November 30

St. Andrew the Apostle

Chapter 49

The Rule of St. Benedict November 30

I think most would read our Father Benedict's talk of the "joy of the Holy Spirit" with regard to Lenten abstinence as deluded or darkly humorous.  We have a hard time imagining how "the joy of spiritual desire" can in any way be enhanced by physical denial.  But in the Christian tradition, Lent is not punishment.  It is preparation for New Life in the Easter experience.  For the heart that truly desires this New Life, then, the Lenten practices, painful as they may be in the short term, can produce the profound joy of the Spirit who brings about New Life in us.

The Spiritual Exercises  of St. Ignatius of Loyola are the central component of Ignatian Spirituality, and are a powerful process that anyone who desires New Life would do well to consider undertaking at some point.  I would like for the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation to consider undertaking The Spiritual Exercises during the next Lenten season.  We will, of course, welcome any who would like to join us in this endeavor.

Br. Chad 2012

November 29

Chapter 48 pt. 3

The Rule of St. Benedict November 29

Last evening, as a part of the Advent Wednesday Program I am leading, we explored how we might approach sanctifying time in our everyday schedule.  This last section of Chapter 48 serves as a wonderful follow-up to our time together.

Sundays, in this passage, are to be set aside for the cultivation of the inner work that is study, or lectio divina.  I find it fascinating that our own society at large, until very recently, regarded Sundays as a day set aside for "rest"--stores closed, family gathered, home-cooked meals shared, etc.  But a dominant attitude in this recent memory is an entitlement to leisure, or idleness, on Sundays--watching football from the couch, reading the Sunday comics, long naps, etc.  It seems that the days and weeks of most people in our culture are spent between frenetic busyness and complete idleness.  Instead of balancing our time between mindful work, prayer, and study, we are consumed by tasks, one after another, until the sun goes down and we crash in front of some screen.  Sunday, for many, is a whole day set aside for vegetative leisure, in or out of church.

I wonder what it might look like if we were to build into our attitude about Sundays the value of cultivating our inner life rather than the value of leisure.  The key, I suspect, is to order the rest of our days in such a way that preserves internal resources for the work of the soul.

Br. Chad 2012

November 28

Chapter 48 pt. 2

The Rule of St. Benedict November 28

Ora et Labora is the ancient Benedictine motto.  "Pray and Work."  Chapter 48 "On the Daily Manual Labor" is one reason why it seems appropriate to add "Study" to the motto's translation.  Our Father Benedict clearly considers reading to be an essential component of the work a Benedictine is to do each day.

We see in this passage the creating of conditions by which ever further spiritual formation can take place throughout the year.  And, as is needed, a support system is provided for those who may resist such ongoing formation.  As Sr. Joan writes, "Study is hard work.  It is so much easier to find something else to do in its place than to stay at the grind of it."  Remaining open to the Spirit's creative energies within us through engagement with the wider world of ideas is a beautiful disposition of the Benedictine heart.

Br. Chad 2012

November 27

Chapter 48 pt. 1

The website to which I normally link for the readings from the Rule is not working this morning, so I am placing a link to a different website below.  Today's selection is the section (1-9) before the first bit of commentary.

The Rule of St. Benedict November 27 (alt. site)

Furthermore, I commented on today's reading yesterday by accident. So I am reposting that content below.  If you would like to read the proper commentary for Chapter 47, (which I recommend!) please click here.

One of my favorite lines in all of Sr. Joan's commentary on the Rule is from today's reading.  She writes, "Benedictine spirituality exacts something so much harder for our century than rigor.  Benedictine spirituality demands balance."

The story of Jesus' visit to Martha's home in Chapter 10 of St. Luke's Gospel is instructive here.  Martha welcomes Jesus and his entourage in, offering them hospitality, but is "distracted by her many tasks" to the extent that she begrudges her sister, Mary, her seat at Jesus' feet.  This passage is often used to extol the virtues of overt religious devotion over and against the vice of being a busybody, but far more than this simplistic dichotomy is at play here.  Jesus' affectionate admonition to Martha contrasts the "many things" about which she is "worried and distracted" with the "only one thing" of which there is need.  To be "worried and distracted" implies that one's attention is absent from one's actual environment.  Presence is the "one thing" that is needed if one is to, like Mary, listen to what the Lord is saying.

