He is gentle with weakness but he sees straight through subtle self-deceit and evasion. The demands will not be too great and they will be tempered to each, though for some that is going to mean a ladder which leads to the ultimate in self-dispossession. There is humanity here but there is nothing tepid.
The Rule must become the environment in which the disciple has to live, to struggle, to suffer. This is not therefore a legal code set out by a lawgiver. It is the fruit of practical experience, and although it contains certain theological principles it is derived essentially from life itself and sets out to be a guide to Christian living in the practical situations of daily life. What follows from this, as the most recent edition of the text points out, is that the wisdom of many of its provisions cannot be appreciated until they have been lived. Those today who follow it in a monastic community are doing that week by week and year by year. For those of us outside the enclosure the experience, and therefore the depth of understanding and appreciation, can only be very much less. It would be presumptuous on our part to find facile parallels, and to think that living without the vows can be in any way comparable to living the life of total commitment. Yet if our starting-point is the same, if we can say with the novice that we are truly seeking God, then we may turn to St Benedict as our guide on the way, not so much to pick and to choose whatever might seem relevant or attractive to us in our particular situation, but rather to draw inspiration from a great saint and one of the great creative writers of all time. Because his Rule was a means and never an end, because it is always pointing beyond itself, St Benedict would doubtless have rejoiced to find readers who are ready to learn from him, to go back to the Scriptures and to put nothing before the service of Christ.
THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS
Today if only you will hear his voice
do not harden your hearts
(Psalm 95:8)
With a listening heart that is both supple and receptive
be open son to the words of an experienced father
who lovingly offers you the wisdom gained throughout many years.
This Lord has Himself given us the time and space necessary to learn
and put into practice the service of love that He continues to teach us.
In this school of His let us hope that following faithfully His instructions
nothing distasteful nor burdensome will be demanded of us,
but if it has to be so in order to overcome our egoism
and lead us into the depths of true love,
let us not become disheartened, nor frightened
and so ignore the narrow path in spite of its tight entrance –
that path which leads directly to the fullness of life.
(The Prologue, Rule of St Benedict)
Abbot Lot came to Abbot Joseph and said: Father, according as I am able, I keep my little rule, and my little fast, my prayer, meditation and contemplative silence; and according as I am able I strive to cleanse my heart of thoughts; now what more should I do? The elder rose up in reply and stretched out his hands to heaven, and his fingers became like ten lamps of fire. He said: Why not be totally changed into fire?
(Desert Fathers: LXXII)
Christ leads me through no darker rooms
Than he went through before;
He that unto God’s kingdom comes,
Must enter by this door.
(Richard Baxter)
Blessed are the eyes that see the Divine Spirit through the letter’s veil.
(Claudius of Turin)
It is not necessary that we should discover new ideas in our meditation. It is sufficient if the word as we read and understand it penetrates and dwells within us. As Mary pondered in her heart the tidings that were told by the shepherds, as what we have casually heard follows us for a long time, sticks in our mind, occupies, disturbs or delights us, without our ability to do anything about it, so in meditation God’s word seeks to enter in and remain with us. It strives to stir us to work and to operate in us so that we shall not get away from it the whole day long. Then it will do its work in us without our being aware of it.
(Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Whenever you read the Gospel Christ Himself is speaking to you. And while you read, you are praying and talking with him.
(St Tikhon of Zadonsk)
Blessed Lord,
who has caused all holy Scriptures
to be written for our learning;
grant that we may in such wise hear them,
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them;
that, by patience, and comfort
of thy holy Word,
we may embrace, and ever hold fast
the blessed hope of everlasting life,
which thou has given us in our Saviour
Jesus Christ.
Notes
The basis of this chapter, as of the book, is the Rule of St Benedict itself. The translation through which I first got to know and love the Rule is that of Dom Basil Bolton, O.S.B. The fact that it came to me through Dom Bernard Orchard, O.S.B., of Ealing Abbey, titular Prior of Canterbury, is in itself a symbol of the way in which the Rule is common ground between the two communions. In writing this book, however, I have used the most recent definitive translation, that edited by Timothy Fry, O.S.B., and published by the Liturgical Press, Collegeville, in 1982. This is an annotated text in Latin and English and enables me to give precise reference to individual phrases. The index has been invaluable, as has the Appendix giving longer expositions of monastic topics. This chapter in particular owes much to the section on the role and interpretation of Scripture, pp. 467 – 77. Using this text I have also written a commentary on the Rule: A Life-Giving Way, Geoffrey Chapman, 1995.
The Cardinal Hume quotation on page 15 comes from an address given in 1980 at Ealing Abbey and later published in a collection In Praise of Benedict, AD. 480 – 1980, Hodder & Stoughton, 1981, p. 34. The phrase of Thomas Merton which I use on page 15 I came across in Simplicity and Ordinariness, Studies in Medieval Cistercian History, IV, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt, Cistercian Publications, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1980, p. 3.
I am glad right at the start to be able to acknowledge my debt to Dom David Knowles, whose lectures at Cambridge first awakened in me a feeling for the Middle Ages. On page 16 I have used one of his earliest and shortest but none the less profoundly wise studies, The Benedictines, Sheed and Ward, 1929. The quotation comes on page 17. Now long out of print in England, a slightly modified edition introduced by Marion R. Bowman was re-issued in 1962 by the Abbey Press, Saint Leo, Florida.
The
