CHAPTER 67
124 The Rule, Chapter 67 of doing for themselves. But nowadays we seem to have greater needs and fewer craftspeople in our communities. We have to go shopping on the outside more often than in former days.
Although times have changed, the Rule endures. St. Benedict ends chapter 66 with this instruction: "We wish this rule to be read often in the community, so that none of the brothers can offer the excuse of ignorance/' This is the Rule to which all of us are committed. You in your way and I in mine.
CHAPTER 67
Brothers Sent on a Journey "Brothers sent on a journey will ask the abbot and community to pray for them/' It is good advice that St. Benedict gives to all of us— pray for a safe trip. In his day monks traveled a lot by foot. They were not sheltered from the elements as we are in our modern modes of transportation. And his monks were in greater peril of being beaten and robbed than we are while traveling today. Come to think of it, though, Father
Thomas Andrew was robbed of three hundred dollars and an American Express card while on a journey. He was not trudging along some remote, dusty path but was instead sleeping on a train from Nice to Rome. And Father Guy was not only robbed but beaten while waiting for a bus in Barcelona.
St. Benedict is not only concerned that his traveling monks be free from physical harm, he wants them to escape injuries to their souls also. When they return to the monastery, "They ask the prayers of all for their faults, in case they may have been caught off guard on the way by seeing some evil thing or hearing some idle talk/' In the previous chapter, St. Benedict recommends that the monastery should be so selfcontained that "there will be no need for the monks to roam
The Rule, Chapter 67 125 outside, because this is not at all good for their souls/' This is the ideal, but St. Benedict is realistic enough to know there will be occasion for the monks to leave the grounds. The abbot may even have to send them on a journey.
St. Benedict does not want the returning monk "to relate to anyone else what he saw or heard outside the monastery, because that causes the greatest harm/' If a monk has seen
Pa-ree, he might have a hard time settling down back on the farm. If he talks too much about what he has seen in the City of Bright Lights, the other monks are going to start hankering to go there too. When I was a novice, I used to sit on our hill after dark and look at all the lights in the valley— the lights in the several towns surrounding the monastery and all the yard lights on the farms. This created the illusion of a large city.
My good friend from college days was living in New York City then, and he was writing me letters about his exciting life in the Big Apple. When I gazed at the Whetstone Valley in the night, I was imagining that Broadway shows and nightclubs were within my reach. In daylight, I had to face reality. All
I could see from my hill were hay bales and fields of corn. St.
Benedict knows that the more his monks learn about what's going on outside the monastery, the more they'll want to go there.
Nevertheless, we no longer consider it such a risky business, going out into the larger world these days. In our day monks need to travel more frequently and to greater distances than they did in St. Benedict's time. And we are not prohibited from telling about what we saw and heard. If we say nothing about our journeys, people will begin to wonder what we were really up to.
Be careful when you travel. Don't do away from home any of the improper things you would never do at home.