October 14

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 11

Sunday is always the greatest and highest of feasts.  Sr. Joan describes it as "the weekly celebration of creation and resurrection, . . . always a reminder of new life, always special, always meant to take us back to the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the Center of life."

Our Father Benedict seeks to emblazon this centerpiece of the Christian life with a special liturgy intended to enact what Sr. Joan describes.  A Benedictine finds peace and joy in returning each week to the rhythm and tradition of the ages, to the pomp and solemnity that fixes her identity among the heavenly hosts, in the Great Hall of the Eternal Now.

There is no denial here that God is to be sought in the mundane details of everyday life.  An ordered religious life moves from hour to hour in pursuit of divine imminence.  Yet the transcendent also beckons the soul to shake off the holy dust of the earth from time to time and take flight.

Br. Chad

October 13

The Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 10

It is comforting to know that one's well-being is important to someone else.  For all the aspects of the Rule that might sound harsh to 21st Century ears, the seemingly mundane instructions in Chapter 10 are born of gentleness and kindness.  When the nights grow short during the summer, our Father Benedict chooses to shorten the night prayers rather than the community's sleeping time.

It takes wise and mature leadership to know when to hold back on the reigns and when to push forward.  We too often witness leaders in our achievement-oriented society driving after an ideal without appropriate concern for the well-being of those they lead.  I hear from this little chapter that St. Benedict's leadership can be trusted to have our best interest at heart.

Br. Chad

October 12

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 9

Benedictine prayer presents a steep learning curve for the beginner.  It is mind-boggling to attempt to make sense of all the instructions and details our Father Benedict lays out in a passage like Chapter 9.  One crucial aspect of any beginner's experience on a Benedictine path, however, is that one is never tasked to learn it alone.  Each novice is supported by a community that is steeped in the prayers and guided by a novice master who provides skillful instruction.

Learning to pray is much like learning a new language, and it is undeniable that the best way to learn a language is through an immersion experience among native speakers.  And just as fluency in a new language opens up access to a dimension of the human experience known only by those who think in terms of the structural, cultural, and historical framework provided by that language, fluency in Benedictine prayer avails the soul to the riches of St. Benedict's transformative path.

True prayer is never easy, but it is always worth the effort.  Thanks be to God for the help of the Spirit and for the guidance of our sisters and brothers whose voices we are given to imitate.

Br. Chad

October 11

Feast of St. Philip the Deacon

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 8

Chapter 8 begins thirteen straight chapters of instruction regarding prayer in the monastery.  For the purposes of my reflections here, I will not be concerned with the particulars of times for prayer and the number and order of the Psalms to be used as our Father Benedict lays them out in these chapters.  My reflections will touch on the spiritual and practical underpinnings of St. Benedict's instructions about prayer with the hope of providing support for those who have undertaken a contemplative practice.

Sr. Joan points out that the chapters on prayer follow our Father Benedict's treatise on humility.  She writes,

Prayer is, then, the natural response of people who know their place in the universe.  It is not designed to be a psychological comfort zone though surely comfort it must. . . . [I]t is an act of community and an act of awareness. 

That said, chapter 8 begins by hitting a major artery that feeds any spiritual practice, personal or communal: nighttime sleep.  What we do with the time surrounding our sleep can show us a lot about our priorities.  Think of what will get you out of bed in the middle of the night: a crying child, a red-eye flight, "the necessities of nature."  We orient our real lives according to such things.  To be Benedictine is, in part, to orient one's life according to prayer.

Br. Chad

October 10

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 7 pt. 16

In this last reading from Chapter 7, our Father Benedict gives both the twelfth step of humility, which has to do with physical demeanor, and the conclusion to what Sr. Joan calls "a strangely wonderful and intriguingly distressing treatise on the process of the spiritual life."

Although this passage addresses outward, physical appearance, it also describes an inward state of being.  The inward state is one wherein we live with an acute awareness of the egoic self-interests that lie hidden at the core of our personality.  These are our "sins at every moment," which corrupt even the best of our motives and intentions.  This state of self-awareness is the top rung of the ladder--this ascent by descent--that Benedict describes in chapter 7.  When we reach it, although the false self feels demolished and helpless, we have "presently come to that perfect love of God which casts out fear," our true and eternal home.

Br. Chad

October 9

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 7 pt. 15

The ninth and tenth steps of humility lay out a disposition to silence and calm, but whatever one's disposition, there will come a time to speak.  Our Father Benedict describes in the eleventh step the character of humble speaking.

In the course of my life, I have often found myself in the midst of a monologue in which I feel compelled to express my thoughts and make convincing points.  As I keep talking and talking, my voice becomes louder and my words begin to spin me around until I am left holding nothing more than a mess of self-centered pettiness.  At the end of such monologues I feel alienated from myself and from those who listen.

By way of contrast, I have been a part of several discernment committees over the years at St. Augustine's Episcopal Parish.  When functioning as intended, discernment committees are able to hold weighty questions gently with humility and sincerity.  Words spoken in the course of a meeting arise from silence at the prompting of the Spirit for the sake of the hearers.  At the end of such meetings I feel profoundly connected to myself and to the others in the group.

Humble speaking creates safe space for all who hear.

Br. Chad

October 8

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 7 pt. 14

This instruction about laughter is a difficult one to take seriously.  Since when is laughter an enemy of the soul?  But the tenth degree of humility is not simply "to not laugh."  It is to "be not ready or quick to laugh."  I imagine a spring-loaded toy, compressed and waiting for the button to be pushed that releases a burst of energy.  The instruction here is to keep the load off the spring.  The tenth degree seems to follow from the ninth in that the loaded spring of ready and quick laughter can be another way we impose ourselves upon silence and compromise our hospitality to Spirit.

It is helpful for me to take a step back and think of this instruction as a part of the series of steps in Chapter 7.  The intention of the steps, the rungs, is to cultivate a posture of humility in the soul.  Humility is of central importance to our Father Benedict because it is the condition of the human soul through which God can speak and act in the world.  Each rung on the ladder of humility, it seems to me, dismantles some egoic barrier to this flow of Divine action into and through our lives.  

Furthermore, laughter is often put to uses other than a pure expression of delight.  Habitual laughter can serve to guard our conversations from ever going beyond the polite.  Such laughter can belittle or trivialize, which enables us to avoid honest, vulnerable engagement with a person.  And without honesty and vulnerability there is no opening to Spirit.

Br. Chad