The Rule of Benedict

by Joan Chittister

  CHAPTER 65

  THE PRIOR AND SUBPRIORESS OF THE MONASTERY

  April 22 – Aug. 22 – Dec. 22

  Too often in the past, the appointment of a subprioress or prior has been the source of serious contention in monasteries. Some, puffed up by the evil spirit of pride and thinking of themselves as a second prioress or abbot, usurp tyrannical power and foster contention and discord in their communities. This occurs especially in monasteries where the same bishop and the same prioress or abbot appoint both the abbot and prioress and the prior or subprioress. It is easy to see what an absurd arrangement this is, because from the very first moment of appointment they are given grounds for pride, as their thoughts suggest to them that they are exempt from the authority of the prioress or abbot. “After all, you were made subprioress or prior by the same members who made the prioress or abbot.”

  This is an open invitation to envy, quarrels, slander, rivalry, factions, and disorders of every kind, with the result that, while the prioress and subprioress or abbot and prior pursue conflicting policies, their own souls are inevitably endangered by this discord; and at the same time the monastics under them take sides and so go to their ruin. The responsibility for this evil and dangerous situation rests on the heads of those who initiated such a state of confusion.

  In any group—a political system, an athletic team, a social organization, even a monastery—authority is one thing, leadership is often another. Authority comes from being given or elected to a position. Leadership comes from vision and charism in concert. It is often the case that the two realities—authority and leadership—do not reside in the same person. Then the stage is set for tension.

  If the legally deputed authority is insecure or bullying, uncertain or authoritarian, weak or controlling, the group is bound either to resist or to defect. Authority figures without the vision to identify their own weaknesses, who then appoint people to provide for those needs in the group, risk the loss of the only authority they have—which is clearly only a legal one.

  On the other hand, charismatic figures in a group, people who deal well with people and have a clear vision of the future, who use those gifts to undermine the legal authority of the group, run the risk of dividing it and, eventually, of destroying it completely.

  It is up to leadership figures to cooperate with authority, to uphold the unity of the group, to remember that there can be only one authority in a community at a time and no second-in-command, no department chair, not even any idea agent, is ever it.

  Then the community, united in the tenuous search for the will of God together, can come to see that there are seldom instances in life when there is only one way to do anything. Then we learn that everything we do and every way we set out to do it together has something to teach us all.

  April 23 – Aug. 23 – Dec. 23

  For the preservation of peace and love we have, therefore, judged it best for the abbot or prioress to make all decisions in the conduct of the monastery. If possible, as we have already established, the whole operation of the monastery should be managed through deans under the directions of the abbot or prioress. Then, so long as it is entrusted to more than one, no individual will yield to pride. But if local conditions call for it, or the community makes a reasonable and humble request, and the prioress or abbot judges it best, then let them, with the advice of members who reverence God, choose the one they want and themselves make that one the subprioress or prior. The subprioress and prior for their part are to carry out respectfully what the prioress or abbot assigns, and do nothing contrary to their wishes or arrangements, because the more they are set above the rest, the more they should be concerned to keep what the rule commands.

  The problems dealt with in this chapter are the problems of loyalty, honesty, humility, and role and their effect on a group. The prior or subprioress in a Benedictine monastery is equivalent to the first assistant of any organization. They act as vicars, representatives, of the abbot or prioress but they do not have any specific role description or authority of their own. Most local constitutions of Benedictine communities to this day, in fact, say simply that the subprioress or prior is appointed by the prioress or abbot to “do whatever the abbot bids them to do.” The point is that every community has one, single, ultimate authority, the abbot or prioress, and that any other arrangement or assumption is not only incorrect, it is dangerous to the unity and formation of the community.

  Underlying the theological and organizational considerations, however, is the dark warning that the temptation to use a position, any position—vice principal, vice president, assistant, department director—to wrest authority away from the center or to promote our own careers by undermining the legitimate leader in order to make ourselves look good, is a sin against community. It uses a group for personal gain instead of for the good of the group. It is the story of a Rasputin or a Lucretia Borgia. It is a grasp at power for its own sake. It corrodes what we say we support. It eats like acid at anything in us that we say is real. It is cheap popularity and expensive advancement because, eventually, it will destroy what we say we value, the very community for which we are responsible.

