CHAPTER 60
112 The Rule, Chapter 60
CHAPTER 60
The Admission of Priests to the Monastery St. Benedict devotes two chapters of the Rule to priests. In his day most monks were not ordained. Monks before St.
Benedict's time also avoided ordination. John Cassian, who had an influence on St. Benedict, said that the monk must avoid women and bishops. Both could draw the monk away from his monastic vocation, away from the community to which he has made a commitment. The one could incite passion and the other ordination.
Monks were expected to live apart from society, but this does not mean that monks ignored society. They practiced the spiritual and corporal works of mercy for all who came to the monastery seeking assistance.
St. Gregory had been a monk before being called to the papacy. In recalling those happy days in the cloister, he said:
'When I lived in the monastery, I could avoid idle talk and keep my mind almost continuously fixed on prayer. But once
I accepted the pastoral burden, many things required and divided my attention, so that my former recollection became impossible/'1
St. Benedict and the fathers of an earlier monastic tradition knew that priestly orders would cause the divided attention that St. Gregory experienced. Abba Isaac fled the desert because he was being sought for ordination. His pursuers stopped for the night and let their beast of burden graze in a grassy area. The ass found its way to Isaac's hiding place.
In the morning when they went to look for the animal, they found Isaac too. They were about to bind him with ropes and haul him off to a bishop, but the old monk said, "Now I can no longer oppose you since it is perhaps the will of God that I, though unworthy, should receive priestly orders."2 It was
The Rule, Chapter 60 113 not until the ninth century that abbots in the Church of Rome were expected to be priests. St. Jerome never practiced his priesthood because he feared this would detract from his monastic vocation. Monasticism was understood to be a way of life for lay people, and ordination was an exception.
Chapter 60 of the Rule deals with letting in men who are already ordained. "Do not agree too quickly/' St. Benedict says with regard to their admission. Perhaps he senses that a priest will have great difficulty adjusting to the change of lifestyle.
The priest has been formed in one way and the monk in another. There is a difference of spirituality. Will the priest be able to live a life of stability, or will he want to work outside the monastery where he can exercise a parochial ministry?
St. Benedict seems suspicious of the priest's motives for entering the monastery. If St. Benedict were living in our day when there is a scarcity of parish housekeepers, he might be inclined to believe that a priest who'd been left without a housekeeper was seeking admission to the monastery merely to have someone prepare his meals and do his laundry. Put him off for a while, St. Benedict says, but if the priest persists, let him know "that he will have to observe the full discipline of the rule without any mitigation, knowing that it is written:
Friend, what have you come for? (Matt 26:50)" A priest who enters a monastery may have to take his turn at cooking, and he may even be assigned to the laundry.
What St. Benedict tells the priest applies to every monk, nun, and Oblate. "He must recognize that he is subject to the discipline of the rule, and not make any exceptions for himself, but rather give everyone an example of humility."
114 The Rule, Chapter 61
CHAPTER 61
The Reception of Visiting Monks 'A visiting monk from far away will perhaps present himself and wish to stay as a guest in the monastery/' St. Benedict rolls out the carpet for him— but with the proviso that the monk
"does not make excessive demands that upset the monastery/'
If the visitor is satisfied, "he should be received for as long a time as he wishes." St. Benedict's Rule says nothing about putting the monk to work. The Rule of the Master does.
Therefore, if he does not want to work let the weekly servers and the cellarer tell him to depart, lest the brothers working for their monastery have good reason to resent hospitality given to parasites and loafers and, resorting to murmuring and criticizing, they begin to detest such strangers who, because of their wretched laziness, do not settle down anywhere but visit monasteries under the pretext of religion and remain idle while devouring the bread due to workers.1
This applies to laypersons also who come to the Master's monastery as guests. St. Benedict, without imposing a limit to the number of days the visiting monk may relax, does presume that the monk will eventually enter into the life of the community. The Master is more definite. He gives the visiting monk two days in which to rest up. St. Benedict is not as suspicious as the Master. St. Benedict believes that a visiting monk may have been guided to the monastery by the Lord for the purpose of suggesting some reforms. If it becomes obvious, however, that a monk from another monastery is "excessive in his demands or full of faults," St. Benedict says, "he should be politely told to depart." St. Benedict's Rule is the essence of politeness. The Master's Rule is not always polite.
A visiting monk may ask to transfer to the monastery of his hosts, and if he is an agreeable sort of person, St. Benedict
The Rule, Chapter 62 115 says: "He should even be urged to stay, so that others may learn from his example, . . . The abbot must, however, take care never to receive into the community a monk from another known monastery, unless the monk's abbot consents and sends a letter of recommendation, since it is written: Never do to another what you do not want done to yourself (Tob 4:16)/'
Have you welcomed the new parishioner or the new member of your club?
CHAPTER 62
The Priests of the Monastery In chapter 62, St. Benedict instructs the abbot what to do if he wants one of his own monks ordained. And there is a warning to be bestowed upon the monk. "The monk so ordained must be on guard against conceit or pride, must not presume to do anything except what the abbot commands him, and must recognize that now he will have to subject himself all the more to the discipline of the rule. Just because he is a priest, he may not therefore forget the obedience and discipline of the rule, but must make more and more progress toward
God."
Of course the monastery in St. Benedict's time needed a priest for the same reason monasteries need priests today. The monastic community has to be served. The monks need the sacraments. This was a legitimate reason for St. Benedict's having a monk ordained. Throughout the Middle Ages there was an increase in the number of monks who were ordained to the priesthood. In time the ordained would far outnumber the unordained. Ordination of monks became an accepted fact, and so did the exercise of priestly ministry, even away from the monastery.