The Rule of Benedict Read online

  “How does a person seek union with God?” the seeker asked.

  “The harder you seek,” the teacher said, “the more distance you create between God and you.”

  “So what does one do about the distance?”

  “Understand that it isn’t there,” the teacher said.

  “Does that mean that God and I are one?” the seeker said.

  “Not one. Not two.”

  “How is that possible?” the seeker asked.

  “The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and the song. Not one. Not two.”

  Jan. 28 – May 29 – Sept. 28

  Truly, we are forbidden to do our own will, for Scripture tells us: “Turn away from your desires” (Sir. 18:30). And in prayer too we ask that God’s “will be done” in us (Matt. 6:10). We are rightly taught not to do our own will, since we dread what Scripture says: “There are ways which some call right that in the end plunge into the depths of hell” (Prov. 16:25). Moreover, we fear what is said of those who ignore this: “They are corrupt and have become depraved in their desires” (Ps. 14:1).

  As for the desires of the body, we must believe that God is always with us, for “All my desires are known to you” (Ps. 38:10), as the prophet tells God. We must then be on guard against any base desire, because death is stationed near the gateway of pleasure. For this reason Scripture warns us, “Pursue not your lusts” (Sir. 18:30).

  Benedict makes two points clearly: First, we are capable of choosing for God in life. We are not trapped by an essential weakness that makes God knowable but not possible. Second, we are more than the body. Choosing God means having to concentrate on nourishing the soul rather than on sating the flesh, not because the flesh is bad but because the flesh is not enough to make the human fully human. To give ourselves entirely to the pleasures of the body may close us to beauties known only to the soul.

  Humility lies in knowing who we are and what our lives are meant to garner. The irony of humility is that, if we have it, we know we are made for greatness, we are made for God.

  Jan. 29 – May 30 – Sept. 29

  Accordingly, if “the eyes of God are watching the good and the wicked” (Prov. 15:3), if at all times “the Holy One looks down from the heavens on us to see whether we understand and seek God” (Ps. 14:2); and if every day the angels assigned to us report our deeds to God day and night, then we must be vigilant every hour or, as the prophet says in the psalm, God may observe us “falling” at some time into evil and “so made worthless” (Ps. 14:3). After sparing us for a while because God is loving and waits for us to improve, we may be told later, “This you did, and I said nothing” (Ps. 50:21).

  The God-life, Benedict is telling us, is a never-ending, unremitting, totally absorbing enterprise. God is intent on it; so must we be. The Hebrew poet Moses Ibn Ezra writes, “Those who persist in knocking will succeed in entering.” Benedict thinks no less. It is not perfection that leads us to God; it is perseverance.

  Jan. 30 – May 31 – Sept. 30

  The second step of humility is that we love not our own will nor take pleasure in the satisfaction of our desires; rather we shall imitate by our actions that saying of Christ’s: “I have come not to do my own will, but the will of the One who sent me” (John 6:38). Similarly we read, “Consent merits punishment; constraint wins a crown.”

  The first rung of the ladder of the spiritual life is to recognize that God is God, that nothing else can be permitted to consume us or satisfy us, that we must reach out for God before we can even begin to live the God-life. We must come to understand that we are not our own destinies.

  The second rung of the spiritual life follows naturally: if God is my center and my end, then I must accept the will of God, knowing that in it lies the fullness of life for me, however obscure. The question, of course, is, How do we recognize the will of God? How do we tell the will of God from our own? How do we know when to resist the tide and confront the opposition and when to embrace the pain and accept the bitterness because “God wills it for us.” The answer lies in the fact that the Jesus who said, “I have come not to do my own will but the will of the One who sent me” is also the Jesus who prayed in Gethsemane, “Let this chalice pass from me.” The will of God for us is what remains of a situation after we try without stint and pray without ceasing to change it.

