CHAPTER 72
134 The Rule, Chapter 72
CHAPTER 72
The Good Zeal of Monks 'Get one of the novices to do it." The novices are always available at our beck and call. They seldom leave the grounds, so they're usually on hand to take the places of the professed monks who have to be away. Get a novice to take my place washing dishes, to do housework, to be master of ceremonies at Mass. I once heard a novice flatly refuse to take someone's place on dishes. Apparently the professed monk had depended on this novice too often. "No," the novice said. And some of the monks who heard about this refusal commented that the novice lacked good zeal. We all should realize that it is unfair to take advantage of someone who is always willing to do whatever we want him or her to do for us. We all know people who find it impossible to say no, and it's nice to have them around. There is a difference, though, between having friends we can count on and making slaves out of them. I think the novice was correct in refusing to substitute for the upteenth time. Someone else deserved an opportunity to practice charity. St. Benedict, in chapter 72 of the Rule, quotes from the Letter to the Romans: "They should each try to be first to show respect to the other (Rom 12:10)." He means each of the monks, not just the novices. St. Paul meant each of the Roman converts.
I suppose it is the same in the organizations to which you belong in your parish and your community. The burden of the work seems to fall on the same people all of the time. This happens in families too. If we aren't officially assigned to something, why volunteer? St. Benedict would like to have volunteers rather than monks who seek their own interests only. "No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else." Living in a monastic family or a natural family, belonging to the Al-
The Rule, Chapter 72 135 tar Society or the American Legion, we should be inclined to help one another.
Things operate more smoothly if everyone is cooperative and helpful, especially in the little things of everyday living.
Often enough we witness people making heroic sacrifices in extraordinary circumstances, but getting us to lift a finger in the humdrum business of life is more difficult.
St. Benedict wants his followers to experience ' 'nothing harsh, nothing burdensome" (Prologue) in the way of life he has mapped out for them. We aim at finding work that is suitable and agreeable to the people who enter our monastic houses. Even so, there is plenty of opportunity to do the things we don't like doing. That's part of our life and yours too.
I know of a Benedictine Sister who was her community's cook for over forty years. She was a cheerful person and one who was greatly admired by the other Sisters. She always had a kind word for everyone, and only once in her lifetime had she been heard to complain about anything. That was the day on which she began her assignment in the kitchen. She said,
"I just hate cooking." Monks and nuns ordinarily don't spend their lives in work they dislike. But this Sister survived because of her extraordinary good zeal.
Chapter 72 is near the end of the Rule, and it sums up everything St. Benedict has taught us about Christian living. "To their fellow monks they show the pure love of brothers; to God, loving fear; to their abbot, unfeigned and humble love.
Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life." In doing all of this we are practicing the "good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and everlasting life."
St. Benedict sees good zeal in "supporting with the greatest patience one another's weaknesses of body or behavior." We are to answer the needs of the sick and the crippled with whom we live, and we are to show the same zeal for the people with
136 The Rule, Chapter 72 erratic or downright eccentric personalities. We must even be zealous in our love for those in our midst who appear to lack zeal.
St. Aelred listened to a novice's impression of monastic life:
"It is absolutely marvellous to me that in this monastery three hundred men can obey the commands of one superior, and do everything he says as if they had all agreed among themselves on this one thing, or as if they had heard the voice of God telling them to do it. In fact I seem to find here every perfection that the gospel precepts contain, and everything
I read in the teaching of the fathers and the monks of old. . . ."
Aelred replied: " Since you are a novice, I can put all this enthusiasm down to fervour, and not to self-satisfaction! But you must be careful to remember that there is no perfection in this life that may not be cleverly aped by people who are insincere. And I don't want you to be put off by them, when you discover faults in the religious life, as you certainly will."1
St. Aelred and St. Benedict both knew that some monks are not capable of attaining a whole lot of zeal, that some won't even try. It's that way everywhere, isn't it? St. Benedict's Rule stirs us on and reminds us of the good zeal we should have.
That's why we have his Rule for our guide.
There are also the many people from whom we learn the meaning of good zeal. You know them in your hometown, and I know them here in the monastery. We monks call them community-minded members. They are the ones who never withdraw from the life of the community. They respond enthusiastically to the kind of question that is asked of monks who profess vows at the ecumenical monastery of Taize in France: "Will you, always discerning Christ in your brothers, watch over them in good days and bad, in suffering and in joy?"2
The good zeal I have observed in my brothers has often saved me from developing a bitter zeal "which separates from
The Rule, Chapter 72 137 God and leads to hell." At this moment I'm thinking of three deceased confreres whose good zeal followed them into old age. Brother Alexius, when he could no longer work in the laundry or be our infirmarian, learned how to type in his seventies and was given an office job. He was so determined to learn typing that he would exercise his fingers on an imaginary typewriter keyboard while standing in line as we assembled to process into church. Brother Vital, who had become too crippled with arthritis to do carpentry, went to work in the library. He was an old man then, and he seemed to look upon his library assignment as a second career. Father Ildephonse became a hospital chaplain at an age when most monks have been retired for several years. A stroke removed him from the chaplaincy, and he came back to the abbey to work alongside
Brother Vital in the library. Although Father Ildephonse was deaf and unable to speak the last five years of his life, he liked being with us at coffee breaks and at picnics. All three of these monks contributed their services to the community until the end. Their zeal for the life of the community and the work of the community never waned.
Monks owe their obedience to the abbot and the superiors appointed by him, but St. Benedict says monks should also be "earnestly competing in obedience to one another/ ' Any organization that follows that principle is bound to stick together and succeed in its purpose. When the need arises, feel welcome to quote the Rule of St. Benedict at the meetings of the Altar Society or the American Legion.