever may be asked of me in following Christ in this obedience.
Step 4, verses 35-43 Benedict, being a realist, knows that life is unfair—perhaps , the most important lesson that all parents should teach their chil- | dren at an early age. But how am IJ going to handle this? I know only too well how destructive it is to my own inner peace of mind when I fall into a self-justifying, inner conversation full of recrimination and resentment in which I tell God (and probably any other audience that I can find) that life is unjust, that I have done nothing to deserve such treatment. It is destructive of my sense of my own self-worth, for I know that I deserve better than this. While
I am deafening myself with all this turmoil, I fail to hear Benedict when he is telling me to ''be brave of heart and rely on the Lord'' (37). Only dependence on God can see me through this.
He even goes so far as to speak in verse 39 not simply of courage but of holding on joyfully. That is possible ''because of him who so greatly loved us'' (Rom 8:37).
I can hear what Benedict is saying because I feel that he knows the degree and the complexity of suffering, and he is not patronizing me, as so many well-meaning friends seem to do in times of
trouble, by saying that they understand what I am going through or that the whole thing is somehow enobling. The biblical quotations that he uses bring vivid images of every conceivable sort of pain: being put to death; being led into a snare; being tried as silver is tried by fire; having affliction placed on our backs; being struck on the cheek; being deprived of a cloak. Each of these presents itself to me as an image of the different ways in which I have experienced injustice at various times in my life.
But Benedict, in verses 42-43, puts everything into perspective by asking if that is not something that I should expect if I am following Christ. It is the knowledge of Christ crucified, the example of Christ on the cross, that is at the heart of Benedict's ascesis here. It is the daily perseverance in all the trials and difficulties of my life that conforms me to the example of Christ as he suffers on the cross. Perseverance, patience, stability, holding on, not seeking to escape—the virtues of patience in the fullest meaning of that word and its derivation from the Latin patientia, suffering, deepens the way in which I understand it.
But it is the quiet heart of the opening verse to which I return as I try to make this fourth step into a prayer that I may have the strength and the courage to hold on quietly and in patience.
For if I am patient under these circumstances, I am fulfilling the new law, the law of the Gospel, the law of the Sermon on the Mount. Benedict sets it out, quoting from St. Matthew's Gospel, to show me that we must bear injuries with patience, love, and forgiveness so that we may overcome evil with good. Listening to the voice of Christ, I realize that what I am being asked to do here is simply to fulfill the law of love, which is where in the end everything in Benedict's rule of life is leading me.
Step 5, verses 44-48 — + ; '
Here comes a pivotal step. Hitherto Benedict has been concerned with my inner world of motive, disposition, and intention.
Now he is asking me to tear down the walls of my private inner sanctuary and to-become open and vulnerable to others. I''must~ not expect to be able to manage on my own; that would indeed be an example of self-sufficiency and a lack of dependency. If I am to grow, I must be ready and open for self-disclosure and _ interaction with others. I have to be ready to admit my own weaknesses and limitations and not be either too proud or too selfsufficient not to lean on others and to ask them to support me.
~The struggles we hide, psychologists tell us, are the struggles that consume us.
Self-revelation is necessary to growth. There is nothing more debilitating than going over and over again in my own mind my secret sins and failings. But onto whom shall I unload it all? When
Benedict suggests the abbot, I interpret that in my own circumstances. This means someone who is wise, standing in a position of authority, and, most important of all, taking the place of Christ. Then I can confess my weakness, both in thought and in action, receive forgiveness, and, with that help, trust in the mercy of God to transform my weakness into strength.
Step 6, verses 49-50 fi am gradually being stripped of all those pretentions and games that allow me to say that I am better, superior, more interesting, and more worthwhile than other people. It is all part of the process of removing the mask. God does not want an ambitious and competitive person, but one who is content even in the lowliest of occupations. Contentment is the key word. (Later on Benedict uses it in a very nice way to describe visiting monks who are to be encouraged to stay in the monastery if they are content with what they find there.) Lack of inner contentment means that I am reliant on externals, of whatever sort, for satisfaction.
Lack of contentment lets me become trapped in the coils of the competitive society, competing for material goods, social status, the sort of car I drive, the place in which I live. I must not forget that these steps are steps into freedom, and their purpose is to help me to disentangle myself from all that would prevent inner freedom.
The short quotation from Psalm 72 (73) in verse 50 shows me where to find the heart of this step, the small phrase that sums it all up: 'am with you always.' In the words of the Grail translation it becomes a prayer:
I was always in your presence You were holding me by your right hand You will guide me with your counsel And you will lead me to glory...
Step 7,) verses 51-54 ~Ona first and superficial reading, the vocabulary that Benedict is using makes for difficulties. It is when I put it into the con-
text of sixth-century Italy that I can better appreciate it. Here was a society of conflicting cultures in which tribal, social, and economic divisions marked status and place in society, the result being that individual worth was apparently determined by external marks. Now Benedict is telling us that in the eyes of the heavenly father all of this is totally irrelevant. Instead, we should take as our example the one who was content to make of himself a servant. Christ as the suffering servant of Isaiah is an image that will come again in the Rule. It is part of the riches of that portrait of Christ which Benedict is giving me as a model to follow.
_~ This step has nothing to do with doubts about my self-worth.
It has to do with accepting my own fragility and smallness (and how much we all owe to Jean Vanier, who has helped us to see that our woundedness and weakness are blessings). What is es-_ sential is that I do not lie to myself about this, that I deal gently with myself, and that, of course, I deal gently with others_ who. are just like me. For the older I grow the more I realize that behind the facades that people present to the world there is fear and insecurity and perhaps emptiness. When I am so vulnerable there is a tel temptation to develop a hard shell, to grow a thick skin—the metaphor is an apt one! But if I accept myself as ordinary, weak, frail, in other words, totally human and totally dependent upon God, then I am stripped of any sense of being in some way set apart, different, superior. It is then that the genuine, real self may begin to emerge.