  If these subprioresses or priors are found to have serious faults, or are led astray by conceit and grow proud, or show open contempt for the holy rule, they are to be warned verbally as many as four times. If they do not amend, they are to be punished as required by the discipline of the rule. Then, if they still do not reform they are to be deposed from the rank of subprioress or prior and replaced by someone worthy. If after all that, they are not peaceful and obedient members of the community, they should even be expelled from the monastery. Yet the abbot or prioress should reflect that they must give God an account of all their judgments, lest the flames of jealousy or rivalry sear their soul.

  The Tao Te Ching teaches, “Shape clay into a vessel; it is the space within that makes it useful.” Every group has a distinct structure and history but without a single driving spirit, it may lack the heart to make a common impact. In Benedictine spirituality the abbot and prioress are the center of the community. They are the one voice, the one light, the one heart that the entire community can trust to act always in its true and total interest. In every group, in fact, it is that inspiriting space within that gives it energy. Destroy the axis, stop the heart, collapse the core of a world, and the world shrivels or shatters or disintegrates in space. That’s what rivalry between the leaders of a group does to a community. That’s what divergence between husband and wife does to the family. That’s what tension between idols does to a world. Benedictine spirituality sees the community as something to mold us, not something to be used for the interests and vanity and power struggles of a few. It is a life dedicated to the spirit, not enmeshed in the agendas of the political. Where the authority of the abbot or prioress is constantly contested, routinely ignored, mockingly ridiculed, or sharply questioned, then the eye of the soul is taken off the Center of the life and shifted instead to the multiple minor agendas of its members. At that moment, the mystical dimension of the community turns into just one more arm-wrestling match among contenders. At that point, the Rule says, get rid of the people who lower the purpose of the group to the level of the mundane, making light of the great enterprise of life and diminishing its energy.

  It is good advice in any human endeavor whose higher purpose is being fed to the appetites of the immature and the selfish to rid itself of those who have given over the lodestar of the group to a lesser direction.

  CHAPTER 66

  THE PORTER OF THE MONASTERY

  April 24 – Aug. 24 – Dec. 24

  At the door of the monastery, place a sensible person who knows how to take a message and deliver a reply, and whose wisdom keeps them from roaming about. This porter will need a room near the entrance so that visitors will always find someone there to answer them. As soon as anyone knocks or a poor person calls out, the porter will reply, “Thanks be to God” or “Your blessing, please,” then, with
all the gentleness that comes from reverence of God, provide a prompt answer with the warmth of love. Let the porter be given one of the younger members if help is needed.

  Of all the questions to be asked about the over fifteen-hundred-year-old Rule of Benedict, and there are many in the twenty-first century, one of the most pointed must surely be why one of the great spiritual documents of the Western world would have in it a chapter on how to answer the door. And one of the answers might be that answering the door is one of the archactivities of Benedictine life. The way we answer doors is the way we deal with the world. Benedict wants the porter to be available, “not roaming around,” so that the caller is not left waiting; responsible and “able to take a message,” so that the community is properly informed; full of welcome; prompt in responding to people “with the warmth of love”; and actually grateful for the presence of the guest. When the person knocks—whenever the person knocks—the porter is to say, “Thanks be to God” or “Your blessing, please,” to indicate the gift the guest is to the community. The porter is to be warm and welcome at all times, not just when it feels convenient. In the Rule of Benedict, there is no such thing as coming out of time to the monastery. Come in the middle of lunch; come in the middle of prayer; come and bother us with your blessings at any time. There is always someone waiting for you.

  The chapter on the porter of the monastery is the chapter on how to receive the Christ in the other always. It is Benedict’s theology of surprise.

  The monastery should, if possible, be so constructed that within it all necessities, such as water, mill, and garden are contained, and the various crafts are practiced. Then there will be no need for the members to roam outside, because this is not at all good for their souls.

  We wish this rule to be read often in the community, so that none of the members can offer the excuse of ignorance.