  Jan. 31 – June 1 – Oct. 1

  The third step of humility is that we submit to the prioress or abbot in all obedience for the love of God, imitating Jesus Christ, of whom the apostle says: “Christ became obedient even to death” (Phil. 2:8).

  It is so simple, so simplistic, to argue that we live for the God we do not see when we reject the obligations we do see. Benedictine spirituality does not allow for the fantasy. Benedict argues that the third rung on the ladder of humility is the ability to submit ourselves to the wisdom of another. We are not the last word, the final answer, the clearest insight into anything. We have one word among many to contribute to the mosaic of life, one answer of many answers, one insight out of multiple perspectives. Humility lies in learning to listen to the words, directions, and insights of the one who is a voice of Christ for me now. To stubbornly resist the challenges of people who have a right to lay claim to us and an obligation to do good by us—parents, spouses, teachers, supervisors—is a dangerous excursion into arrogance and a denial of the very relationships that are the stuff of which our sanctity is made.

  Rungs one and two call for contemplative consciousness. Rung three brings us face to face with our struggle for power. It makes us face an authority outside of ourselves. But once I am able to do that, then there is no end to how high I might rise, how deep I might grow.

  Feb. 1 – June 2 – Oct. 2

  The fourth step of humility is that in this obedience under difficult, unfavorable, or even unjust conditions, our hearts quietly embrace suffering and endure it without weakening or seeking escape. For Scripture has it: “Anyone who perseveres to the end will be saved” (Matt. 10:22), and again, “Be brave of heart and rely on God” (Ps. 27:14). Another passage shows how the faithful must endure everything, even contradiction, for the sake of the Holy One, saying in the person of those who suffer, “For your sake we are put to death continually; we are regarded as sheep marked for slaughter” (Rom. 8:36; Ps. 44:22). They are so confident in their expectation of reward from God that they continue joyfully and say, “But in all this we overcome because of Christ who so greatly loved us” (Rom. 8:37). Elsewhere Scripture says: “O God, you have tested us, you have tried us as silver is tried by fire; you have led us into a snare, you have placed afflictions on our backs” (Ps. 66:10–11). Then, to show that we ought to be under a prioress or an abbot, it adds: “You have placed others over our heads” (Ps. 66:12).

  One thing about Benedict of Nursia: he is not a romantic. It is so easy to say, “Let God be the center of your life; do God’s will; see God’s will in the will of others for you.” It is outrageous to say, even under the best of conditions, that it will be easy. We cling to our own ways like snails to sea walls, inching along through life, hiding within ourselves, unconscious even of the nourishing power of the sea that is seeking to sweep us into wider worlds.

  And all of that when the words that control us are good for us. What about when they are not? Benedict admits the situation. There are times when the words of those over us will not be good for us.

  The fourth step on the spiritual ladder, Benedict says, is the ability to persevere, even in the face of downright contradiction because it is more right to be open to the Word of God through others and have our enterprises fail sometimes than to be our own guide and have things turn out right.

  It is more right to be able to deal with the difficult things of life and grow from them than it is to have things work out well all the time and learn nothing from them at all.

  This is the degree of humility that calls for emotional stability, for holding on when things do not go our way, for withstanding the storms of l
ife rather than having to flail and flail against the wind and, as a result, lose the opportunity to control ourselves when there is nothing else in life that we can control.

  In truth, those who are patient amid hardships and unjust treatment are fulfilling God’s command: “When struck on one cheek, they turn the other; when deprived of their coat, they offer their cloak also; when pressed into service for one mile, they go two” (Matt. 5:39–41). With the apostle Paul, they bear with “false companions, endure persecution, and bless those who curse them” (2 Cor. 11:26; 1 Cor. 4:12).

