The Rule of Benedict

by Joan Chittister

An African proverb says, “You do not teach the paths of the forest to an old gorilla.” Experience counts. Wisdom is simply its distillation. Abbots may be abbots and prioresses may be prioresses but the community was there long before them, and the community will remain long after they have gone as well. To ignore the counsel of a group, then, is to proceed at risk.

  But Benedict knows about more than the value of experience. Benedict knows about the presence and power of God. And Benedict knows that there is a spark of the divine in all of us. The function of an abbot or prioress, of leaders and spouses everywhere, is not so much to know the truth as it is to be able to espy it and to recognize it in the other when they hear it. Calling the community for counsel is Benedict’s contribution to the theology of the Holy Spirit.

  In the monastic community, this common search for truth is pitched at a delicate balance. The abbot and prioress are clearly not dictators, but the community is not a voting bloc either. They are each to speak their truth, to share the perspective from which they see a situation, to raise their questions and to open their hearts, with honesty and with trust. The prioress and abbot are to listen carefully for what they could not find in their own souls and to make a decision only when they can come to peace with it, weighing both the community’s concerns and the heart they have for carrying the decision through.

  “Foresight and fairness” are essentials for leaders who lead out of a sense of Benedictine spirituality. The decision is all theirs and they will answer for it in conscience and in consequences. They must not make it lightly, and they must take all of its effects into consideration. The emphasis in this paragraph is clearly on results rather than on power. It is easy to gain power. It is difficult to use it without being seduced by it. The Rule of Benedict reminds us that whatever authority we hold, we hold it for the good of the entire group, not for our own sense of self.

  Jan. 17 – May 18 – Sept. 17

  Accordingly in every instance, all are to follow the teaching of the rule, and no one shall rashly deviate from it. In the monastery, monastics are not to follow their own heart’s desire, nor shall they presume to contend with the prioress or abbot defiantly, or outside the monastery. Should any presume to do so, let them be subjected to the discipline of the rule. Moreover, the prioress or abbot must themselves reverence God and keep the rule in everything they do; they can be sure beyond any doubt that they will have to give an account of all their judgments to God, the most just of judges.

  If less important business of the monastery is to be transacted, the prioress and abbot shall take counsel with the elders only, as it is written: “Do everything with counsel and you will not be sorry afterward” (Sir. 32:24).

  Benedictine monasticism is life lived within the circuit of four guy wires: the gospel, the teachings of its abbots and prioresses, the experience of the community, and the Rule of Benedict itself.

  The gospel gives meaning and purpose to the community.

  The teaching of its abbots and prioresses gives depth and direction to the community. The experience of the community, spoken by its members in community chapter meetings, gives truth to the community. But it is the Rule of Benedict that gives the long arm of essential definition and character to the community.

  Each of us, monastic or not, deals with the same elements in life. We are all bound to the gospel, under leadership of some kind, faced with the dictates of tradition or the cautions of experience and in need of a direction. Monastic spirituality offers enduring principles and attitudes far beyond whatever culture embodies them. Once embraced, they guide our way through whatever the psychological fads or religious practices or social philosophies of the time that offer comfort but lack staying power. “All are to follow the teaching of the Rule,” Benedict, the great abbot, teaches, “and no one shall rashly deviate from it.” Adapt the Rule, yes. Abandon the Rule, no.

  The fact is that it is in the Rule itself that the principles and values of Benedictine spirituality are stored and maintained. No matter how far a group goes in its attempts to be relevant to the modern world, it keeps one foot in an ancient one at all times. It is this world that pulls it back, time and time again, to the tried and true, to the really real, to a Beyond beyond ourselves. It is to these enduring principles that every age looks, not to the customs or practices that intend to embody them from one age to another.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE TOOLS FOR GOOD WORKS

  Jan. 18 – May 19 – Sept. 18

  First of all, “love God with your whole heart, your whole soul and all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt. 22:37–39; Mark 12:30–31; Luke 10:27). Then the following: “You are not to kill, not to commit adultery; you are not to steal nor to covet” (Rom. 13:9); “you are not to bear false witness” (Matt. 19:18; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20). “You must honor everyone” (1 Pet. 2:17), and “never do to another what you do not want done to yourself” (Tob. 4:16; Matt. 7:12; Luke 6:31).

  At first glance, this opening paragraph on the instruments of the spiritual art seems to be a relatively standard and basic reference to a biblical description of the holy life. And that seems sound. The trouble is that it also seems strange.

  The surprise is that Benedict does not call us first to prayer or sacrifice or devotions or asceticisms. This is, after all, a contemplative lifestyle. It is at the same time, however, a communal lifestyle for “that most valiant kind of monastic heart,” who sets out to find the holy in the human. The call to contemplation here is the call not simply to see Christ in the other but to treat the other as Christ. Benedict calls us first to justice: love God, love the other, do no harm to anyone.

  Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ (Matt. 16:24; Luke 9:23); discipline your body (1 Cor. 9:27); “do not pamper yourself, but love fasting.” You must relieve the lot of the poor, “clothe the naked, visit the sick” (Matt. 25:36), and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing.