I am also open to learn. I should not miss the significance of Benedict's use of Psalm 118 (119) here. This is above all the psalm of learning the way of God's statutes, being open and ready to hear, standing like the publican with open hands ready to receive.
He also quotes from Psalm 21 (22), the Psalm of Christ on the cross. As always, Benedict draws us back to the paschal mystery.
Step 8,) verse 55 Just in case I am becoming complacent as a result of these earlier steps, Benedict floors me with a thoroughly down-to-earth demand in this step. He tells me to stay in line, keep a low profile, not draw attention to myself. This must mean in my situation, outside a community, that I should be willing to be guided by others, to remain in the main-stream, and not become a law to myself. In a world of alternative therapies and spiritualities, it is humbling to be told to stay with the tradition; in an individu-
alistic world to be reminded of corporate wisdom. I am brought back to one of the most vital of all the threads that run through the Rule: the tension of the individual and the community, the separate and together, solitary and shared. I am inserted into a set of concentric circles—marriage, family, work, parish, wider interests—and I have a responsibility to play my part in all of these. Much of this may involve dull and mundane demands when
T would prefer things to be more exciting or rewarding. But to walk in step with others inserts me into a common humanity and earths me into the reality of ordinary life from which Benedict never wants us to escape.
Steps 9-11, verses 56-61 I like the way in which each successive step of the spiral leads me on to the next. If I had been given these three steps, which "are about silence, stillness, gentleness, at the beginning, I would have come to them in a very different frame of mind. Treatises on attentiveness and mindfulness, inner stillness (particularly drawing on the understanding of the East) are immensely attractive, often beguiling, but they can also encourage introspection.
I wonder if Benedict is not extremely shrewd in asking me to face the question of silence in the context of the world outside of myself. I have an enormous amount to learn along the way in my journey of discipleship, and I need to learn it from others. If I talk too much, then I cannot hear. If I laugh too readily, make the clever and witty comment to turn something into a joke, then
I can dismiss what I may not want to hear, or fail to take it seriously.
These three steps are about my right relationships with others.
Speech can lead to openness, to learning, and to growth, or it can become a trap into which I plunge, and endless talk can become an excuse for putting off action, for achieving nothing. The words that Benedict chooses in verse 60, gently—seriously, briefly, reasonably—are all immensely wise. The psalm from which the quotation in verse 58 comes is one in which verbal violence is explored, a prayer asking to be rescued from those who plan evil in their hearts and stir up strife every day; who sharpen their tongue like an adder's with the poison of viper on their lips.
Instead Benedict speaks to us of gentleness, respect for the other, willingness to listen rather than dominate, receive rather _ than control. If I take his advice, I shall recognize them as sensi-_
'five and wise words that I should listen to.
Step 12, verses 62-66 The steps have led from the inward outward, but the two must be united. Here again is a good grasp of the human psyche: it is vital that the inner landscape corresponds with the outer. What
Benedict is looking for is the whole of myself, the total person in which the material and the spiritual are held together (like the 'sides of his ladder) without that disjunction and pulling apart that brings loss of energy or depression. This is a unity and integration that will be reflected in the way I behave not only at prayer, but at work. So this final step of the ladder applies to me wherever I am. It has not brought me to some glorious spiritual high.
There is something iconoclastic here that reminds me of the Zen saying, ''Before enlightenment hewing wood and drawing water; after enlightenment, hewing wood and drawing water."'
And now at the end, in verse 65, Benedict presents me with the figure of the publican, with eyes cast down and head bowed.
As I read that story in St. Luke's Gospel and see the contrast between the Pharisee and the publican, it seems to me that the Pharisee represents everything that this chapter is helping me to free myself from. If I am always concerned with the image that I present to the world, then I live nervously behind a mask, conscious of the opinion of others. If I think that God is pleased by a meticulous keeping of the law, then I anxiously try to fulfill every jot and tittle. But if I know, with the publican, that there is only one reality, and that is the mercy and love of God, then I stand there with open hands in total honesty confessing my need of that mercy and love.
Coda, verses 67-70 The chapter suddenly bursts out into a song of love, and we are given another of those lyrical pieces of writing in which Benedict reminds us yet again that this Rule is pointing us toward Christ and the gospel of love. The movement of my life is away from the negative motivation of fear toward the positive motivation of love. In verse 67 Benedict quotes from that most marvellous exposition of love in 1 John: ''He that dwelleth in love dwelleth
in God.
. Herein is our love made perfect.
..There is no fear in love but perfect love casts out fear.
. We love him because he first loved us."' Here is the summary of what the ladder of humility is all about: it is not any progression into human perfection; it is growth into a relationship of love.
~~As Tread these two passages, St.
John's and Benedict's, everything that has gone before now falls more fully into perspective.
The key to my growth in humility is that it brings me closer to God as it subjects me more and more to the pull of the gravitational force of God's Iove. What I have been seeing in this chapter is that, as I progress in humility, so that love gains more and more complete possession of my soul. It is the work of God, but one with which I cooperate. It is a love that must grow, but no growth process comes automatically. Thus, it is only honest of Benedict to address me as worker in verse 70. That final verse also contains one of the rare mentions of the Holy Spirit. It is through the cleansing and the leading of the Spirit that I shall stay open to growth: growth into freedom, growth into love. ap)