  To bear bad things, evil things, well is for Benedict a mark of humility, a mark of Christian maturity. It is a dour and difficult notion for the modern Christian to accept. The goal of the twenty-first century is to cure all diseases, order all inefficiency, topple all obstacles, end all stress, and prescribe immediate panaceas. We wait for nothing and put up with little and abide less and react with fury at irritations. We are a people without patience. We do not tolerate process. We cannot stomach delay. Persist. Persevere. Endure, Benedict says. It is good for the soul to temper it. God does not come on hoofbeats of mercury through streets of gold. God is in the dregs of our lives. That’s why it takes humility to find God where God is not expected to be.

  Feb. 2 – June 3 – Oct. 3

  The fifth step of humility is that we do not conceal from the abbot or prioress any sinful thoughts entering our hearts, or any wrongs committed in secret, but rather confess them humbly. Concerning this, Scripture exhorts us: “Make known your way to the Holy One and hope in God” (Ps. 37:5). And again, “Confess to the Holy One, for goodness and mercy endure forever” (Ps. 106:1; Ps. 118:1). So too the prophet: “To you I have acknowledged my offense; my faults I have not concealed. I have said: Against myself I will report my faults to you, and you have forgiven the wickedness of my heart” (Ps. 32:5).

  The fifth rung of the ladder of humility is an unadorned and disarming one: self-revelation, Benedict says, is necessary to growth. Going through the motions of religion is simply not sufficient. No, the Benedictine heart, the spiritual heart, is a heart that has exposed itself and all its weaknesses and all its pain and all its struggles to the One who has the insight, the discernment, the care to call us out of our worst selves to the heights to which we aspire.

  The struggles we hide, psychologists tell us, are the struggles that consume us. Benedict’s instruction, centuries before an entire body of research arose to confirm it, is that we must cease to wear our masks, stop pretending to be perfect, and accept the graces of growth that can come to us from the wise and gentle hearts of people of quality around us.

  Humility such as this gives us energy to face the world. Once we ourselves admit what we are, what other criticism can possibly demean us or undo us or diminish us? Once we know who we are, all the delusions of grandeur, all the righteousness that’s in us dies and we come to peace with the world.

  Feb. 3 – June 4 – Oct. 4

  The sixth step of humility is that we are content with the lowest and most menial treatment, and regard ourselves as a poor and worthless worker in whatever task we are given, saying with the prophet: “I am insignificant and ignorant, no better than a beast before you, yet I am with you always” (Ps. 73:22–23).

  In a classless society status is snatched in normally harmless but corrosive little ways. We are a people who like embossed business cards and monogrammed leather briefcases and invitations to public events. We spend money we don’t have to buy flat-screen TVs and electronic books that read to us instead of having to read a book for ourselves. We go into debt to buy at the right stores and live on the right street and go to the right schools. We call ourselves failures if we can’t exchange last year’s models for this year’s styles. We measure our successes by the degree to which they outspan the successes of the neighbors. We have lost a sense of “enoughness.”

  Benedict tells us that it is bad for the soul to have to have more than the necessary, that it gluts us, that it protects us in Plexiglas from the normal, the natural. Benedict says that the goal of life is not to amass things but to get the most out of whatever little we have. Benedict tells us to quit climbing. If we can learn to love life where we are, in what we have, then we will have room in our souls for what life alone does not have to offer.

  The Tao Te Ching teaches, “Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations.”

  Feb. 4 – June 5 – Oct. 5

  The seventh step of humility is that we not only admit with our tongues but are also convinced in our hearts that we are inferior to all and of less value, humbling ourselves and saying with the prophet: “I am truly a worm, not even human, scorned and despised by all” (Ps. 22:7). “I was exalted, then I was humbled and overwhelmed with confusion” (Ps. 88:16). And again, “It is a blessing that you have humbled me so that I can learn your commandments” (Ps. 119:71, 73).

  At one stage of life, the temptation is to think that no human being alive could ever really believe themselves to be “inferior to all and of less value.” At a later stage in life you begin to understand that secretly everybody thinks exactly that and that’s why we deny it with such angst to ourselves and such unfairness to others. We set out systematically to hide the truth of it by clutching at money and degrees and positions and power and exhaust ourselves in the attempt to look better than we fear we really are.