  First, Benedict instructs the monastic to keep the commandments. Then, in this next paragraph, the Rule requires the keeping of the corporal works of mercy. Benedictine monasticism is, apparently, not an escape from life. This spirituality is life lived with an eye on those for whom life is a terrible burden. “Do not pamper yourself,” the Rule insists. “Relieve the lot of the poor.”

  The monastic heart is not just to be a good heart. The monastic heart is to be good for something. It is to be engaged in the great Christian enterprise of acting for others in the place of God.

  Jan. 19 – May 20 – Sept. 19

  Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way; the love of Christ must come before all else. You are not to act in anger or nurse a grudge. Rid your heart of all deceit. Never give a hollow greeting of peace or turn away when someone needs your love. Bind yourself to no oath lest it prove false, but speak the truth with heart and tongue.

  The end of Benedictine spirituality is to develop a transparent personality. Dissimulation, half answers, vindictive attitudes, a false presentation of self are all barbs in the soul of the monastic. Holiness, this ancient Rule says to a culture that has made crafty packaging high art, has something to do with being who we say we are, claiming our truths, opening our hearts, giving ourselves to the other pure and unglossed. Shakespeare’s Hamlet (act 1, sc. 5) noted once that “a man can smile and smile and be a villain.” Benedict is intent on developing people who are what they seem to be.

  “Do not repay one bad turn with another” (1 Thess. 5:15; 1 Pet. 3:9). Do not injure anyone, but bear injuries patiently. “Love your enemies” (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27). If people curse you, do not curse them back but bless them instead. “Endure persecution for the sake of justice” (Matt. 5:10).

  A peacemaker’s paragraph, this one confronts us with the gospel stripped and unadorned. Nonviolence, it says, is the center of the monastic life. It doesn’t talk about conflict resolution; it says don’t begin the conflict. It doesn’t talk about communication barriers; it says, stay gentle ev
en with those who are not gentle with you. It doesn’t talk about winning; it talks about loving.

  Most of all, perhaps, it offers us no false hope that all these attempts will really change anything. No, it says instead that we must be prepared to bear whatever blows it takes for the sake of justice, quietly, gently, even lovingly, with never a blow in return.

  A story from the Far East recounts that a vicious general plundered the countryside and terrorized the villagers. He was, they said, particularly cruel to the monks of the place, whom he despised.

  One day, at the end of his most recent assault, he was informed by one of his officers that, fearing him, all the people had already fled the town, with the exception of one monk who had remained in his monastery going about the order of the day.

  The general was infuriated at the audacity of the monk and sent the soldiers to drag him to his tent.

  “Do you not know who I am?” he roared at the monk. “I am he who can run you through with a sword and never bat an eyelash.”

  But the monk replied quietly, “And do you not know who I am? I am he who can let you run me through with a sword and never bat an eyelash.”

  Nonviolence plunges the monastic into the core of Christianity and allows for no rationalizations. Monastic spirituality is Christianity to the hilt. It calls for national policies that take the poor into first account; it calls for a work life that does not bully underlings or undercut the competition; it calls for families that talk to one another tenderly; it calls for a foreign policy not based on force. Violence has simply no place in the monastic heart.

  “You must not be proud, nor be given to wine” (Titus 1:7; 1 Tim. 3:3). Refrain from too much eating or sleeping, and “from laziness” (Rom. 12:11). Do not grumble or speak ill of others.

  The Tao Te Ching phrases it as follows,

  Be content with what you have;

  rejoice in the way things are,

  When you realize there is nothing lacking

  the whole world belongs to you.

  Benedict reminds us, too, that physical control and spiritual perspective are linked: pride and gluttony and laziness are of a piece. We expect too much, we consume too much, and we contribute too little. We give ourselves over to ourselves. We become engorged with ourselves and, as a result, there is no room left for the strippeddown, stark, and simple furniture of the soul.

  Jan. 20 – May 21 – Sept. 20

  Place your hope in God alone. If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself, but be certain that the evil you commit is always your own and yours to acknowledge.

  Grace and goodness come from God, the Rule insists. We are not the sole authors of our own story. What does come from us, though, are the decisions we make in the face of the graces we receive. We can either respond to each life grace and become what we might be in every situation, whatever the effort, or we can reject the impulses that the magnet in us called goodness brings in favor of being less than we ought to be.

  It is those decisions that we must bend our lives to better.

  Live in fear of the day of judgment and have a great horror of hell. Yearn for everlasting life with holy desire. Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die. Hour by hour keep careful watch over all you do, aware that God’s gaze is upon you, wherever you may be. As soon as wrongful thoughts come into your heart, dash them against Christ and disclose them to your spiritual guide. Guard your lips from harmful or deceptive speech.

  Motives for the spiritual life change as we change, grow as we grow. At earlier stages it is the fear of punishment that controls passions not yet spent. At a more developed stage, it is the desire for ceaseless life that impels us. At another point, it is the shattering awareness of our own mortality that brings us to brave the thought of a life beyond life and its claim on us.

