July 14

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 35 pt. 2

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

June 13

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 35 pt. 1

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.  I saw clearly how such service acts to demolish any class system.

We would all do well to seek ways in which we can offer regular, humble, empowering service in our own contexts. 

Br. Chad

July 12

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 34

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 ourselves and each other along the Benedictine path, especially when one of us needs assistance to continue moving forward.

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, spiritually and circumstantially.  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

July 11

Solemnity of Our Holy Father Benedict

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 33

Our national culture places an unqualified positive value on a practice that our Father Benedict here calls a "most wicked vice."  Private ownership generates within a human being a phenomenon that Americans value 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 private ownership has generated within me the phenomenon that our Father Benedict sees as so wicked and destructive.  How have the roots of this vice infiltrated the soil of my soul in which the Gospel has been planted?  Is the Gospel kept from growing and bearing fruit because of them?  And how does one pull up the roots while living outside of a monastery?

One way I find the vice of possessiveness creeping into my life is in my attachment to the particulars of my vocation and ministry.  I recognize that deep within myself I have begun to tighten my grip on a vision of how the future will unfold, and I am attached to my specific place within it.  Our Father Benedict modeled for us the healthy detachment of one who follows the blowing wind of the Spirit into various settings in which his vocation can be used by God.  His enduring ministry is to facilitate spiritual formation towards a living experience of union with God in Christ, and he does so by always pointing away from himself, like St. John the Baptist, toward the true bridegroom of our souls.  May we follow in his footsteps so that we, free from possessiveness, can be vessels for God's enduring work in the world. 

Br. Chad  

July 10

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 32

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

July 9

The Rule of Benedict: Chapter 31 pt. 2

This second half of Chapter 31 conveys to me a spirit of hearth and home that our Father Benedict seeks to instill in the Benedictine 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 cellarer's instructions 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

July 8

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 31 pt. 1

A modern equivalent to the role of the cellarer might be that of the business manager in an office.  It is the person who oversees the maintenance of supplies for everyone, of all that is physically needed for sustaining 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 instructs the cellarer 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