  The only difference between that stage of life and this degree of humility is that in the seventh degree of humility Benedict wants us to realize that accepting our essential smallness and embracing it frees us from the need to lie, even to ourselves, about our frailties. More than that, it liberates us to respect, revere, and deal gently with others who have been unfortunate enough to have their own smallnesses come obscenely to light.

  Aware of our own meager virtues, conscious of our own massive failures despite all our great efforts, all our fine desires, we have in this degree of humility, this acceptance of ourselves, the chance to understand the failures of others. We have here the opportunity to become kind.

  Feb. 5 – June 6 – Oct. 6

  The eighth step of humility is that we do only what is endorsed by the common rule of the monastery and the example set by the prioress or abbot.

  “It is better to ask the way ten times than to take the wrong road once,” a Jewish proverb reads. The eighth degree of humility tells us to stay in the stream of life, to learn from what has been learned before us, to value the truths taught by others, to seek out wisdom and enshrine it in our hearts. The eighth degree of humility tells us to attach ourselves to teachers so that we do not make the mistake of becoming our own blind guides.

  It is so simple to become a law unto ourselves. The problem with it is that it leaves us little chance to be carried by others. It takes a great deal of time to learn all the secrets of life by ourselves. It makes it impossible for us to come to know what our own lights have no power to signal. It leaves us dumb, undeveloped, and awash in a naked arrogance that blocks our minds, cripples our souls, and makes us unfit for the relationships that should enrich us beyond our merit and despite our limitations.

  Our living communities have a great deal to teach us. All we need is respect for experience and the comforting kind of faith that it takes to do what we cannot now see to be valuable, but presume to be holy because we see the holiness that it has produced in those who have gone before us in the family and the church.

  Feb. 6 – June 7 – Oct. 7

  The ninth step of humility is that we control our tongues and remain silent, not speaking unless asked a question, for Scripture warns, “In a flood of words you will not avoid sinning” (Prov. 10:19), and “A talkative person goes about aimlessly on earth” (Ps. 140:12).

  When arrogance erupts anywhere, it erupts invariably in speech. Our opinions become the rule. Our ideas become the goal. Our judgments become the norm. Our word becomes the last word, the only word. To be the last one into a conversation, instead
of the first, is an unheard-of assault on our egos. Benedict says, over and over, listen, learn, be open to the other. That is the ground of humility. And humility is the ground of growth and graced relationships on earth. Humility is what makes the powerful accessible to the powerless. Humility is what allows poor nations a demand on rich ones. Humility is what enables the learned to learn from the wise.

  Feb. 7 – June 8 – Oct. 8

  The tenth step of humility is that we are not given to ready laughter, for it is written: “Only fools raise their voices in laughter” (Sir. 21:23).

  Humor and laughter are not necessarily the same thing. Humor permits us to see into life from a fresh and gracious perspective. We learn to take ourselves more lightly in the presence of good humor. Humor gives us the strength to bear what cannot be changed and the sight to see the human under the pompous. Laughter, on the other hand, is an expression of emotion commonly inveighed against in the best finishing schools and the upper classes of society for centuries. Laughter was considered vulgar, crude, cheap, a loud demonstration of a lack of self-control.

  In the tenth degree of humility, Benedict does not forbid humor. On the contrary, Benedict is insisting that we take our humor very seriously. Everything we laugh at is not funny. Some things we laugh at are, in fact, tragic and need to be confronted. Ethnic jokes are not funny. Sexist jokes are not funny. The handicaps of suffering people are not funny. Pornography and pomposity and shrieking, mindless noise is not funny. Derision is not funny, sneers and sarcasm and snide remarks, no matter how witty, how pointed, how clever, how cutting, are not funny. They are cruel. The humble person never uses speech to grind another person to dust. The humble person cultivates a soul in which everyone is safe. A humble person handles the presence of the other with soft hands, a velvet heart, and an unveiled mind.