The Rule of Benedict

by Joan Chittister

  Feb. 8 – June 9 – Oct. 9

  The eleventh step of humility is that we speak gently and without laughter, seriously and with becoming modesty, briefly and reasonably, but without raising our voices, as it is written: “The wise are known by few words.”

  Humility, Benedict teaches, treads tenderly upon the life around it. When we know our place in the universe, we can afford to value the place of others. We need them, in fact, to make up what is wanting in us. We stand in the face of others without having to take up all the space. We don’t have to dominate conversations or consume all the time or call all the attention to ourselves. There is room, humility knows, for all of us in life. We are each an ember of the mind of God and we are each sent to illumine the other through the dark places of life to sanctuaries of truth and peace where God can be God for us because we have relieved ourselves of the ordeal of being god ourselves. We can simply unfold ourselves and become.

  The Tao Te Ching teaches the following:

  The best people are like water,

  They benefit all things,

  And do not compete with them.

  They settle in low places,

  One with nature, one with Tao.

  “Settling in low places,” being gentle with others and soft in our comments and kind in our hearts and calm in our responses, never heckling, never smothering the other with noise or derision is an aspect of Benedictine spirituality that the world might well afford to revisit.

  Feb. 9 – June 10 – Oct. 10

  The twelfth step of humility is that we always manifest humility in our bearing no less than in our hearts, so that it is evident at the Opus Dei, in the oratory, the monastery or the garden, on a journey or in the field, or anywhere else. Whether sitting, walking, or standing, our heads must be bowed and our eyes cast down. Judging ourselves always guilty on account of our sins, we should consider that we are already at the fearful judgment, and constantly say in our hearts what the publican in the Gospel said with downcast eyes: “I am a sinner, not worthy to look up to the heavens” (Luke 18:13). And with the prophet: “I am bowed down and humbled in every way” (Ps. 38:7–9; Ps. 119:107).

  This paragraph is, at first reading, a very difficult excursion into the tension between the apparent and the real. Bowing and scraping have long since gone out of style. What is to be made today of a dictum that prescribes bowed heads and downcast eyes in a culture given to straight-shouldered, steady-eyed self-esteem?

  Benedict is telling us that true humility is simply a measure of the self that is taken without exaggerated approval or exaggerated guilt. Humility is the ability to know ourselves as God knows us and to know that it is the little we are that is precisely our claim on God. Humility is, then, the foundation for our relationship with God, our connectedness to others, our acceptance of ourselves, our way of using the goods of the earth and even our way of walking through the world, without arrogance, without domination, without scorn, without put-downs, without disdain, without self-centeredness. The more we know ourselves, the gentler we will be with others.

  Now, therefore, after ascending all these steps of humility, we will quickly arrive at the “perfect love” of God which “casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Through this love, all that we once performed with dread, we will now begin to observe without effort, as though naturally, from habit, no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit, and delight in virtue. All this God will by the Holy Spirit graciously manifest in us now cleansed of vices and sins.

  The chapter on humility is a strangely wonderful and intriguingly distressing treatise on the process of the spiritual life. It does not say, “Be perfect.” It says, “Be honest about what you are and you will come to know God.” It does not say, “Be flawless and you will earn God.” It says, “If you recognize the presence of God in life, you will soon become more and more perfect.” But this perfection is not in the twenty-first-century sense of impeccability. This perfection is in the biblical sense of having become matured, ripened, whole.

  The entire chapter is such a nonmechanistic, totally human approach to God. If we reach out and meet God here where God is, if we accept God’s will in life where our will does not prevail, if we are willing to learn from others, if we can see ourselves and accept ourselves for what we are and grow from that, if we can live simply, if we can respect others and reverence them, if we can be a trusting part of our world without having to strut around it controlling it, changing it, wrenching it to our own image and likeness, then we will have achieved “perfect love that casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). There will be nothing left to fear—not God’s wrath, not the loss of human respect, not the absence of control, not the achievements of others greater than our own whose success we have had to smother with rejection or deride with scorn.

  Humility, the lost virtue of our era, is crying to heaven for rediscovery. The development of nations, the preservation of the globe, the achievement of human community may well depend on it.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE DIVINE OFFICE AT NIGHT

  Feb. 10 – June 11 – Oct. 11

  During the winter season, that is, from the first of November until Easter, it seems reasonable to arise at the eighth hour of the night. By sleeping until a little past the middle of the night, the community can arise with their food fully digested. In the time remaining after Vigils, those who need to learn some of the psalter or readings should study them.

  Between Easter and the first of November mentioned above, the time for Vigils should be adjusted so that a very short interval after Vigils will give the members opportunity to care for nature’s needs. Then, at daybreak, Lauds should follow immediately.

  Among the sayings of the Desert Monastics there is a story that may explain best Benedict’s terse, clear instructions on prayer: “Once upon a time the disciples asked Abba Agathon, ‘Among all good works, which is the virtue that requires the greatest effort?’ Abba Agathon answered, ‘I think there is no labor greater than that of prayer to God. For every time we want to pray, our enemies, the demons, want to prevent us, for they know that it is only by turning us from prayer that they can hinder our journey. Whatever good work a person undertakes, if they persevere in it, they will attain rest. But prayer is warfare to the last breath.’”