Rigor often holds one's attention hostage to a set of expectations around what must be done.  Those who value rigor too highly often direct their efforts toward human-made goals at the expense of presence in each moment.  Yet it is only in each moment that the voice of Christ can be heard.

What Benedictine balance affords is the opportunity to move from sleep to prayer to study to work in a way that needs only the "one thing".  When it is time to work, we listen to what the Lord is saying through our work.  When it is time to stop working and pray, we leave our work, perhaps undone, and listen to what the Lord is saying through the Office.  It is not magic, nor is it easy, but such is the balanced life that shapes the Benedictine soul.

Br. Chad 2012

Advent Wednesdays

Benedictine Spiritual Practices 

for Everyone

Advent Wednesday Program 

at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish

1735 S. College Avenue Tempe, AZ

Join us Wednesdays in Advent from 6-7pm to begin an exploration of Benedictine spiritual practices for everyone. Br. Chad will lead us on our journey, which will involve:

Week 1 (November 28)

The sanctification of time. Taking a look at the hours of our days. Imagining how we might find a balance between prayer, work, and study.

Week 2 (December 5)

Engaging the Psalms. Seeking to understand the Psalms as a program for inner transformation within the Benedictine tradition. Learning how to organize a recitation of the Psalter and experiment with simple chanting techniques.

Week 3 (December 12)

Lectio Divina. Listening to the Spirit speak through the voice of Holy Scripture. Practicing in a group. Practicing alone.

Week 4 (December 19)

Silence. Attending to the noise of our environment--audible, visual, mental. Learning to value silence. Experiencing the power of inner quiet.

November 26

Chapter 47

The Rule of St. Benedict November 26

Sr. Joan Chittister opens her commentary on Chapter 47 by describing Benedictine prayer as "regular and artistic."  I find much resonance with this characterization.

Prayer in the Benedictine tradition is literally regular, in that it conforms to a rule, a regula.  Its starting place is not extemporaneous, but formal.  It begins with a signal and proceeds with a carefully defined series of hymns, Psalms, and readings, and it is put to the religious superior to see to it that this is so in each Benedictine community.

Along with the regulation of prayer, Chapter 47 also tasks the superior with attending to the quality of its aesthetic presentation in the community.  This is the Opus Dei after all, the Work of God, and should be approached with a measure of beauty and excellence.

There are shadow sides to both of these elements that every healthy Benedictine community must acknowledge and address, however.  Regulations and artistry can become idols.  The sneering, upturned nose of the aesthete or the conformist's obsessive anxiety are every bit as damaging to our Father Benedict's intentions as haphazardness and ugliness.  We are to strike a balance in prayer that frees our hearts from the swirling chaos of our environments without shackling them to idols made by human hands.

Br. Chad 2012

November 25

Christ the King

Chapter 46

The Rule of St. Benedict November 25

One aspect of community life is the wealth of stories that accumulate over the years.  One such story I overheard at St. Gregory's Abbey last year had to do with the instructions in this chapter.  It seems that a procedure for "com[ing] immediately before the Abbot and the community" after breaking something took on the form of kneeling with the broken item in hand at the entrance of the place where the community would gather next.  So, if the next community gathering is prayer, one would kneel at the entrance of the chapel, if a meal, one would kneel at the entrance to the refectory, and so on.  One day, many years ago, a brother was cleaning the bathroom before lunch and happened to break the toilet seat.  So, as the community and guests, of which there happened to be a large number that day, came silently into the refectory after the lunch bell, they had to walk past this brother kneeling with a toilet seat.  I was told that the procedure was modified after that.

Chapter 46 calls each member of the community to take responsibility for any fault they contribute to the common life, whether through a small, inconsequential accident or a "sin-sickness of the soul."  Our Father Benedict desires to cultivate a climate of trust and intimacy in the community.  Without trust, the community is poisoned by cycles of deception, suspicion, and accusation.  Without safe intimacy, the individual suffers the soul-killing trajectory of hidden guilt, self-loathing, and hardness of heart.

Br. Chad 2012

November 24

Chapter 45

The Rule of St. Benedict November 24

In July of 2011 I spent two weeks at St. Gregory's Abbey in Three Rivers, Michigan as a part of the Summer Vocation program.  I saw the instructions from Chapter 45 (aside from the last sentence) played out several times during my time at St. Gregory's.  Almost every member of the community, including the Abbot, at one point or another, made a mistake on a Psalm tone or on a reading and immediately performed a small, quick genuflection toward the Superior.  This little action seemed to be the beginning and the end of the matter, and I felt it to be refreshing to have such a clear procedure for the addressing of mistakes rather than a muddled series of apologies and/or reprimands and/or passive-aggressive silence and/or cloying assurances.

As our Father Benedict indicates, the issue for the offender is that of humility, which, in truth, needs not speak a word of excuse or defense.  And the issue for the Superior and community is that of holding the space for that humility to manifest without undue commentary or judgment.

Br. Chad 2012

November 23

Feast of St. Clement, Bishop of Rome

Chapter 44

The Rule of St. Benedict November 23

The oratory and the table are the two pillars of common life in a Benedictine monastery, and when one member violates his responsibilities to the community, he endangers the very life he has vowed to uphold.  Without explaining away the harshness of Benedict's instructions here, I hear in this chapter a call to consider how profoundly our personal spiritual health affects the common life we have vowed to share with others.  As Sr. Joan writes in conclusion to her commentary today,

This chapter forces us to ask, in an age without penances and in a culture totally given to individualism, what relationships we may be betraying by selfishness and what it would take to cure ourselves of the self-centeredness that requires the rest of the world to exist for our own convenience.

Br. Chad 2012

November 22

Thanksgiving Day (USA)

Chapter 43 pt. 2

The Rule of St. Benedict November 22

I love it when the planets align.  It's hard to find a more appropriate passage for Thanksgiving Day than today's.

Sr. Joan Chittister's commentary on this second half of Chapter 43 is worth reading in full.  Do so here. She writes,

In Benedictine spirituality, . . . the sacramental value of a meal is that the human concern we promise daily at the altar is demonstrated in the dining room where we prepare and serve and clean up after one another.

and further,

The meal becomes the sanctifying center that reminds us, day in and day out, that unless we go on building the community around us, participating in it and bearing its burdens, then the words, "family" and "humanity" become a sham, no matter how good our work at the office, no matter how important our work in the world around us.

Presence at table is an imperative in any household that seeks to walk the path of our Father Benedict.  And by "presence" I mean fully awake, conscious engagement with the realities at hand, seen and unseen.  This is true in a household of one or in a household of many.  The Benedictine is to honor the table as a sacramental focal point wherein the invisible is manifest among the visible.  Let us seek to engage our meal(s) with family and friends in this manner today.

Br. Chad 2012

November 21

Chapter 43 pt. 1

The Rule of St. Benedict November 21

The intention that undergirds each and every one of our Father Benedict's instructions is to further individual and communal spiritual formation.  The instructions in this passage are no exception. Discipline is applied to the latecomer, not because he really messes up the vibe, but because "nothing . . . [is to] be put before the Work of God."  As a person who is rarely early, I can easily recognize the preferences and choices that result in my being tardy, and, if I'm honest, they are nearly always self-interested in nature.  I find what Sr. Joan writes to be true, that "Tardiness . . . denies the soul the full experience of anything."

As Benedictines, we are called to consciously prefer and choose the Opus Dei, the communal praying of the Daily Office, over whatever else seems to demand our time and attention.  Again, Sr. Joan's words resonate:

No matter how tired we are or how busy we are or how impossible we think it is to do it, Benedictine spirituality says, Stop. Now. A spiritual life without a regular prayer life and an integrated community consciousness is pure illusion.

Br. Chad 2012

November 20

Chapter 42

The Rule of St. Benedict November 20

Silence is a diversity.  I have heard the silence of anger burning.  I have heard the silence of paralyzing fear or guilt.  I have heard the silence of hopeful anticipation and the silence of green beauty.  I have heard the silence of safety and contentedness in the presence of loved ones and of the Beloved.

The silence after Compline is to be a fertile silence into which are planted words of peace and gentleness from Holy Scripture.  It is to be a silence of soul as well as sound, blooming with joy and love among the community.

Noise is also diverse.  We are each settled upon, like many-splendored moss-covered stones in misty, damp Ireland, by the noises that fill the atmosphere of our lives.  But we, unlike stones, are able to adjust the air in which we live.  We can shut the laptop, turn off the television, put down the smartphone.

I long for the fertile silence our Father Benedict seeks to cultivate in and among us.

Br. Chad 2012

November 19

Chapter 41

The Rule of St. Benedict November 19

" . . . the Abbot's foresight shall decide on this.

Thus it is that he should adapt and arrange everything

in such a way that souls may be saved

and that the brethren may do their work without just cause for murmuring."

"If you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea."

Mark 9: 42

I hear a similar teaching in this passage from the Gospel and the above quote from chapter 41.  We are all given to care for the spiritual well-being of all with whom we are in relationship, and the choices we make in our relationships are to serve in clearing the way for the Work of Grace.  It is ignoring this responsibility in favor of small-minded self-interest that results in the proliferation of obstacles for everyone.

Br. Chad 2012

November 18

Chapter 40

The Rule of St. Benedict November 18

"Above all else I urge that there should be no murmuring in the community."  These are our Father Benedict's concluding words to this chapter, and they show what is his highest priority regarding the amounts of food and drink consumed by the community.  More than anything else, it's important that those who follow the Benedictine way are content with what is provided for them.  This principle of contentedness goes well beyond food and drink to the heart of what we are about: the relinquishing of our prejudgments and desires in favor of the Spirit's guidance in our lives.

And from here on out, at the meals shared by the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation, we shall measure our drinks by the hemina!

Br. Chad 2012

November 17

Chapter 39

The Rule of St. Benedict November 17

"There is nothing so opposed to the Christian character as over-indulgence."

This seems like an awfully bold claim for our Father Benedict to insert nonchalantly into the Rule.  Perhaps he's utilizing hyperbole to emphasize "Our Lord's words, 'See to it that your hearts be not burdened with over-indulgence,'" but what if he isn't?  Why would he claim that this behavior holds the highest rank among things that oppose the development of the Christian character?

For an answer to this question I turn to a concept that would have been central to St. Benedict's thinking as a monk in the 6th century.  It is an understanding of human formation that comes from the Egyptian desert fathers, and would be popularized in the generation or so after our Father Benedict through St. Gregory the Great.  It is the notion of the deadly passions (sins).

Evagrius Ponticus was a late 4th century Egyptian monk and ascetic from whom we learn about eight deadly passions that form a logismos, or train of thought.  For Evagrius, each passion leads a person further and further away from what is real, beginning with the most basic needs of survival and moving to the essence of what makes us distinctly human (divine union).  His formulation of this train of thought begins, as does every other formulation, with gluttony, which is the first among the "Passions of Desire."  These are ways we misuse our natural impulses, and include fornication and love of money in turn.  Then come the "Passions of Reaction", which are passions directed against others and include depression, anger, and listlessness (later, accidie).  Finally, he lists two "Passions of Sense of Self", which are a fantasy of self: vainglory and pride.

So, back to Chapter 39 and our Father Benedict's claim that "nothing is so opposed to the Christian character as over-indulgence."  Over-indulgence, or gluttony, is the gateway passion.  It is the most basic misuse of our natural impulses and the easiest.  But as such, it has the power to divert our path without us even knowing it and place us in a prison of the most base, least developed experience of a human being.  Moving past gluttony, then, is essential if one is to be formed in the likeness of Christ, into the essence of our true identity hidden in God.

Br. Chad 2012

The information about deadly passions is from Prior Aelred's lectures at St. Gregory's Abbey during the Summer Vocation Program of 2011.

November 16

Chapter 38

The Rule of St. Benedict November 16

In my experience, one valuable aspect of practicing verbal silence at meals is that it eliminates many of the problems that common meals provide for socially awkward or the new people.  Some might not find it easy to make their way into the life of the tables we share, and this Benedictine practice clears the way for everyone's full participation in that life.

Another valuable aspect of this practice of silence at meals is that it can open the door to what Thich Nhat Hanh calls "mindful eating".  He describes the mindful eating of a carrot:

You may like to smile to it before you put it in your mouth. When you chew it, you are aware that you are chewing a piece of carrot. Don't put anything else into your mouth, like your projects, your worries, your fear, just put the carrot in. 

And when you chew, chew only the carrot, not your projects or your ideas. You are capable of living in the present moment, in the here and the now. It is simple, but you need some training to just enjoy the piece of carrot. This is a miracle.

 We will need some training, indeed.  Thanks be to God for the school of our Father Benedict.

Br. Chad 2012

November 15

Chapter 37

The Rule of St. Benedict November 15

The first sentence of this chapter offers a small window into the intentions behind St. Benedict's Rule, and I think this window gives us a view of an answer to a common question, "Why would anyone want to commit her life to living in this way?"

Natural dispositions of a human being, as good as they can be in certain circumstances, are not a basis on which to build a healthy, whole person or community.  For, as we all know, not everyone is identically disposed towards children or the elderly.  But by formalizing a good disposition and imbuing it with the authority of the Rule, the value is freed from dependency on an individual's affectionate emotion, and placed in relation to an individual's vow of obedience under the guidance of his Superior.

This, to me, is true freedom when I consider my experience under the tyranny of emotional dispositions as a measure of "health" and "wholeness."

Br. Chad 2012

November 14

Chapter 36

The Rule of St. Benedict November 14

As our ministry of prayer takes root deep in our lives, the outgrowth of that ministry connects us to each other, to the Church, and to the World in bonds of compassion and love.  This compassion is practiced through acts of care for the physically sick among us, as we have had the opportunity to experience in the wake of Br. Rawleigh's stroke two and a half weeks ago.  Our brother's time in the hospital, at rehab, and now back at home has shown us that the lessons of this chapter in the Rule are timeless.  Br. Rawleigh truly is "Christ in person" to us and to many more.  He has received our love and compassion with grace and has been more than reasonable in the requests he makes of our time and attention.  And we have all been graced with an "abundant reward" from being in his holy presence during this time.

Let us continue to open ourselves, through our prayers and service on behalf of those who suffer, to be clear channels for the healing love of God.  And let us seek to receive the true blessing of the living Christ, who is ever present in the sick and the poor.

Br. Chad 2012

November 13

Chapter 35 pt. 2

The Rule of St. Benedict November 13

This passage is one that has changed little in practice over the last 1500 years among Benedictine monasteries.  It is a simple, yet powerful, ritual, a changing of the guard of sorts.  It functions to give an eternal perspective on what might otherwise be seen as only a human endeavor.  Such sanctification of the mundane is one genius of the Rule.  A Benedictine finds her true life in God through each and every aspect of the day--nothing is "secular"; nothing is profane.

To imbue the details of our experience with an awareness of the Divine Presence is a goal of Benedictine community.  The slow, daily work of obedience whittles away at the illusion that our life is our own, that we do anything outside the purview of our life in God.  And it is in the small things of everyday life, in a 3 x 5 card laminated in a drawer in the dining room, that we find the secret hidden in plain sight.

from St. Gregory's Abbey, Three Rivers, MI

Br. Chad 2012

November 12

Chapter 35 pt. 1

The Rule of St. Benedict November 12

I'm struck by the opening lines of this chapter:

Let the brethren serve one another, 

and let no one be excused from the kitchen service . . .

For this service brings increase of reward and of charity. 

Kitchen service is among the least specialized or esoteric practices in the monastery, yet the formational value of overtly serving one's sisters and brothers in this way is high.  During the first week of my stay at St. Gregory's Abbey in July of 2011, the abbot of the community served as one of the kitchen servers--standing at the back of the refectory, clearing each plate, each cup, each piece of silverware as we finished, eating his meal after everyone else was dismissed.  One could see how such service acts to demolish any class system.

We would all do well to attend to the ways in which we can offer humble, charity-growing service in our own contexts. 

Br. Chad 2012

November 11

Chapter 34

The Rule of St. Benedict November 11

In this chapter, our Father Benedict demonstrates compassion and generosity rather than reprimand and austerity in response to the infirm and needy within the community.  It is with a disposition of gentleness that we are to treat each other and ourselves along the Benedictine path, especially when one of us falls behind.

Our endeavors together are not in the service of an ideal or even of a vow or promise made.  Our practices, animated by our clear intention, are designed to transform us into beings who are fully at home where God is at home.  And if we are to be transformed at all, we must begin from where we actually are right now.  Let us be present to our weaknesses and humble enough to acknowledge them.  Any other posture--pride, shame, defiance, resentment--sets our feet upon a path of our own making that leads far from our true home.

Br. Chad 2012

November 10

Chapter 33

The Rule of St. Benedict November 10

Our national culture places an unqualified positive value on a practice that our Father Benedict here calls a "most wicked vice."  The phenomenon generated within the human being by the act of private ownership is looked upon by Americans as a firm foundation on which to build a stable society.  St. Benedict looks at this same phenomenon and instructs that it is "to be cut out of the monastery by the roots."

This striking contrast prompts me to step back and question how it is that this phenomenon has generated within me that which our Father Benedict sees as so wicked and destructive.  How is it that the roots of this vice have infiltrated the soil in which the Gospel has been planted in me?  And how do I pull the roots up while living outside of a monastery?

The passage from which I read this morning in the Gospel of St. Luke narrates the exchange between Jesus and the "rich ruler" who asks the "good teacher" what he must do to inherit eternal life.  The story is a picture of just how a human being can be kept from the full life of God by the shackles that possessions lock around his identity, his sense of self--heart, mind, soul--and how difficult it is to truly remove them.

Br. Chad 2012

The Point of Me

The following is my Final Project for the class, "Vocation and Orientation" 

at the Iliff School of Theology, Fall Quarter 2012.

The Point of Me (audio)

Bustling Ruin Land (2004)

Palms puncture the skyline

slow fireworks, frozen

and I'm wondering why I'm here.

Yeah, I've done my time

mowing lawns in the desert,

and I like to recline with a beer

in this bustling ruin land.

Taillights on the freeway

ain't leading to heaven,

but we settle for good pay and the news.

Did you see the story?

More hurricanes twirling,

and those waves on the shore ain't blue

'gainst that bustling ruin land.

Earnest good intentions change

and we're left stucco-bound and tame.

Ho! all who are thirsty,

come here for water.

Buy food without money and eat.

Why do you spend money

for what is not bread

and squander your earnings in these

bustling ruin lands?

The Wilderness Underneath (2007)

Home has been a desert

covered up with streets and trees,

but we've always felt the wilderness underneath.

They gather like the river here:

dirt until the days it rains,

water held behind the dam, miles away.

All my life I have wanted out

of cinderblock backyards fencing in the drought.

And even though the air is dry, 

the ground is feeling softer now.

The language of a barren time forgotten

as we raise our glasses high.

In the gift of common words

separations break away,

and we hold the bread of brotherhood

on tongues of grace.

And even though the air is dry,

the ground is feeling softer now.

The language of a barren time forgotten

as we raise our glasses high.

Psalms 131, 132, 133: Refrains (2010)

I have set my soul in silence and peace.

In Zion will I dwell, for I delight in her.

How pleasant, how pleasant to live in unity.

Ecclesiasticus 50: 22

And now bless the God of all, 

who everywhere works great wonders,

who fosters our growth from birth,

and deals with us according to mercy.

Amen.

November 9

Chapter 32

The Rule of St. Benedict November 9

In a society built upon the proliferation, consumption, and discarding of commodities, I hear from this chapter a radically alternative way of relating to physical property.  Caring for the things we have, treating them as God-given gifts and responsibilities, orients our lives within an economy wherein enoughness and generosity are the operative values.

The victims of a hurricane or severe winter storm that cuts off their supply of electricity or fuel face the question of necessity in a critical way.  When we are unable to take our possessions for granted, we are forced to recognize the ways in which our property relates to our values.  At once our inability to charge our mobile devices seems like a silly, childish concern next to the needs of our elderly neighbors for food, water, and heat.

What if our everyday values reflected the sacrifice and charity that normally manifests only in times of crisis?  This is the economy of enoughness and generosity that our Father Benedict desires to nurture among us.

Br. Chad 2012

November 8

Chapter 31 pt. 2

The Rule of St. Benedict November 8

This second half of Chapter 31 conveys to me a spirit of hearth and home that our Father Benedict seeks to instill in the community.  The gentle organization and the humble carrying out of the duties of cellarer remind me of households I have known wherein love, courtesy, and peace describe the family culture.  There are no power plays, no passive-aggression weaving through the daily interactions.

