Abbot Benedict instructs and assists me by saying,
(41) To put one's trust in God. (42) To refer what good
one sees in himself, not to self, but to God. (43) But as to any evil in himself, let him be
convinced that it is his own and charge it to himself.[1]
What direction is Saint Benedict assisting us toward?
He is assisting us toward our own personal conversion into clearer images of Christ … a degree by degree conversion that, in one breath, both
acknowledges and leaves behind any initial experience of conversion where we
are born again by the Spirit of God through a personal encounter with
the Resurrected Christ. “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of
the Lord is, there is freedom. And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the
glory of the Lord as through reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into
the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the
Lord, the Spirit.” [2]
Benedict constantly holds before us the historical Church
model for Christian growth and development. In that this historical model will
always call us to surrender our will, along with the selfish manifestations
caused by the original sin in the Garden of Eden, it will always stand
at odds against every attempt of modernism to create pseudo models that exalt
and promote the gratification of human will. Even [and especially] when these
models retain traces of Christianity.
The model of monastic life, as presented in Benedict’s
rule, is a picture of the Church at prayer and at work. It is a model of how
Christian community [The Church] functions and cooperates. This cooperation not
only concerns its member’s internal personal relationships. It has to do, as well, with the
member’s cooperation with the principles and ideals of God’s will for the
members. The model concerns itself horizontally with human relationships and vertically with interacting personally with the Divine.
As monastic communities flourish, so flourishes the
Church.
This is, to me anyway, one of the obvious realities
inherent in Church history and something that more than suggests the need for
the Church to begin anew aggressively promoting vocations to the religious life. It
also points to the need for monks, nuns, and Oblates to see the prayer life of
the monastery [and the Church] as their primary vocation both personally as
individuals and structurally as communities of faith.
The liturgy is our life. “On hearing the signal for an
hour of the divine office, the monk will immediately set aside what he has in
hand and go with utmost speed, yet with gravity and without giving occasion for
frivolity. Indeed, nothing is to be preferred to the Work of God.”[3]
Monks live liturgy.
“Let nothing be preferred to the Work of God” (Rule of St
Benedict 43:3) our holy father St Benedict bids us. The Divine Office and the
Mass punctuate and structure our day, uniting our lives with Christ’s sacrifice
of perfect praise in his Body and Blood on the Cross. This union is what gives
the monk’s life its truest and deepest value. A monk with no taste for liturgy
is akin to a bird who fears to fly: things can only be difficult and
frustrating. So if some of us monks seem to be endlessly focusing on liturgy,
you might cut us some slack. For us, the liturgy is the privileged way to live
in Christ’s Body, a privilege which necessarily imposes demands on our daily
living outside the liturgy. These demands we spare no effort to meet
faithfully, though we so often fail.”[4]
Saint Benedict’s model flies in the face of philosophies
and practices of modernism which are nothing more than well-dressed and
repackaged revivals of paganism. The Saint’s model also flies in the face of
the modern Church where so much of the world and its thinking has infiltrated
and taken root. The Rule of Saint Benedict, for these 21st Century
times, remains the time-tested anchor that is embedded in the Rock
who is Christ.
The Holy Abbot reminds me that my sufficiency can never
be found in myself. God alone is my sufficiency. It is he who provides for all
of my needs according to his riches in glory in Christ.[5]
The Saint is constantly at work reminding me to walk in
humility. He is instructing me to always recognize that anything good and
worthwhile that proceeds from me does so only because of him and his working in
and through me.[6]
Benedict also reminds me that this humility refuses attempts to justify faults and failures or to blame
them on others. It readily admits them, accepts responsibility for them, and
corrects them.[7]
Even in things that most people would consider small things, Benedict instructs
me numerous times in The Rule to offer a penance and make satisfaction.
Humility, having a modest or low view of one's importance, is the only effective antidote that effectively fights against the poisonous effects of pride.
Humility, having a modest or low view of one's importance, is the only effective antidote that effectively fights against the poisonous effects of pride.
[1]
Holy Rule 4:41-43
[2] 2
Corinthians 3:17-18.
[3]
Holy Rule 43:1-3
[4]
Dom Hugh Knapman, Douai Abbey, Berkshire, England
[5]
Philippians 4:19
[6] Micah
6:8 and James 1:17
[7]
James 5:16
No comments:
Post a Comment