  There are three dimensions of the treatment of prayer in the Rule of Benedict that deserve special attention. First, it is presented immediately after the chapter on humility. Second, it is not a treatise on private prayer. Third, it is scriptural rather than personal. Prayer is, then, the natural response of people who know their place in the universe. It is not designed to be a psychological comfort zone though surely comfort it must. And lastly, it is an act of community and an act of awareness.

  Prayer, as Abba Agathon implies, is hard and taxing and demanding work. It breaks us open to the designs of God for life. It brings great insights and it demands great responses. It is based on the psalms, the very prayers that formed Jesus himself. And, most of all, it is unceasing. Day and night, Benedict says, day and night we must present ourselves before the face of God and beg for the insight and the courage it will take to go the next step.

  There are volumes written on the structure and the history of the Divine Office: psalms, Scripture readings, and prayers that are identified as the official prayer of the church. What is most noteworthy here is not so much the ordering of the parts of the Office, which Benedict himself says in another place is not absolute, but the demonstration of humanity that undergirds the place of the Divine Office in the life of the monastic. The way Benedict deals with prayer says a great deal about the place of prayer in the life of us all even fifteen centuries later.

  At first reading, the prayer life of Benedict’s communities seems to be inhumanly rigorous and totally incompatible with modern life, either religious or lay. The monks are “to arise at the eighth hour of the night,” the Rule says, and that is at least impossible for most people if not downright fanatical or destructive.
It is important for a modern reader to realize, however, that the Roman night in a world without electric lights was computed from 6:00 P.M. to 6:00 A.M., from sundown to sunup. In this culture, in other words, the monks went naturally to bed at about 6:00 P.M. To wake at the eighth hour, then, was to wake at about 2:00 A.M., after eight full hours of sleep and the natural restoration of the body, to use the remaining hours before the beginning of the workday in prayer and study. The difference between us and the early monastic communities is that we extend our days at the end of them. We go to bed hours after sundown. They extended their days at the beginning of them; they got up hours before sunrise. The only question, given the fact that we both extend the workday hours, is what we do with the time. We stay up and watch television or go to parties or prolong our office hours. We fill our lives with the mundane. They got up to pray and to study the Scriptures. They filled their souls with the sacred.

  CHAPTER 9

  THE NUMBER OF PSALMS AT THE NIGHT OFFICE

  Feb. 11 – June 12 – Oct. 12

  During the winter season, Vigils begin with the verse: “O God, open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise” (Ps. 51:17). After this has been said three times, the following order is observed: Psalm 3 with doxology; Psalm 9 with a refrain, or at least chanted; an Ambrosian hymn; then six psalms with refrain.

  After the psalmody, a versicle is said and the prioress or abbot gives a blessing. When all are seated on the benches, the members in turn read three selections from the book on the lectern. After each reading a responsory is sung. The doxology is not sung after the first two responsories, but only after the third reading. As soon as the cantor begins to sing the doxology, let all rise from their seats in honor and reverence for the Holy Trinity. Besides the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments, the works read at Vigils should include explanations of Scripture by reputable and orthodox writers.

  When these three readings and their responsories have been finished, the remaining six psalms are sung with an “Alleluia” refrain. This ended, there follows a reading from the apostle recited by heart, a versicle and the litany, that is, “Christ, have mercy.” And so Vigils are concluded.

  In his instruction on the Night Office, Benedict supplies even the technologically advanced twenty-first century with valuable insights into prayer that may, at first sight, get lost in the strange details of the prayer format itself. Benedict asks for four elements of prayer, each of which gives a special dimension to the spiritual life: a specific versicle, the doxology, or Glory Be, responsories, and explanations of Scripture.

  The versicle Benedict puts in our minds is a simple but important one: “O God, open my lips and my mouth shall proclaim your praise” (Ps. 51:17), he teaches us to pray. All life is in the hands of God. Even the desire to pray is the grace to pray. The movement to pray is the movement of God in our souls. Our ability to pray depends on the power and place of God in our life. We pray because God attracts us and we pray only because God is attracting us. We are not, in other words, even the author of our own prayer life. It is the goodness of God, not any virtue that we have developed on our own, that brings us to the heart of God. And it is with God’s help we seek to go there.

  The doxology, or Glory Be, gave solemnity to the Office but it gave witness as well to the divinity of all three persons of the Trinity, a concept disputed by the priest Arius, who held that Jesus was merely human, but one held to firmly by the church. To rise for the Glory Be, then, was to make a public witness to the divinity of Christ in an era when people were still divided on the subject, politically as well as theologically. It was a literal call to stand up for the faith, to claim the gospel publicly, a task that is demanded in every day and age including our own.

