Contentment is a serious threat to the American way of life. Our economy is predicated upon the discontentment that lives inside the human being. If one is truly "content with the poorest and worst of everything", as our Father Benedict describes, no advertising campaign will be able to create the desires that drive consumption.
But the knife cuts more deeply than society on a grand scale. St. Benedict aims to dethrone self-interested desire within the human psyche so that the individual is empowered to respond to her circumstances from the impulse of divine love rather than from her own perceived needs. The extent to which one must secure pleasure for oneself through possessions or status is the extent to which one is unable to be a channel through which Christ is manifest in the world.
Our Father Benedict practiced this inner poverty in the cave near Subiaco where he learned to be truly content with whatever the hand of God provides, even if it be "the poorest and worst of everything." By climbing this rung of humility and being empowered to overcome his perceived needs, St. Benedict became a channel through which God would make manifest a tradition that would change the world.
Br. Chad
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