  If there is any chapter in the Rule that demonstrates Benedictine openness to life and, at the same time, models a manner of living in the midst of society without being consumed by it, this is surely the one. Guests are welcomed enthusiastically in Benedictine spirituality but, at the same time, life is not to be frittered away on work, on social life, on the public bustle of the day. The community is to stay as self-contained as possible so that centered in the monastery they stay centered in their hearts. More, this balance between public and private, between openness and centeredness, between consciousness of the outside world and concentration on interior growth is to be remembered and rehearsed over and over again: “We wish this rule to be read often,” the Rule says plaintively so that the monastic never forgets that the role of committed Christians is always to grow richer themselves so that they can give richly to others. Abba Cassian, a Desert Monastic, told the following story:

  Once upon a time, we two monks visited an elder. Because he offered us hospitality we asked him, “Why do you not keep the rule of fasting when you receive visiting brothers?” And the old monastic answered, “Fasting is always at hand but you I cannot have with me always. Furthermore, fasting is certainly a useful and necessary thing, but it depends on our choice, while the law of God lays it upon us to do the works of charity. Thus, receiving Christ in you, I ought to serve you with all diligence, but when I have taken leave of you, I can resume the rule of fasting again.”

  The person with a monastic heart knows that the Christ and salvation are not found in religious gyrations alone. They are in the other, our response to whom is infinitely more important than our religious exercises.

  CHAPTER 67

  MEMBERS SENT ON A JOURNEY

  April 25 – Aug. 25 – Dec. 25

  Members sent on a journey will ask the prioress or abbot and the community to pray for them. All absent members should always be remembered at the closing prayer of the Opus Dei. When they come back from a journey, they should, on the very day of their return, lie face down on the floor of the oratory at the conclusion of each of the customary hours of the Opus Dei. They ask the prayers of all for their faults, in case they may have been caught off guard on the way by seeing some evil thing or hearing some idle talk.

  The Desert Monastic Samartus had written in a culture that called material things evil and only spiritual things good: “If we do not flee from everything, we make sin inevitable.” This fear of things outside the monastery was clearly still alive in the time of Benedict and well beyond. Monastics who traveled outside, then—and they did, as we do, for reasons of business and personal need—were reminded in this paragraph to call themselves consciously into the presence of God and the purpose of their lives before leaving their monasteries. Two things in particular make the paragraph valuable today. First, however they saw the risks of the world in which they lived, they continued to confront them. They did not become less human in their search for the spiritual life. Second, however they counted their own commitment, they did not underestimate the lure of lesser things in life, even on them. They begged the prayers of the community while they were away, a practice continued to this day, and they kept as close as possible to the prayer schedule of the monastery while they were gone. Then, when the trip was over, they returned to their monasteries alert to the effects of the baubles and bangles of loose living. And they redoubled their efforts at monastic life. They started over again, prostrating themselves on the floor of the oratory as they had at the time of their profession, praying to be reconcentrated on the real meaning of life.

  The value of the chapter is clear even today: no one lives in a tax-free world. Life costs. The values and kitsch and superficiality of it take their toll on all of us. No one walks through life unscathed. It calls to us for our hearts and our minds and our very souls. It calls to us to take life consciously, to put each trip, each turn of the motor, each trek to work in God’s hands. Then, whatever happens there, we must remember to start over and start over and start over until, someday, we control life more than it controls us.

  No monastics should presume to relate to anyone else what they saw or heard outside the monastery, because that causes the greatest harm. If any do so presume, they shall be subjected to the punishment of the rule. So too shall anyone who presumes to leave the enclosure of the monastery, or go anywhere, or do anything at all, however small, without the order of the abbot or the prioress.

  A Zen story tells of two monks walking down a muddy, rain-logged road on the way back to their monastery after a morning of begging. They saw a beautiful young girl standing beside a large deep puddle unable to get across without ruining her clothes. The first monk, seeing the situation, offered to carry the girl to the other side, though monks had nothing whatsoever to do with women. The second monk was astonished by the act but said nothing about it for hours. Finally, at the end of the day, he said to his companion, “I want to talk to you about that girl.” And the first monk said, “Dear brother, are you still carrying that girl? I put her down hours ago.”

  The things we ruminate on, the things we insist on carrying in our minds and hearts, the things we refuse to put down, the Rule warns us, are really the things that poison us and erode our souls. We dull our senses with television and wonder why we cannot see the beauty that is around us. We hold on to things outside of us instead of concentrating on what is within that keeps us noisy and agitated. We run from experience to experience like children in a candy store and wonder how serenity has eluded us. It is walking through life with a relaxed grasp and a focused eye that gets us to where we’re going. Dwelling on inessentials and, worse, filling the minds of others with them distract from the great theme of our lives. We must learn to distinguish between what is real and what is not.

  CHAPTER 68

  ASSIGNMENT OF IMPOSSIBLE TASKS

  April 26 – