Reflecting and Responding
Benedict of Nursia
Learning to Live by a Rule
Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instruction, . . . and faithfully put it into practice. . . . [E]very time you begin a good work you must pray to him most earnestly to bring it to perfection. . . . In this way everything must be arranged so that the strong have something to yearn for and the weak nothing to run from.
THE RULE OF ST. BENEDICT
BETWEEN THE CLOSE OF CASSIAN’S LIFE and the opening of the Crusades, some of the most significant social and cultural shifts occurred. On virtually every major front dissent and turmoil raged across the Holy Roman Empire. With the social fabric of the ancient world unraveling, the theological assumptions of the first five centuries began to crumble as well. As these transitions gathered momentum, key thinkers emerged to help develop thoughts and practices that would guide the new communities of faith. Chief among these architects was Benedict of Nursia (480-547).
Benedict was born in Nursia, about seventy miles north of Rome. He was sent to Rome as a young man but was repulsed by the corruption he discovered there. Falling under the influence of Cassian and Egyptian monasticism, Benedict incorporated many desert practices into the monasteries he helped to create in southern Europe. His monasteries were carefully planned and known for their distinct practices, including the choice of a specific number of monks: twelve monks formed a community and a thirteenth served as the monastery leader, or abbot. The abbot was selected on the basis of exhibiting the qualities of Jesus. These monasteries grew in number and stature and when Benedict died, he left behind numerous communities and one complete rule.
Benedict’s Rule
In his time, Benedict’s Rule was considered the most unique contribution to monastic literature. By 700, thirty additional rules had been written, all patterned off Benedict’s. Today, scholars consider The Rule of St. Benedict to be based on the slightly older Rule of the Master. Benedict’s Rule includes the general framework of this earlier work as well and presents the first seven chapters almost verbatim.
In Rule 1 Benedict’s interest is to elevate the “cenobite,” or community-based monk, as the highest ideal, a theme echoed thirty years later by Gregory the Great. Benedict demonstrates that life in community forms the best context for undergoing growth and change. “Anchorites,” monks who live by themselves, are good, but ultimately anchoritic spirituality prevents us from facing the complexity of human relationships and moving forward in our life with God. As a result, Benedict identifies key resources that help guide our progress.
Discovering Eternal Life
Benedict begins by identifying the ultimate goal of the spiritual life to be eternal life. How then do we order our life to accomplish this great goal? Benedict outlines the path: prayer, work, study and rest, all undertaken in the context of stability, humility and community. The importance of community is the way it forms the foundation and stability we need in order to make progress in our life with God. When we awaken to our life with God, our spiritual senses come back to life. But this awakening must follow a process guided by the sources of the spiritual life. The process develops in several key ways.
Scripture. God’s Word is the touchstone for all elements of understanding and supersedes every other source of religious insight. Benedict helps us understand how to read Scripture for wisdom and understanding. Discretion is cultivated through learning to read Scripture using the ancient practice of lectio divina, a method that shows us how to understand the external environment around us, intuit our own inner thoughts and feelings and develop an integrated understanding of our life with God.
The writings of the saints and spiritual masters. Benedict is particularly attentive to Cassian’s Conferences and requires it as regular reading at every monastery. His point is to show how Cassian assimilates the wisdom of the saints and how we are to do the same in our own spiritual life.
Our spiritual life. Benedict believes we can learn a great deal by paying attention to our deeper motives, our spontaneous thoughts and our emotional reactions. By examining these personal dynamics, we become attentive to the deeper movements of God. This is where we learn to imitate Christ.
Active engagement with others through community. The tensions of our interpersonal life play themselves out in our life with God. In fact, Benedict believes community is the highest expression of the spiritual life because of its innate tendency to force us to grow and change. Being in relationship helps us learn how to view life sacramentally, to see the sacred tapestry of God woven together by every fiber of life.
The Rule. By studying The Rule, by hearing it read aloud and engaging with its contents, we develop a reflexive response to its purpose. It is not meant to stifle the human spirit but to free it. When I read the Rule of St. Benedict for the first time, its profound summary combined with its sheer simplicity moved me. As we expose ourselves to it over time, its very contents become a source of God’s living wisdom guiding us daily through our life with him.