The instructions for the cellarer given here point to the heart of Christian authority as self-sacrificial service.  The cellarer serves in the idiom of Christ in the midst of a needy community.  Matthew 20: 25-28 lays it out:

But Jesus called them to him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many."

Br. Chad 2012

November 7

Chapter 31 pt. 1

The Rule of St. Benedict November 7

Perhaps a modern equivalent to the role of the cellarer is that of the business manager in an office.  It is the person who oversees the maintenance of supplies for everyone, of all that is needed for the physical sustenance of the work at hand.  But there's a twist in our Father Benedict's instructions for the cellarer that one would not expect to find in the job description of a business manager.

St. Benedict writes that the cellarer is to "take the greatest care of the sick, of children, of guests and the poor . . ."  It is not the efficiency and profitability of the monastery that is to shape this person's priorities, but precisely the opposite.  The steward of community resources is to "take the greatest care of" those who are a drag on the very systems that provide the resources.

This is a picture of the "beloved community" spoken of by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. wherein property is in the service of life, not life in the service of property.  This is the radical reorientation in Jesus' teaching around the issues of true greatness and power wherein the greatest is the least of all, without any power and without any resources of her own.

Br. Chad 2012

November 6

Chapter 30

The Rule of St. Benedict November 6

I will leave reflecting on this chapter to one who is far wiser than I.  I encourage you to read all of Sr. Joan Chittister's commentary on Chapter 30, which concludes,

The real lesson of the chapter is not that young people should be beaten. The continuing value of the chapter is that it reminds us quite graphically that no one approach is equally effective with everyone. No two people are exactly the same. In bringing people to spiritual adulthood we must use every tool we have: love, listening, counsel, confrontation, prayer that God may intervene where our own efforts are useless and, finally, if all else fails, amputation from the group.

The real point of this and all seven preceding chapters of the penal code of the Rule is that Benedictine punishment is always meant to heal, never to destroy; to cure, not to crush.

Br. Chad 2012

November 5

Chapter 29

The Rule of St. Benedict November 5

It isn't clear whether "a brother who through his own fault leaves the monastery" is a brother who has just been expelled by the Abbot in Chapter 28, or whether St. Benedict is changing the subject to address all members who may leave, by their own will or not.  Whatever the case, it is worth noting that our Father Benedict does not make a clear distinction that would exclude the expelled from the provisions for re-entry here in Chapter 29.

After all the time and effort and pain that the community has spent to bring the defiant back to the path of their vows, and after the best efforts of the most skilled "physicians" have failed to heal, one would think that the Rule would say, "That's it.  We wash our hands of you."  But it doesn't.  It says that this process may happen, that the community must be willing to bear the painful burden of failed corrective measures and expulsion up to three times for an individual.

Think of an employee in an organization whose recalcitrant behavior makes it necessary for her boss to take her through a very carefully conceived, skillfully implemented, and costly series of disciplinary measures intended to bring the employee back to good standing.  But her recalcitrance remains firmly fixed, and she is ultimately fired.  Who would expect that organization to offer her a job, if she were to come back a year later claiming to have learned her lesson?  And to do it three times?

This is a lavish mercy.  This is true sacrifice.

Br. Chad 2012

November 4

Chapter 28

The Rule of St. Benedict November 4

To begin, let's set aside the remarks about physical punishment; they are a stumbling block for our understanding. As Sr. Joan writes,

Beating people with the rod is considered neither good pedagogy nor good parenting now, and the notion of whipping full-grown adults is simply unthinkable.  Times have changed; theories of behavior modification have changed; the very concept of adulthood has changed; this living of the rule has changed."

But she continues,

What has not changed, however, is the idea that human development demands that we grow through and grow beyond childish un-control to maturity and that we be willing to correct things in ourselves in order to do it, whatever the cost.