  Whatever the motive, Benedict reminds us that the consciousness of God’s presence, behind us, within us, in front of us demands a change of heart, a change of attention from us. From now on we must think differently and tell a different truth.

  Prefer moderation in speech and speak no foolish chatter, nothing just to provoke laughter; do not love immoderate or boisterous laughter.

  A Jewish proverb reads, “Not every heart that laughs is cheerful,” and Ben Sirach taught in Ecclesiasticus 21:20, “Fools raise their voices when they laugh, but the wise smile quietly.”

  Unlike a culture that passionately pursues unmitigated and undisciplined bliss, Benedict wants moderation, balance, control in everything. Life, he knows, is more than one long party. He wants a spirituality in which people are happy but not boisterously unaware of life in all its aspects, responsive but thoughtful, personable but serious. He wants us to keep everything in perspective. Benedict warns us over and over again in the Rule not to be overtaken, consumed, swept up, swallowed by anything because, no matter how good the thing that absorbs us, we lose other goods in life because of our total lack of discipline about a single part of it.

  The Talmud says, “The Torah may be likened to two paths, one of fire, the other of snow. Turn in one direction, and you die of heat; turn to the other and you die of the cold. What should you do? Walk in the middle” (Hagigah 2:1).

  Jan. 21 – May 22 – Sept. 21

  Listen readily to holy reading, and devote yourself often to prayer. Every day with tears and sighs confess your past sins to God in prayer and change from these evil ways in the future.

  A willingness to be formed is the basis of formation. Anything else is fraud. People cannot be beaten into sanctity. They can only be beaten into submission. No, Benedict says, you can’t get the spiritual life by waiting for it. You have to reach for it. Read things that gild your soul. Turn your mind to prayer, to a conscious response to the God present here and now. Remember who you are.

  The ancients considered the gift of tears a sign of God’s great favor. If we could be always sorry for what we have done to distort life in the past then perhaps we could be safeguarded against distorting it in the future. Regret is a gift long gone in contemporary culture but critically needed perhaps. In this society, guilt has disappeared and sorrow is labeled unhealthy. As a people, then, we separate one action from another in such a way that patterns escape us and pitfalls elude us. We simply stumble on, from one event to the next, unaware of the dangers in it for us, uncaring of our past behaviors, unfeeling of the calluses on our hearts.

  Life, Benedict implies, is a tapestry woven daily from yesterday’s threads. The colors don’t change, only the shapes we give them. Without the past to guide us, the future itself may succumb to it.

  “Do not gratify the promptings of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16); hate the urgings of self-will. Obey the orders of the prioress and abbot unreservedly, even if their own conduct—which God forbid—be at odds with what they say. Remember the teachings of the Holy One: “Do what they say, not what they do” (Matt. 23:3).

  There are two ways to live in the world—as if we were connected to it like a leaf to a tree or as if we were a universe unto ourselves. Obedience, faithful listening, is essential to the choice. A Benedictine sense of obedience is not designed to diminish a person. It is designed to connect us to the rest of the human race. If we have the discipline to curb our own caprice, we can develop the self-control it takes to listen to the wisdom of another when our own insights are limited. The fact is that there are few right ways to do a thing; there are only other ways of doing a thing. To be open to the way of those who have already gone the ground before us is potentially soul saving. That is the function of Benedictine obedience and that is a tool of the spiritual art. It shows us in others ways to goodness that otherwise we might miss of ourselves.

  Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first be holy that you may more truly be called so. Live by God’s commandments every day; treasure chastity, harbor neither hatred nor jealousy of anyone, and do nothing out of envy. Do not love quarreling; shun arrogance. Respect the elders and love the y
oung. Pray for your enemies out of love for Christ. If you have a dispute with someone, make peace with that person before the sun goes down.

  The seduction of embarking on a spiritual life is that people can be fooled into believing that wanting it is doing it. They begin to believe that by traveling they have arrived. Worse, perhaps, they begin to allow others to think that by traveling they have arrived. They mistake the idea for the thing and perpetuate the idea.

  Benedict knew better. He knew that the secret of the holy life was not so much a holy reputation as it was a holy attitude toward all of creation: reverence for God, reverence for the body, reverence for the other who is younger and unimportant, or older and useless now, or in opposition to us and an irritant now.

  Benedict wants us to guard against a notion of superiority that will, in our most honest moments, only discourage us with ourselves.

  And finally, never lose hope in God’s mercy.

  What Benedict wants is simply that we keep trying. Failures and all. Pain and all. Fear and all. The God of mercy knows what we are and revels in weakness that tries.

  These, then, are the tools of the spiritual craft. When we have used them without ceasing day and night and have returned them on the day of judgment our wages will be the reward God has promised: “What the eye has not seen nor the ear heard, God has prepared for those who love” (1 Cor. 2:9).

  These tools of the spiritual life—justice, peacemaking, respect for all creation, trust in God—are the work of a lifetime. Each one of them represents the unearthed jewel that is left in us to mine. Each of them represents the gem that we can be. Benedict says that in the dark days of the spiritual life, when we have failed ourselves miserably, we must remember the God who walks with us on the journey to our best selves and cling without end to the God who fails us never.