In The Rule, Benedict calls us to understand and apply the instruments of good works. The seventy-two instruments deal with developing a perfect love of God and a balanced love of neighbor. They conclude by addressing how we express the life and spirit of Jesus in word, thought and deed. The point of Benedict’s list of good works is not to give us a catalogue of virtue and vice but to remind us of the elements of our character that must be formed after Christ if we are to become like him. Every single instrument reminds us of a specific element of our life with God.
Cultivating Humility
Benedict also leads us through the twelve degrees of humility that usher us into the presence of God. First, we must cultivate humility by always keeping the fear of God before us and express this attitude in a spirit of obedience. Obedience is crucial if we are to learn to follow God. It forces us to subjugate our ego to divine love and service.
The second degree of humility is to follow the Lord’s will and not our own. The greatest challenge to our life with God is our predisposition to be egocentric, to insist that life be seen and lived only from our perspective. The objective is to break out of our egocentrism and see the world and our life as God sees it.
The third degree of humility is that we develop an ability to take input from others. Specifically, we are to learn obedience by submitting to a superior. One of the most significant indicators of success in life is the ability to accept the authority of others. An inability or refusal to do this is one of the greatest stumbling blocks to a successful life.
The fourth degree of humility is to accept the superior’s instruction in learning perseverance. Persevering in our life circumstances develops constancy of character. It is rare for life to go exactly our way.
The fifth degree of humility is full disclosure to the abbot, the ancient image of the spirit-led, trusted friend. The abbot is the spiritual director for the monks in the monastery and is also their boss. To fully disclose to the abbot teaches us how to take responsibility for our attitudes and actions in ways that hold us accountable. It is impossible to face this reality if we share only bits and pieces of the story.
The sixth degree of humility is to learn contentment in all things and consider everyone greater than ourselves. To be content in every circumstance means to accept willingly whatever life presents. However, this can also sometimes have the unintended consequence of hindering us from correcting bad circumstances. Discretion helps us determine when to correct unbearable circumstances and when to be content with things as they are.
The seventh degree of humility is always to put ourselves lower then everyone else. In a sense, this teaching supports the belief that if we abase ourselves, others will lift us up. This practice works best if we are in a situation where others help us see our role in the greater purposes of the community.
The eighth degree of humility is for a monk to do only what is permitted by the common rule of the monastery or what is permitted by the senior monks. The lines of seniority are clear. No one advances beyond his rightful place.
The ninth degree of humility is to speak only when spoken to. The discipline is meant to help us realize that our value lies in the community and not in ourselves. The hope is for our words to be thoughtful and true, resting on reflection and delivered in proper sequence and order.
The tenth degree of humility is to avoid laughter. The Rule interprets Scripture so literally with this instruction that it seems to overstate the case, almost suggesting a suppression of joy. However, Benedict is more concerned that we not get caught up in frivolous activity. Laughter expressing a spirit of contentment comes from a deep relationship with God. Laughter that springs from ridicule destroys community.
The eleventh degree of humility teaches a monk to speak gently, using reasonable words and humane tones. This instruction emphasizes the way human speech can lift up or tear down. Speech is the single most significant vehicle for communicating our noblest ideals or our most destructive motivations.
The twelfth degree of humility is to always demonstrate a posture of humility, whether before others or before God. As we ascend each degree of humility, our spirit is refined until humility comes as an instinctive and immediate response. Together, these twelve steps usher us into a state of mind that allows us to express the highest ideals of the community and the deepest possible understanding of the spirit of Christ.
The Essential Qualities of Our Leaders
All of these attributes are good, but what makes this sort of growth and development possible? Leadership. The leadership of the community fundamentally shapes what values are articulated and embraced in the community. How, then, should we choose the abbot, the leader of the community of faith? In one of the most compelling entries in the entire Rule, Benedict provides brilliant insight into the nature and responsibility of leadership. Elsewhere throughout the work he lists qualities and characteristics that are the litmus test for selection of an abbot, and they should also be the litmus test for every leadership position, whether of an abbot or the head of a major corporation or even the leader of a local nonprofit. Here they are in outline form.
There is no other single list of leadership qualities that does a better job of identifying the likelihood of leadership success. All current leadership literature would be strengthened by entering into conversation with Benedict’s Rule.
