December 7

Feast of St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 55 pt. 1

The middle school my oldest son attends has returned to the practice of requiring a uniform to be worn on campus.  It is claimed that such a practice eliminates one way that middle and high schoolers regularly go about distinguishing themselves from one another in order to gain attention, display wealth, or identify themselves with a group.  While clearly there are other ways to gain distinction and do these sorts of things, the requirement to wear a specific uniform can often be a relief to students.  One major weight seems to be lifted from the minds and hearts of pre-teens and teenagers during a critical developmental period in their lives.  Everyone, at least when it comes to clothes, is in the same boat at school.

Benedict's instructions on dress seem to be a part of his overall approach to life in common.  It boils down to the point at which we each release our claim on Creation as one who must obtain, possess, and secure resources and distinction.  I hear Jesus' words in Matthew 6 echoed here: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear."  This is a central counter-cultural component of the process of inner transformation that our Father Benedict seeks to further among us.

Br. Chad

December 6

Feast of St. Nicholas, bishop of Myra

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 54

How appropriate that this chapter concerning the giving and receiving of gifts falls on the feast of St. Nicholas!  On this ancient feast from which are derived many of our Christmas traditions such as stockings and the giving of gifts to children, let us attend to that within us which needs to possess and which needs to control what comes to us.

In the words of Isaiah we hear during Advent, these needs are the mountains we make low to prepare the way of the Coming One.

And let us also attend to that within us which feels unworthy to receive from the generous hand of God.  

These feelings are valleys we lift up.

When God's path into or lives is level, we are able to receive God and bear God into the world, joyfully offering what has been entrusted to us for the benefit of all.

Br. Chad

December 5

Feast of St. Clement of Alexandria

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 53 pt. 2

Benedictine monasteries functioned as a hospice system within early Medieval Europe, with a constant flow of guests from all walks of life, and the instructions here about a separate kitchen and quarters for guests enabled the monastery to still be a monastery despite the traffic.  Part of the way the monastic atmosphere was to be preserved was for the instructions at the end of Chapter 53 to be followed regarding the interactions of monks with guests.  Monks are to be humble and kind to guests, but not necessarily nice.

Niceness, a perceived affect according to social norms, is a poor substitute for kindness, which is a genuine concern for the well-being of the other.  It is easy for some of us to confuse smiles and pleasant tones of voice with the things that make for true kindness and hospitality.  If we continue in this confusion for long enough, we become unable to distinguish between kindness and unkindness, hospitality and inhospitality.

My experience growing up as a person who was generally considered to be nice is that niceness is entirely oriented outwardly.  It is something one measures by what bounces back from the exterior of other people.  My developing ego was very successful at getting what it needed from this external exchange, and I have come to realize that being nice usually serves to keep me self-absorbed--caught up in my own self-interest.  People who are regarded as reserved or distant, on the other hand, may exhibit self-absorption differently, but this disposition can be just as self-interested as the other.

It is possible for one person to be outgoing and nice without being self-absorbed, and it's possible for another person to be quiet and reserved without being self-absorbed.  What matters is our ability to perceive clearly our own motives and to develop a sense of ourselves that is derived from our inner and true identity, our life hidden with Christ in God.  When we act from that place, we are able to be truly kind. 

Br. Chad

December 4

Feast of John Damascene, last of the Greek Fathers

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 53 pt. 1

Regarding receiving the unknown guest into the midst of the community, Sr. Joan writes,

The message to the stranger is clear: Come right in and disturb our perfect lives.  You are Christ for us today.

And to assure us all, guest and monastic alike, that this hospitality is an act of God that we are undertaking, the community and the guest pray together first and then extend the kiss of welcome so that it is understood that our welcome is not based on human measurements alone: we like you, we're impressed with you, you look like our kind, you're clean and scrubbed and minty-breathed and worthy of our attention. 

There are many ways in which we all have occasion to practice the essence of this hospitality our Father Benedict describes, and many ways that we can forsake it. When it comes to being hospitable to the poor, in whom Christ is "especially" received, a reflection from the Rev. Robert Berra, our good friend, is helpful to consider:

Every time I see people try to weasel out of a charitable human spirit, I remember that an antidote to it is found in --of all places-- the Christian Patristic Fathers. 

Gregory Nazienzen, a bishop in the 370s, confronted reasons people give to not help the poor, reasons that are as familiar to us as they were to Gregory: some people deserve to be poor, they brought it upon themselves, there is "not enough", or it's a punishment from God. Gregory will have none of it. In fact, in the face of these objections, service to the poor is necessary so that we might "restrain those who have such an attitude towards [the poor], and [that we] might not give in to their foolish arguments, making cruelty into a law turned against our very selves."

