Feast of Saint Benedict - July 11, 2021

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Magliula, OHC

Feast of St Benedict - Sunday, July 11, 2021

Proverbs 2:1-10

Philippians 2:12-16

Luke 17:27-33 

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Historical facts about Benedict are limited. It’s his Rule which tells us about him and his priorities. He crafted it out of his own long experience and drawing from an already well-established stream of wisdom that came out of the deserts of Egypt and Syria. His Rule offers more a way of life than a set of regulations. There is no systematic theology, but a logic of daily life lived in Christ in community. He’s concerned with a whole and holy life: what it's about, what it demands, how to live it well. He shaped the Rule into a massive, stable container, which has been the foundation of Christian monasticism and monastic practice in the West for over 1,500 years. Although written for monastics in community, its wisdom applies to all humans in community. The more I study the Rule and try to live it, the greater my appreciation of the genius and experience of this man.

In the turbulent and brutal times of the 5th century, Benedict knew the shortness of life. To get the most out of it, he calls us to live it in the now. For Benedict, the spiritual life is not a collection of spiritual practices but a way of being in the world that is open to God and others. He warns us about going through life only half conscious or intent on being some place other than where we are. He exhorts us to open our eyes and see things as they exist around us and in us. See what enriches and what does not, what is of God and what is not. To live well with others is to live in God with our eye and ear to the Gospel. We are so often trapped in the past, angry at what formed us, or fixated on a future that is free from pain and under our control. God is in our present, he tells us, waiting for us now. 

Benedict knew human nature enough to know that people can't be bullied into growth. No one grows by simply doing what someone else forces them to do. He describes the monastic community as a workshop. Most of the 72 tools listed in Chapter 4 of the Rule have to do with the virtues necessary to maintain stability as the context for growth. Benedict envisions wholeness and holiness as a set of habits. For him, holiness is inseparable from the common life. The product of the workshop is people who are present. People who have the skills to diagnose everything inside them that prompts them to escape from themselves and others in the here and now. Monastic life offers a discipline for being where we are, rather than taking refuge in the smallness of our fantasies. Monastic life lived well should wean us off self-serving fictions. These tools of good works are simply tools for becoming fully human. 

At the end of Chapter 4 he says that the workshop is the stability of the community. The promise to live in stability is the most drastic way imaginable of recognizing the otherness of others. A great deal of our politics, our ecclesiastical life, and our personal life is dominated by the assumption that everything would be alright if only some people would go away.  In asking what it takes to develop people who can live stably together, Benedict maps out an environment where long term contact will not breed bitterness, cynicism, and fear of openness. He knew that no human community, including a monastery, is immune to disagreements and power struggles. Benedict wants his community to be an environment of transparency, peace, and accountability. The heart of the challenge is how do we live with otherness honestly, peacefully, and responsibly. 

In or out of a monastery, if one is to thrive in relationship, they must be transparent, at peace, and accountable. To become transparent, we must first confront the uncomfortable fact that we are not naturally and instantly at peace with everyone. In our vow as monks, we promise that we will not hide from each other and that there will be times we will help each other to not hide from ourselves. Without that promise, the ego’s agenda will reign. 

We  alsodepend on one another to tell the truth. Benedict advises that we open our heart to a spiritual elder so that the chains of fantasy and self-understanding that are primarily self-serving can be short circuited before they take over. It’s crucial to expose rather than to become enthralled by them. It’s about understanding the truth of our mortal, fallible nature. 

Because we need to know that the basis of a shared life is not a matter of constant and insecure negotiation with others. Benedict emphasizes peace and warns not to give what he calls “a false peace.” This is failing to face conflict, to admit the brokenness of our togetherness by making little of it, ignoring it, denying it, or seeking a resolution that makes one feel secure without healing the breach. He links the risks of false peace with warnings about anger and resentment, recognizing that they can coexist with and reinforce a refusal to name conflict. Anything we practice, we become better at. If we practice anger, we’ll have more anger. If we practice fear, we’ll have more fear. If we practice peace, we will have more peace. Change occurs by noticing what’s no longer working and stepping out of familiar, imprisoning patterns. Agitation drives out peace and consciousness of God. When we are driven by agitation, consumed by fretting, we become immersed in our own agenda which is always distorted and exaggerated. Seeking God and our own wholeness demands a degree of inner and outer peace.

We also need to be accountable, to know who is responsible for what and how that responsibility works. The only status that matters in the monastery is that of seniority---how long a monk has practiced stability. But seniority is not the only ground for insight. To discern how to draw on the depth of experience and how to avoid that experience just becoming self-confirming and self-perpetuating over the years, Benedict advocates mutual obedience. Novice and senior are obeying one another if they are attending to one another with habits that shape their lives by listening, attention, and the willingness to take seriously the perspective of the other.

Like all Christians, the follower of Benedict, struggles to live honestly and openly, with their inner life manifest to those to whom they have promised fidelity, making peace by addressing the roots of conflict within themselves and the community, and contributing their distinctive gifts to create hope. An obligation to human community and a dependence on God are the cornerstones of life according to Benedict. Today we ask our holy Father Benedict to increase in us the desire and passion for both. 

+Amen.