  The direction to include responsories at prayer was a clear expectation that every member of the group would participate consciously in the act of prayer by reciting the responses that captured the spirit of what was being read to them in an age when manuscripts were rare, members were often illiterate, and prayer was more oral than written. Prayer is not something that is done to us or on us under any conditions. It is meant to engage us wholly—our minds, our bodies, and our souls—whatever its form. It is not a passive exercise. It is the work of God in us, and it demands our full attention.

  Finally, Benedict introduces in chapter 9 what is central to Benedictine spirituality: immersion in the Scriptures. He wants us to do more than read them. He wants us to study them, to wrestle with them, to understand them, to make them part of us, to let them grow in us through the work of traditional and contemporary scholarship so that the faith can stay green in us.

  Here, as a result of these concepts, is a prayer life grounded in faith, witness, attention, and serious study. Here is a prayer life that is serious, not superficial; concentrated not comfortable; full of witness, full of faith.

  CHAPTER 10

  THE ARRANGEMENT OF THE NIGHT OFFICE IN SUMMER

  Feb. 12 – June 13 – Oct. 13

  From Easter until the first of November, the winter arrangement for the number of psalms is followed. But because summer nights are shorter, the readings from the book are omitted. In place of the three readings, one from the Old Testament is substituted. This is to be recited by heart, followed by a short responsory. In everything else, the winter arrangement for Vigils is kept. Thus, winter and summer, there are never fewer than twelve psalms at Vigils, not counting Psalms 3 and 95.

  The very fact that when the seasons change and the nights grow shorter Benedict chooses to abbreviate the prayer time of the community rather than the sleeping time of the community gives short shrift to the notion of Benedictine spirituality as asceticism for its own sake or religion gone berserk or self-destruction masking as piety. No, the message of Benedictine spirituality is a consistent one: live life normally, live life thoughtfully, live life profoundly, live life well. Never neglect and never exaggerate. It is a lesson that a world full of cults and fads and workaholics and short courses in difficult subjects needs dearly to learn.

  Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill.

  Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

  Chase after money and security

  and your heart will never unclench.

  Care about people’s approval and you will be

  their prisoner.

  Do your work, then step back.

  The only path to serenity.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE CELEBRATION OF VIGILS ON SUNDAY

  Feb. 13 – June 14 – Oct. 14

  On Sunday the community should arise earlier for Vigils. In these Vigils, too, there must be moderation in quantity: first, as we have already indicated, six psalms are said, followed by a versicle. Then the members, seated on the benches and arranged in their proper order, listen to four readings from the book. After each reading a responsory is sung, but the doxology is added only to the fourth. When the cantor begins it, all immediately rise in reverence.

  After these readings the same order is repeated: six more psalms with refrain as before, a versicle, then four more readings and their responsories, as above. Next, three canticles from the prophets, chosen by the prioress or abbot, are said with an “Alleluia” refrain. After a versicle and the blessing of the abbot or prioress, four New Testament readings follow with their responsories, as above. After the fourth responsory, the prioress or abbot begins the hymn “We Praise You, God.” When that is finished, they read from the Gospels while all stand with respect and awe. At the conclusion of the Gospel reading, all reply “Amen,” and immediately the prioress or abbot intones the hymn “To You Be Praise.” After a final blessing, Lauds begin.

  This arrangement for Sunday Vigils should be followed at all times, summer and winter, unless—God forbid—the members happen to arise too late. In that case, the readings or responsories will have to be shortened. Let special care be taken that this not happen, but if it does, the one at fault is to make due satisfaction to God in the oratory.

/>   By treating the recitation of the Sunday Office in a special way Benedict teaches all of us something fresh about prayer even today. The fact is that prayer is not to be a series of mindless mechanics in life. Prayer is the development of an attitude of mind that is concentrated and contemplative. For Benedict, therefore, the Sunday Office is a centerpiece that is fixed and solemn. The message is clear: Sunday, the weekly celebration of creation and resurrection, is always a reminder of new life, always special, always meant to take us back to the Beginning and the End, the Alpha and the Omega, the Center of life. It is a day full of tradition and rhythm and rememberings of the simple but important concepts of existence. It is a return to basic truths that are never to be sacrificed for variety and always reinforced through repetition.

  The idea of Sabbaths that are fixed and solemn is for the most part gone in North American culture. Our Sundays are spent in hectic activity designed to make us relax by drowning out the pressures of the rest of the week with the inane uselessness of the weekends. In Benedictine spirituality, on the other hand, the Sabbath is the moment for returning to the surety and solemnity of life, for setting our sights above the daily, for restating the basics, for giving meaning to the rest of the week so that the mundane and the immediate do not become the level of our existence.

  CHAPTER 12

  THE CELEBRATION OF THE SOLEMNITY OF LAUDS

  Feb. 14 – June 15 – Oct. 15

  Sunday Lauds begin with Psalm 66, said straight through without a refrain. Then Psalm 50 follows with an “Alleluia” refrain. Lauds continues with Psalms 117 and 62, the Canticle of the Three Young Men, Psalms 148 through 150, a reading from the Apocalypse recited by heart and followed by a responsory, an Ambrosian hymn, a versicle, the Gospel canticle, the litany, and the conclusion.