Saint Benedict tells his students that his rule is only a
beginning place, that by observing it in monasteries, we can show that we
have some degree of virtue and the beginnings of monastic life.[1]
The holy abbot goes on to insist that those students of his that would hasten
on to the perfection of monastic life[2]
needed to build upon the foundation constructed by his rule.
Our wise abbot goes on in Chapter 73 to suggest some
reliable building resources for his students to use in building upon the
foundation laid by the good abbot. I consider it noteworthy that Saint Benedict
did not recommend any of the contemporary authors of the liberal time in which
he lived … a time of liberalism and moral corruption that he fully renounced
when he, as a young man, chose a cave for his home and lived there in solitude
as a religious hermit.
Saint Benedict realized the importance of and promoted
historical Catholic orthodoxy over modern liberal interpretations that possessed
no merit in summoning anyone along the true way to reach the Creator.[3]
He urged his students to dig in, cultivate the Christian virtues, and live as
observant and obedient monks[4]
lest, in following lesser guides, they prove themselves to be shameful,
slothful, unobservant, and negligent.[5]
To live a life hastening on to perfection is the aim
of our Benedictine Vows and Oblate Promises. Saint Benedict gives us a firm
foundation with his rule and points us toward those who can help us continue our
progress in cultivating and developing orthodox Christian virtues. Reading, according to
Benedict, is important. What we read, according to Benedict, will have a
definite bearing on the way we understand faith and doctrine, view life, and go
about living. Benedict insists that as we are influenced so we will influence
others.
In this age of modernism, where so many winds and waves of
opinions are blowing and pounding, my attention has been drawn more and more to
the lives and writings of men and women whom the Church long ago declared
Saints – men and women whose lives were lived as oblations … as
offerings unto the Lord. There is substance in their lives. There is
credibility in their witness. Their lives and witnesses challenge me. Their
lives and witness are like looking at the sun in comparison to looking at my
own dim life and witness.
Saint John Climacus, talking about the reasons people come
to the monastic life, tells us that all who have willingly left the things
of the world, have certainly done so either for the sake of the future Kingdom,
or because of the multitude of their sins, or for love of God. If they were not
moved by any of these reasons their withdrawal from the world was unreasonable.
But God who sets our contests waits to see what the end of our course will be.[6]
We all [as Christians] begin this journey of hastening on
to perfection … this universal call to seek and to know God regardless of
our personal state in life … for reasons similar to those mentioned by Saint
John Climacus. The outcomes of these beginnings are yet to be seen. A lot can
happen between beginning and end. The journey can easily be interrupted and cut
short by numerous bewitching invaders.[7]
How easy it is to reclaim and make our own again what we once renounced with contrition.
God waits. God watches. He waits and watches to see what we
do with the course that is laid out for us.
Entering into monastic life, whether as a cloistered brother
or sister, as either a lay or canonical hermit, or as an Oblate or Tertiary
living outside the monastery, is an act of renouncing the world and its
man-centered system. It is untenable to think that we can continue to give our
affections to any worldly man-centered system while, at the same time, giving
ourselves to the higher order revealed in and through Christian monasticism. These
disconnects from the world [renunciations] , and from the world’s way of
thinking, are necessarily part of monastic spirituality.
It is not just a renunciation of the world outside the
monastery walls. It is also a renunciation of the world inside the monk inside
the monastery walls. It is this world inside the monk that is the battle
ground. It is this interior battle that we ourselves enter into when we embrace
monastic principles. We bring with us the stains of the world when we enter
into our vocation. Even after years of ora et labora, vestiges of the
world are still sunk deep within us like the tips of belligerent splinters that
refuse to come out without some hard digging.
I will also dare to say that these same disconnects [renunciations] are
inherently intended as proofs of the Christian experience in general. Love not
the world, neither the things of the world.[8]
As those who follow Jesus, we are not of this world any more than he was of
this world.[9] The
difference is that not all Christians have monastic vocations.
Yet, all Christians, despite their vocations, are called to
model the life of Christ. We are all called to develop Christian virtues. We
are all called to produce the fruit of the Spirit. We are all called to serve
one another. We are all called to prayer. We are all called to penance. None of
these can be accomplished without practicing renunciation.
[1]
Holy Rule 73:1
[2]
73:2
[3]
73:4
[4]
73:6
[5]
73:7
[6]
The Ladder of Divine Ascent
[7]
Galatians 3:1
[8] 1
John 2:15
[9]
John 17:16
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