Each of these qualities is meant to ensure that the abbot cultivates spiritual wisdom and discretion. But why does the abbot need these qualities? Instinctively, Benedict realized that he could neither legislate morality nor control the future. As a result, his very rule contains within itself the recognition that no one can anticipate all situations that will arise in the future. Hence the need for a leader who possesses wisdom, discretion and insight.
By following The Rule, we are able to build a stable community. It is this community that provides the context within which different individuals with varying gifts and abilities can become leaders. By cultivating the spiritual gift of discretion and identifying the qualities most likely to make this occur, Benedict provides one of the most enduring spiritual traditions in all of Christian history.
REFLECTING AND RESPONDING
My first encounter with The Rule of St. Benedict puzzled me. How in the world could this slender book (I hold my first copy in my hands as I write this; it is tattered and scarred with its bright red cover falling off) ever cause such a revolution in Christian devotion? I puzzled over this for some time. It is true that for all intents and purposes it was the first written rule for monastic communities, but its instructions are so simple, so practical, so ordinary. There is no great theological paradigm shift here. No shattering philosophical proposal. Just common-sense instruction on how to live together successfully.
Then I understood. In Benedict’s day there were vast numbers of roving monks wandering here and there with no real accountability, no real stability, no real spiritual anchor. They even had names, two in particular. The first group of roving monks were called “sarabaites.” Benedict said that the sarabaites were “the most detestable kind of monks, who with no experience to guide them, no rule to try them as gold is tried in a furnace (Prov 27:21), have a character as soft as lead.” The second group were known as “gyrovagues” and, according to Benedict, they “spend their entire lives drifting from region to region, staying as guests for three or four days in different monasteries. Always on the move, they never settle down, and are slaves to their own will and gross appetites.”
Seeing the need for structure and accountability, Benedict went about establishing little community structures of twelve monks with a thirteenth monk who would be their leader and provide oversight and loving accountability for their life together. Further, he saw that these monks needed the discipline of staying in one place, hence a vow of stability.
There is more. They desperately needed instruction in the Christian way, so Benedict established a “school for the Lord’s service.” They needed to learn a practice of careful, prayerful reading and reflection, so Benedict made lectio divina central to their study program. Eventually, Benedict won the day. Unruly, undisciplined itinerant monks were gathered into fellowships of nurturing, caring accountability.
Understand, this victory did not come easily. The first group of recalcitrant monks Benedict gathered together with himself as their abbot tried to poison him! Ultimately, however, the Benedictine structure of community-based monks (cenobites) become the dominate structure of corporate religious life for better than a thousand years. Quite an amazing story, really. And that is why Benedict’s Rule caused such a revolution in Christian devotion.
We today have something of the same problem Benedict faced. Numerous present-day prophets function without any serious accountability or training. They come to a city, deliver their “prophecies” and leave for regions beyond, while local Christian leaders are left to deal with the fallout from these often destructive pronouncements. Some are on the electronic airwaves and so send out their “prophecies” without even meeting the people about whom they are prophesying.
Please understand, there is a legitimate and even necessary place for prophesy in the community of faith. But to function with spiritual success, it needs the discipline and structure of the community of faith. Perhaps we need a new articulation of a Benedictine Rule for our day!
Benedict’s twelve degrees of humility (other translations render it “twelve steps into humility”) is quite profound in its practical effect. We all know that we cannot attain humility by trying to attain humility. It simply does not work that way, otherwise we would swell with pride at our humility! However, as a result of this, many today have assumed that there is nothing we can do to attain humility of heart. Of course, the contemporary epidemic of egocentrism and hubris demonstrates the failure of doing nothing.
Then along comes Benedict to remind us that there is indeed something we are to do. That something, however, pursues humility indirectly. When we study his twelve steps carefully, we see that they all take up the Christian discipline of service in one form or another. The first two steps focus on service toward God and the remaining ten give attention to serving one another. Serve God. Serve one another. It is by means of this sustained attention to service that the grace of humility makes its way into our heart and soul. No longer obsessively concerned about ourselves and our place, we flow easily into a community of mutual, loving service. The wise apostle Paul counsels us, “Love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor” (Rom 12:10).
Lord, how simple this life of service is—and how much we need one another to live it. Please, Lord, lead us to someone today that we can serve. Amen.