February 7

Chapter 7 pt. 14

The Rule of St. Benedict February 7

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 have the image of 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 2013

February 6

Chapter 7 pt. 13

The Rule of St. Benedict February 6

I remember, near the beginning of my daily spiritual practice, during my first attempt to sit in silence for 10 minutes before Morning Prayer, that the truth of this ninth step of humility showed itself to me.  From my journal:

 Several interactions from the day before came to mind, and I saw them for what they were.  I recognized that when I was silent by choice, I had no regrets about the interaction.  When I spoke, however, I was very likely to have spoken from the wrong place in myself.

Minutes later, in the course of Morning Prayer, the words of St. Paul from Ephesians 4, the passage assigned for that day, jumped from the page:

Let no evil talk come out of your mouth, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.

Words have power, whether we recognize it or not, and our Father Benedict wants to wean us from our addiction to the power we wield with our tongues.  Until I don't NEED to speak, to express my view, to trumpet my thoughts to the world, I am unable to cultivate the inner listening in the moment that has the potential to transform my mouth into a vessel for the grace of Christ.

Br. Chad 2013

February 5

Chapter 7 pt. 12

The Rule of St. Benedict February 5

The eighth step of humility is to release one's grip on the great big steering wheel by which a human being is directed.  Plainly and simply, it is to relinquish one's say in the hows of one's life.  But why would someone do such a thing?  What could possibly motivate me to limit my personal freedom to the extent that I "do nothing except what is commended by the common Rule . . . and the example of the elders"?

The answer that I have to offer from my life mirrors much of Sr. Joan's commentary for today.  I was motivated to submit myself in obedience to a catholic and Benedictine path because I caught a glimpse of the limits of my own lights and witnessed others being guided along this path into the "darkness" beyond what I knew.  What I perceived in these others is a holiness and a wisdom that my soul longs to embody, but that I had no clue how to pursue.  And so I took one step, then another, and another in their footprints over the course of years.  The path became gradually clearer, my pace quickened, and I was led into a beautiful world I would never have discovered had I remained convinced that what I could see and understand is all that holds value for me.

Br. Chad 2013

February 4

Chapter 7 pt. 11

The Rule of St. Benedict February 4

Sister Joan Chittister OSB, in her commentary on today's reading, beautifully articulates the transformative value of considering oneself "lower and of less account than anyone else."  She writes,

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 smallnessess come obscenely to light.

I once saw what Sr. Joan describes play out in an everyday exchange between two people.  I heard one person speak words of scorn and degradation about a stranger he witnessed in line at a fast food restaurant order something healthy, citing being on a diet, along with a second item that was pure junk.  I recognized his resentment, having partaken in such judgments of strangers many times in my own thoughts.  A second person, however, responded to him with a story about how she used to buy health food and junk food at different stores to avoid having someone pass judgment on her, and that we all have our own "denial dance" that we do in one area or another.

The second person in this exchange embodied the profound liberating power of our Father Benedict's seventh step of humility.  When we don't have anything to prove or defend because we acknowledge and own our "essential smallness", we not only become free from the judgment of others, but we are able to "deal gently" with those we witness in the midst of their own "denial dance".

Br. Chad 2013

February 3

Chapter 7 pt. 10

The Rule of St. Benedict February 3

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 2013

February 2

The Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Temple

Chapter 7 pt. 9

The Rule of St. Benedict February 2

One expectation put upon a Benedictine canon is that she make "a regular practice of confession to [her] priest."  This is one way that a non-cloistered religious is able to forge a spiritual bond with a local parish and thus live out this vocation within a sacramental community.  We must be clear as we engage in such practices, however, that when we reveal all "of the evil thoughts that enter [our] heart or the sins committed in secret" to our priest, we do so to God.  The priest, in this context, is a sort of icon through which we see and experience the Grace and forgiveness of God for our lives.

As an unordained Prior, I am willing to bear with my sisters and brothers the burdens of their hearts, and I will speak words of peace, but my role is not yet a sacramental one.  It is important, then, that we as canons give ourselves over to the Holy Mystery experienced in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, not because we are unforgiven if we don't, but because we seek to cultivate within ourselves the humility our Father Benedict describes.

Br. Chad 2013

February 1

Feast of St. Brigid of Kildare

Chapter 7 pt. 8

The Rule of St. Benedict February 1

The fourth degree of humility is that he hold fast to patience with a silent mind when in this obedience he meets with difficulties and contradictions and even any kind of injustice, enduring all without growing weary or running away.

I find this translation very helpful in understanding this "degree"/step/rung of humility.  I struggle daily to "hold fast to patience with a silent mind" in the face of my circumstances, especially when my children passionately experience their own negative emotions and barrage my senses with their expressions of them.  It feels like they have been taught precisely how to get my goat by some wizened Zen master (with a mischievous twinkle in his eye).

One reason my grip on patience often slips is because I am actually holding more tightly to my expectations about how the world should appear than I am to my connection to Christ within, a connection maintained through a "silent mind" from which the quality of patience ensues.  When I add "Br. Chad being patient" to my list of expectations about how the world ought to proceed, I am setting myself up to be disappointed.  But when, through persistent spiritual practice, I am empowered to carry a silent mind with me and enabled, by the gift of Grace, to perceive the Christ Reality in the midst of my other sense perceptions, patience holds fast to me.  I am no longer at the mercy of my desires and expectations when I encounter circumstances hostile to them.

Br. Chad 2013