I remember a conversation that I had with one of my
biological sisters.
The conversation took place in 2006 on a little side porch
where we were attending a family function.
I told her that Shirli and I were on a journey – that the
years I had spent studying monastic spirituality, becoming an Oblate at Saint
Bernard Abbey, and our investigations into Catholic Christianity had led us to
enrolling in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults at the Catholic Church
in town. I do not know if she was flabbergasted or not. If she was, she hid it
well. Her response was simply, “Journey is a good thing.”
Christianity is every bit a journey.
It is not a static point of arrival but, rather, an ongoing
adventure that is bi-directional.
One direction leads toward our eternal destination. The
other direction leads us back to the very roots of Christianity and the
centuries of foundational revelation in Israel that preceded the establishment
of the Church by Christ and his chosen Apostles. It takes both directions. Learning
and illumination will always be an integral aspect of the Christian journey.[1]
Church history, in this bi-directional regard, becomes in
important element in understanding the Christian faith.
Saint Benedict understood the importance of past examples
and suggests studying them as a means to personal improvement along the pathway
of the Christian journey of faith.
“The reason we have
written this rule is that, by observing it in monasteries, we can show that we
have some degree of virtue and the beginnings of monastic life. But for anyone
hastening on to the perfection of monastic life, there are the teachings of the
holy Fathers, the observance of which will lead him to the very heights of
perfection. What page, what passage of the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments
is not the truest of guides for human life? What book of the holy catholic
Fathers does not resoundingly summon us along the true way to reach the Creator?
Then, besides the Conferences of the Fathers, their Institutes and their Lives,
there is also the rule of our holy Father Basil.”[2]
It would be easy to dismiss what Benedict is saying with a
simple protest of “But I am not a monk living in a monastery.”
The truth of the matter is that the monk, living in a
monastery, is representative of every Christian individual. Only the
surrounding environment of his enclosure is different. Within the enclosure of
the monastery he wrestles with himself in something of a pressure cooker
environment. What Benedict recommends to the monk in the monastery, he also
recommends to every Christian – hastening on to Christian perfection.
We easily have the inspired books of the Old and New
Testaments at our disposal.
Reading the Church Fathers, before the age of the internet,
meant either spending a lot of money on the volumes or having access to a
theological library. Those days have changed now that Google is just a
keystroke away. Do not expect the Fathers to be light reading. They are not.
They are extremely challenging and not written with our fast-food drive-thru
mindsets in mind.
The Rule of Saint Benedict is based largely on the Rule of
Saint Basil. It is, in fact, a simplified succinct version of it.
I remember looking for Basil’s rule when I first started
yielding myself to the tutelage of Benedict. A simple pdf copy of it in English
that I could download was not to be found. A recent renewed search met with the
same results.
Shirli and I watched a very interesting documentary last
night – The Island of Monks – something
that she found on Amazon Prime. It is quite the story about a Cistercian
monastery in the Netherlands. Subtitles are required unless you speak Dutch.
After watching the documentary, Shirli did some Googling and found their website
that contains a monastic library. Basil’s rule, though not in a downloadable
pdf, is part of the library. Their website also hosts a translator program.
This historical document, something on Benedict’s recommended reading list, is
there and can be accessed at the following link. Once there select kloosterbibliotheek at the top of the page.
http://kloosterbibliotheek.nl
Here, on this last day of 2018, I cannot help but to think about something that Pope Francis
wrote.
“The believer is essentially one who remembers.”[3]
The Christian journey, not just the one that I am on as an
individual but, rather, the collective entirety of it, has both a beginning and a
culmination. The journey that I am on makes much more sense now that I have so
much more to remember where the collective history is concerned.
Stay on the journey.
Remember.
[1] 2
Timothy 2:15
[2] RB
73:1-5
[3]
Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel, II:13, p. 14 © 2013 Libreria Editrice
Vaticana
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