Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Robert Leo Sevensky, OHC
Saint Benedict - July 10, 2022
Today we are celebrating the feast of Saint Benedict, father of Western monasticism. As a Benedictine monastic community, we count this as one of our great festivals. But it is also a festival that Christians everywhere can join in celebrating, for the tradition that flows through and from St. Benedict has shaped our world, and largely for the better, for fifteen centuries. And the popular
rediscovery of St. Benedict over the last 50 years or so--a popularity which flows from the writings of both monastics and non-monastics alike and especially from Anglican lay women such as Esther de Waal and Kathleen Norris--has been a gift to the whole church and the entire world.
We celebrate Saint Benedict who lived in the late 5 th and early 6th century in northern Italy. But truthfully, we don't know all that much about him. Pope Gregory the Great wrote an account of Benedict’s life some fifty years after Benedict died, though it's generally agreed that, as Rowan Williams put it: “...it is largely pious guesswork stringing together a few traditions preserved in some
central Italian monasteries.” Even Gregory himself acknowledges that his sketch of the life of Benedict is woefully incomplete. Towards the end of this brief work he says:
“He [Benedict] wrote a Rule for monks, a work outstanding in good
judgment and clearly expressed. Whoever may wish to have a fuller
understanding of his character and his life can find all the acts of his
administration in this Book of the Rule. For that saint was incapable of
teaching a way of life that he did not practice.”
Yet even the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict, so influential as a guide for wise and balanced living, is itself not entirely original. Modern scholars have pretty much reached the consensus that Benedict's Rule is largely a reworking of an older and longer monastic rule commonly referred to as the Rule of the Master. If we're to learn anything about the man Saint Benedict from his Rule, we need to look at
what he retained of that earlier rule, what he eliminated, and what he changed or nuanced. There are scholars who have made their whole professional career the analysis of this process.
Over my 36 years in the monastic life, I have given any number of talks or retreats on the Rule of Saint Benedict and on Benedictine spirituality generally. I've often organized them around particular catch phrases or popular summaries of both the rule and the tradition. For example, one approach might be to focus on the interconnected Benedictine vows of stability, obedience, and conversion of life. Or
there is the Latin tag ora et labora, that is, pray and work. And though popular—you can find a stone at our guesthouse door engraved with these words—it's a fairly incomplete description of the Benedictine vision without such things as study and leisure and the communal life. Finally, there is simply the Latin
word for peace—Pax—often inscribed over the entry to monastic cloisters. Benedictine peace comes close in meaning to the Hebrew Shalom, pointing to a way life that is at once balanced and open, seeking the well-being not only of the individual and the community, but that of the whole world.
As useful as these capsule summaries may be, I must admit that I now find them a bit tired. But recently I came across another stab at this approach offered by the Oxford historian Henry Mayr-Harting and quoted by Rowan Williams in the introductory essay of his book The Way of Saint Benedict (2020). Commenting on Benedictine spirituality or holiness, Mayr-Harting, who was educated by English
Benedictines from his youth, observes: “There are three phrases by which I would sum up Benedictine holiness: completely undemonstrative, deeply conventual, and lacking any system of expertise.”
Let’s have a look.
First, Benedictine life, Benedictine spirituality or holiness is, Mayr-Harting says, completely undemonstrative. And that is to say that, at its best, it is a quiet kind of Christian living: nothing flashy, no headlines, no greatest hits or celebrities. Maybe the most demonstrative aspect of Benedictine life is the restrained way in which it celebrates the Christian liturgies. If it is to demonstrate anything at all, the Benedictine vision holds out to us the possibility of people dwelling together in unity, as the psalmist would have it. It is life lived day by day with humility and intentionality and faithfulness and patience and very often, hard work.
Second as Mayr-Harting says, Benedictine spirituality or holiness is deeply conventual. Not conventional, but conventual. Which is to say it is life lived with others. Just as one can't be a Christian on one's own, neither can one be a Benedictine on one’s own. While Benedict's rule makes a place for the hermit or eremitical life at a late stage of the monastic journey, it is only for those few who
are called to it. The preponderance of emphasis is on life together day by day, year by year with, if not exactly the same people, at least the same cast of characters who will simply not go away. St. Benedict describes the monastery as a workshop. And Rowan Williams says that what is made and formed in that workshop are souls or holy lives. Each of us is called to some kind of monastery, some circumscribed setting where commitment and fidelity and mutuality and the painful/joyful process of growth can happen. Call it what you will: community, family, friendship, work, parish, neighborhood, the country, and on and on. These are all workshops where souls or holy lives are shaped and formed. What perhaps
distinguishes the traditional monastery from these other workshops is that it is, if you will, a kind of intensive care unit for souls like me.
Finally, Mayr-Harting says (surprisingly!) that Benedictine holiness or spirituality lacks any system of expertise. Surely that can't be right, can it? Isn't the entire Rule a handbook of monastic expertise? In fact, it's not. It is rather, as the author himself says, a little rule for beginners. There are no experts in this, though there some who have been at it for decades. They may have some experience under their belts, they may see a little more clearly the promises as well as the pitfalls, but they are hardly experts. If there is any sense of expertise in this way of life it lies in the recognition of how far we each have yet to go and how often we have missed the path or strayed from it. Every day a new beginning, says one
writer…just like AA. No, there's no exotic set of spiritual practices which, if followed faithfully, is guaranteed to produce the desired result. There’s no form of personal prayer or meditation that is peculiarly Benedictine, though being formed by the round of daily prayer services—the Opus Dei—may come close. There's no guru or staretz in our tradition, though there are perhaps writers or scholars who speak to our condition. And in fact we each tend to find one or another person who seems to be just a little bit farther along on the journey, and we may seek their advice or counsel or their companionship. But the bottom line is that we're all in this together and nobody has all the answers.
We're all in this together. For me this is the great take home lesson from Saint Benedict. He ends his Rule by speaking of the good zeal of monks and concludes with these words: “Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he bring us all together to everlasting life.” (RB 72:11-12) All together!
Beloved, this is not a competition or a race in which one of us gets to the goal first or at least finishes among the medal winners. No, this is more a pilgrimage. And if you've ever been on a pilgrimage, you know that the idea is not to get there first (wherever there might be). The goal is to get there together. In this fractured and divided world and nation of ours, in our divided and suspicious churches, in groups and families at enmity and strife we desperately need to hear this and take it to heart. Benedict’s vision is for today. And if monasticism has anything to offer to the contemporary world, it may be to model, however imperfectly, a diverse community of ordinary people living together in fragile unity and Christian hope and holy love.
We are all in this together. Aided by the prayers and teaching of our holy Father Benedict, may the good Lord bring us and our world all together to everlasting life. May it be so.
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