Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY
Br. Josep Martinez-Cubero, OHC
The Feast of Saint Benedict, July 11, 2023
The Rule of Saint Benedict also shows to have been mostly the editing and reworking of an earlier and very severe monastic rule called “The Rule of the Master”. But what Benedict adds, omits, rearranges, and revises from The Rule of the Master shows a remarkable mastery of right measure, and discretion. The Rule says we should eat, but not too much. We can drink but not too much. We have to sleep, but not too much. You must work, but not too much. Benedict even regulates the times for prayer, so there has to be an end, and then you work or study. How did he develop this sense of right measure, moderation, and discretion? What was Benedict’s formation?
Most of what we know about Saint Benedict comes from the second book of the Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, written about sixty years after Benedict’s death. The work is a combination of hagiographical sketch and miracle stories, but there are things in it that we can receive as… factual approximations. At any rate, as readers of Scripture, we know that something does not need to be factual to be true. In fact, if we read any document written before the Age of Enlightenment literally and not deeply and carefully, we will very likely not find what is true.
Nevertheless, the first time I read “The Life and Miracles of Saint Benedict” when I was a novice, I strongly felt it had been a phenomenal waste of my time. I thought it was utterly absurd and useless. But God has a sense of humor, so years later, when I was studying in Rome, one of the first classes of the Monastic Formator’s Program was titled “Saint Benedict and the Dialogues”. I think Saint Benedict would have had much to say about my grumbling and rolling of my eyes when I found out we would be studying “The Life and Miracles of St. Benedict”. And because God will also humble us, the class turned out to be extraordinary, and one of the most significant classes I experienced in that already outstanding program. Fr. Mauritius Wilde, OSB guided us in tracing St. Benedict’s spiritual development as an archetype for our own spiritual development.
The literary genre of “The Life and Miracles of Saint Benedict” is called “Exemplum,” which means “example” or “model”. The genre was widespread in the Middle Ages. Exemplum is a form of story in which the protagonist, through a certain behavior and series of actions, has achieved a certain result, usually corresponding to the salvation of the soul. These stories were written for teaching, enjoyment, and motivation. The key for us today is to read the story creating a metaphorical interpretation that gives meaning to our spiritual journey.
In the case of The Life and Miracles of Saint Benedict, it is not helpful to read any part of the book wondering if a miracle presented actually happened. What’s beneficial is to read carefully, to go deeper, and to try to extract meaning in the story, and to see Benedict the human being. Benedict was not born our holy father Benedict. He was a human being who was vulnerable, broken, and weak. He went through stages of temptation, trials, growth, and development, but also setbacks. His was a journey that serves as a model of these stages in our own lives.
Benedict was born around the year 480, in central Italy, to a noble family. We always hear that Benedict went to Rome to study, but St. Gregory tells us that he was sent to Rome to study, presumably by his father, who wished him to have a good education. But in Rome, Benedict was turned off by the excesses of the Roman society of the time. So, Benedict’s journey becomes about the process of detachment necessary to gain self-knowledge and do God’s will, as opposed to meeting family’s expectations. And this desire was very likely there before he went to Rome. He renounces his father’s inheritance, letting go of financial security, and thus entering a vulnerable stage in his life.
Leaving everything behind, he travels about 40 miles to Affide, a place at the foot of a mountain. We read in the Dialogues that his childhood nurse goes with him. After some time and a series of events, Benedict secretly escapes from her, which indicates she may have come against his will. But this action shows a weakness is young Benedict’s character. The courageous and compassionate thing would have been to face his nurse and say he wanted to be without her. In our monastic vocation it is necessary to detach from family and even to let go of certain relationships. But the process of detachment must always happen in love. And detaching does not mean cutting off!
From Affide, Benedict then travels to Subiaco, where he lived in a cave as a hermit for three years. There, he remained concealed from the world, except for a deeply caring monk named Romanus from a nearby monastery. He represents the formator. The cave represents Benedict’s novitiate, his “fuga mundi”.
“Fuga mundi” is the traditional monastic terminology for the detachment from the world that happens when one enters the monastery. “Fuga” literally means “flight”. There are biblical reasons for why flight from the world is not healthy. God created the world, so it is good. The incarnation also shows us that we are to embrace the world, because “God so loved the world.” At the same time, it is OK to want to detach from the dominating values of this world: lack of justice and morality, contempt towards those who are different, total environmental indifference, consumerism, greed, and the thirst for privilege. Past the novitiate, the symbol of a monk’s “fuga mundi” is the monastic cell, our cave, if you will, where we go to learn about our deepest self so that we can know God. Fr. Mauritius also taught us that the other symbol of the “funga mundi” for a monastic is the habit. It is our statement to the world that we choose different; that things do not need to be the way they are. The desire to want to flee the ways of the world can be justifiable and useful, but we can’t stay in our cave forever. There are times when the habit must come off and we must leave our monastic cell.
There is another anecdote in the Dialogues that shows how Benedict struggled before he began to ponder and eventually master a sense of right measure, moderation, and discretion. Romanus would regularly set aside as much bread as he could from his own daily portion, and would secretly leave his monastery, and take the bread to Benedict. There was no path leading to Benedict’s cave from the monastery, which was at a higher altitude. So Romanus would tie the bread, and a little bell to the end of a long rope and lower it over the cliff. The little bell would let Benedict know when the bread was there, so he could come out and get it.
The story tells us that one day, as the bread was being lowered, the “ancient enemy of humankind,” threw a stone at the bell and broke it. Who is this “ancient enemy of humankind”? The easy answer would be the devil! That is, if we think of the devil as an external little red man with horns and dressed in red! In that case, bad is external- out there! This leads us to point the finger: “If that Brother wouldn’t behave that way… If he wouldn’t say the things he says sometimes… If they wouldn’t allow him to do those things… I would not be feeling this way…” But this “ancient enemy of humankind” is within us. The “ancient enemy of humankind’ who threw the stone at the bell was Benedict! And why did he do so?
One of the temptations of “fuga mundi” is going to extremes. Benedict has the illusion that he can live with absolutely no help from anyone. This kind of religious extremism turns our vocation to be about our ego and not about God. For Benedict, the temptation he must flee from is himself and his fixation on detachment. Yes, we need to let go and let God, but God sends us help through others. Our deepest nature is communion and communication. God as Trinity is communion. Life with God has to do with communion. Benedictine monasticism is communal. A Benedictine monk seeks God alone… in community! It is life in community and the mutual obedience, and the dealing with others that comes with it, that leads us to God. It is no wonder that Benedict went on to found twelve communities of monks before settling in Monte Casino in the mountains of Italy where he lived in a thirteenth monastery as abbot with other monks.
So, it seems to me that a big part of the Benedictine call is to be passionately caring (like Romanus!); to be compassionate, loving, and patient towards our own struggles because it is the only way we can be compassionate, loving, and patient towards the struggles of others. We do this trusting that God desires for us to evolve into the fullness of the image in which we are made. Our Holy Father Benedict, pray for us. ¡Que así sea en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo! ~Amen+