Br. Chad

December 3

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 52

"To know God in time and space we must regularly seek to find God in one time and space that enables us to recognize God more easily in every other one," concludes Sr. Joan's commentary on Chapter 52.

At St. Gregory's Abbey I witnessed the value of a space being set aside as the oratory in which nothing but prayer was done.  The church stands soaked in the prayers of the resident community.  For more than 70 years the monks have gathered 7 times a day to chant the Psalms, celebrate daily Eucharist, light incense and candles, read the Scriptures, and sit in silence within the wooden walls of the abbey church.  It is a living and holy place.

During the last week of April last year, I was alone at St. Augustine's on Tuesday.  As had been my practice, I went to St. James Chapel, off the narthex of the main church building where our columbarium and votive candle stand make their home, to pray at noon.  Instead of lighting the altar candles, sitting down, opening my prayer books, and getting on with it, however, I felt compelled to begin moving furniture.  I experienced a strange mix of exhilaration and guilt as I began to slide the pews and move the banners and flags that had gathered haphazardly around the small space.  It was almost as though the chapel was asking me to re-imagine its use and to set it aside for prayer and only prayer.  The pews found their way into an antiphonal seating arrangement with a lectern and candle stand in the center, facing the altar.  It wanted to become a Benedictine oratory.  I thought for sure I had done something that would not bode well with the altar guild and others in the congregation, and that I would have to return the chapel to its former state before Sunday.  I quickly and dismissively said as much to Fr. Gil the next morning as we walked over from the office we shared to see what I had done.  But rather than disapproval, the transformed chapel was met with enthusiastic support by Fr. Gil, the chair of the altar guild, and all who entered.

St. James Chapel is the oratory for the Community of St. Mary of the Annunciation.  It is being soaked in our prayers and the prayers of the saints it houses in its very walls.  It is becoming our living and holy place.  I welcome all who will to join me in the oratory for Matins at 9am, Midday Prayers at noon, and/or Evensong at 4:30pm every weekday.

Br. Chad

December 2

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 51

At first glance, this chapter seems a bit bizarre.  What's the big deal about accepting hospitality when outside the monastery on business?  To make sense of it, I find it helpful to remember that the table and the oratory are the two pillars of community life for a Benedictine.  When one takes vows to become a member of a Benedictine community, then, the table becomes an important crucible of formation along the path laid out by our Father Benedict, a path one has vowed to walk.  To sit at another table without permission from the community is to say, "I am not bound by my vows.  I do not need the common table."  And so, as we discussed during the chapters about the discipline of the Rule, the natural consequence for such behavior is to be excluded from the community table in order to bring into sharp relief the choice one faces between life inside or life outside of the community.

We have the occasional opportunity to see a similar story at play in settings such as the Olympic Games.  To be an Olympian is to conform to a set of clearly defined, somewhat esoteric standards of behavior, and we learned during the 2012 Summer games that there are consequences for not conforming to those standards.  One does not get to post racist tweets, use performance enhancing substances, or throw badminton matches and still receive the benefits of being an Olympian.

One crucial difference to note between the Olympics and Benedictine community, however, is that discipline in the idiom of St. Benedict is always intended to restore the errant member to full communion with the sisters and brothers.

Br. Chad

December 1

The First Sunday of Advent

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 50

"[W]hen the ideal [of community prayer, the Opus Dei,] is confronted by the real, Benedict opts for the sanctification of the real rather than the idealization of the holy," writes Sr. Joan in her commentary on Chapter 50.  This little chapter is of central importance for those of us who seek to practice Benedictine disciplines outside of the cloister.  We must be about the sanctification of the real, if we are to have any hope of staying remotely close to the path that our Father Benedict has laid out.

One way we sanctify the real is by finding the circumstances of our real life in stories of the Faith.  This is how human beings have embodied the Divine Presence in the mundane settings we call "real" for thousands of years.  The season of Advent is full of stories in which we can find the stuff of our real lives.  When we feel we cannot see clearly for the deepening darkness, we can look toward the unlikely hope born on the darkest night.  When we feel that life is an endless struggle and that our best efforts don't amount to a drop of peace in an ocean of strife, we can sing of the One whose Presence in our world sets the wrong to right.

As Benedictines, our experience during this and every season is shaped by the luminous Presence embodied by St. Benedict of Nursia, who teaches us that shaping our daily lives around prayer begins the process of sanctifying the real.

Br. Chad