CHAPTER 28
The Rule, Chapter 29 53 went in search of the one stray. When he finds it, he must carry it on his shoulders back to the flock. There is no doubt about St. Benedict's being a caring and loving father.
St. Benedict tells us, love the sinner but abhor the sin. Is there someone in your family or at work who needs correction? Act now, try everything, be patient.
CHAPTER 28
Those Who Refuse to Amend after Frequent Reproofs St. Benedict is a patient father, but even so, he can endure only so much. His patience can become exhausted. After having tried everything, including prayer, "the abbot must use the knife and amputate/ ' Quoting the First Letter to the Corinthians, St. Benedict says, "Let him depart (1 Cor 7:15) lest one diseased sheep infect the whole flock."
Don't become an enabler.
CHAPTER 29
Readmission of Brothers Who Leave the Monastery This chapter refers to monks who have left the monastery on their own accord, not those who have been expelled. St. Basil, the great Patriarch of monks in the East, says, "Surely, everyone who has been admitted to the community and then has retracted his promise should be looked upon as a sinner against God, in whose presence and to whom he pledged his consent
54 The Rule, Chapter 29 to the pact/'1 The Basilian monk who abandoned the cloister was never allowed an opportunity to return. For Basil, this turning away from monastic life was an unpardonable sacrilege. ' The brethren are justified in never again opening their door to these persons, even if they should apply for shelter on some occasion when they are merely in transit. "2 Basil never wants to see such a monk again, not even as an overnight guest.
St. Benedict, on the other hand, is more liberal, more compassionate.
If a brother, following his own evil ways, leaves the monastery but then wishes to return, he must first promise to make full amends for leaving. Let him be received back, but as a test of his humility he should be given the last place. If he leaves again, or even a third time, he should be readmitted under the same conditions. After this, however, he must understand that he will be denied all prospect of return.
St. Benedict allows the runaway to return to the monastery. The fugitive monk must, however, admit his error in having abandoned the life to which he had vowed himself. If he appears earnest, he is received back, but he loses the place he had in the community when he abandoned it. He is a beginner again.
St. Benedict is so lenient that he allows the monk to be received back three times " under the same conditions." But that is the limit. By then it is apparent that the monk is fickle if he leaves and then asks to be received back a fourth time.
Three strikes and you're out. Monastics who follow the Rule of St. Benedict profess stability. A person who cannot make up his or her mind is not very stable.
The text of chapter 29 as it appears here seems both concise and precise. Some commentators claim that St. Benedict originally included those monks who were expelled from the monastery and wished to return. Hildemar, an interpreter of
The Rule, Chapter 29 55 the Rule in the ninth century, insists that the number three was really not an absolute for St. Benedict. In the twelfth century,
Peter the Venerable commented to Bernard of Clairvaux that our Lord had told St. Peter that forgiveness should be extended to seventy times seven. Although the Rule of St. Benedict and the Rule of the Master set the limit at three times, it seems tradition extended the number of times an apostate monk could return to the monastery.
St. Bernard, who was a stickler for following the literal interpretation of St. Benedict's Rule, was certainly solicitous about the readmission of monks. In a letter to an abbot, Bernard intercedes for a monk whose vocation he has recommended in the first place and who has now departed from the monastery:
The bearer [of this letter] was lately admitted to your house at my request; but moved by foolishness and instability, he threw off the habit and left you. Because he appears to be sorry and wishes to return to you and humbly begs to be received again, I too beg you for the love of God and myself to give this penitent man a second chance and to admit him once more to your house and the habit.3
In a letter to another abbot, Bernard pleads for a fugitive monk who has run away before. The monk feels that he has been wronged, and Bernard takes up his case, asking that he be taken back: "Do not fear that by so doing, by thus preferring mercy to justice, you will displease the merciful and just
God."4
In chapter 64, St. Benedict will say the abbot "must so arrange everything that the strong have something to yearn for and the weak nothing to run from." Yet there are some people for whom pressures become too great and temptations too attractive. They take flight. When the phone call comes to my home or to yours and the person on the other end asks, "May
I come back?"— we reply, "Sure. Come home."
56 The Rule, Chapter 30
CHAPTER 30
The Manner of Reproving Boys The Rule speaks of disciplining boys, but it says nothing about the training they are to receive in the monastery. Tradition establishes two types of boys who were educated by Benedictine monks from early on: the oblates who matured into full-fledged monks and the alumni who were trained for secular life. Benedictine schools are known to be places where students receive a good education and where discipline is enforced.
The Rule makes certain that these boys are kept in line.
"Boys up to the age of fifteen should, however, be carefully controlled and supervised by everyone, provided that this too is done with moderation and common sense' ' (ch. 70). Chapter 45 decrees that children "are to be whipped" for making mistakes in the oratory and chapter 30 recommends "severe fasts" and "sharp strokes" for boys who misbehave. Most of us grew up in an age when physical punishment was inflicted upon children, but, really— "severe fasts" and "sharp strokes" and "whippings?" There is a great difference between a licking and a whipping. Is St. Benedict contradicting himself here?
These terms of correction, in our present age anyway, do not seem to be examples of "moderation" and "common sense/
If a modern monk or nun treated a young student in this fashion, he or she would be subject to arrest.
The adults in St. Benedict's monastery were also given the rod, but for those who could understand, the weight of excommunication was imposed instead. St. Benedict recognizes that "every age and level of understanding should receive appropriate treatment," but he believes the boys are not old enough to comprehend the seriousness of excommunication.