This is the essence of St. Benedict's theory of correction for faults.  The defiant self-will must be relinquished, if one is to follow upon this path, and there is only so much anyone else can do to inspire and encourage its relinquishment.  And when, after all the measures at the disposal of human community are undertaken to loosen one's obstinate grip, there comes a point when one must be released from the care of the community to make one's way with clenched fists through the world outside.  To do otherwise would force the community to distort around the defiant one, to accommodate the anomaly like organs accommodate a tumor.  Any leader who would knowingly allow such tumors to grow and harm the body does not follow in the footsteps of our Father Benedict.

Br. Chad 2012

November 3

Richard Hooker, Priest

Chapter 27

The Rule of St. Benedict November 3

After all the apparent harshness of the last four chapters, St. Benedict shows clearly in Chapter 27 that love is the motivation behind these corrective measures.  The superior is to employ a his own sort of "threefold cord" when teaching the wayward, "reprove, entreat, rebuke", in order to bring about correction for the good of all.  The practice of excommunication in the Rule, then, is the opposite of outright banishment where the superior is concerned; it is a process of full and diverse engagement.  We see in this chapter that, rather than removing the offender from the realm of concern, the offender is set in the place of highest concern where the most valuable resources of the community, its wise elders, are set in motion to heal and restore.

This is the deep compassion of our Father Benedict.  There is no vindictiveness or punitive motives at play, but love that is willing to bear the burdensome effects of an offender's recalcitrance.  In fact, the Rule reminds the superior that "what he has undertaken is the care of weak souls and not a tyranny over strong ones."  It is to be the disposition of Benedictine authority to care for the weak and struggling, not to cater to the compliant and righteous.

Br. Chad 2012

November 2

All Souls' Day

Chapter 26

The Rule of St. Benedict November 2

The act of relieving pain is alluring to many of us.  We see someone hurting and we want to provide some help, something that will take away the discomfort we perceive.  In and of itself, this impulse is laudable.  It has the potential to heal and comfort.  But, more often than we care to admit, the impulse to relieve pain derives from our own self-interest--to relieve our own guilt, our own discomfort, to meet some need within ourselves to be needed, helpful, effective.

There comes a time when we must learn to distinguish between our interests and the interests of others, if our life is to become a source of true health and healing in the world.  Until we learn to do so, we live  under the delusion that all of our impulses to help are pure and all our motives to relieve pain are true.  Under this delusion we have very little idea what effect our behavior actually has on the one in pain, nor do we really care, because we get what we need from the transaction--the relief of guilt, comfort, the feeling of being needed, helpful, effective.

To act from within this delusion, our Father Benedict understands, is as insidious and destructive to community life as the faults that warrant excommunication.  When I cannot resist inserting myself into a healing process that is being directed by a wise physician, I jeopardize the effectiveness of the cure.  As Sr. Joan writes, "It is not supportive to take away a person's heart medicine simply because they do not like the taste of it.  It is not supportive to fail to set a broken leg simply because the setting will be painful."

Br. Chad 2012

November 1

All Saints' Day

The Rule of St. Benedict November 1

Sr. Joan Chittister writes in her commentary on Chapter 25 that our betrayal of community can come to a point when

Benedict's rule calls for the group whose life we affect to say, "Enough," to quit bearing us up on the litter of community, to quit rewarding our selfish and surly behavior with security and affirmation and a patina of holiness.  Excommunication, for all practical purposes, says "You want to be a world unto yourself? Fine. be one."

Sometimes it takes drastic measures for us to recognize the extent to which our life depends upon community.  We take for granted the benefits that community affords, and it isn't until those benefits are removed that we are made to face the implications of our behavior.  Our Father Benedict instructs that the excommunicated work alone and prohibits the customary blessing exchanged between monks in passing as well as the common blessing of the food because these things bring into sharp relief the reality of life outside of community.  I hear an implied question, "Is life outside really what you desire?"

The profession rite for The Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation begins with the question, "What is it that you desire?" to which the candidate replies, "To dedicate my life to Holy God through the vows of Stability in this community of canons, Conversion through the monastic way of life, and Obedience according to the Rule of our Holy Father Benedict."  There is nothing in the rite about this way of living being the only true path to God.  But it is the path I have stood up and declared as my own, and I have taken vows that place my feet firmly upon it.  It is not with vengeance or a spirit of retribution, then, that the rule makes provision for dealing with those who wander from the path.  It is to bring us back to the first question we answered when we approached it in the first place.

Br. Chad 2012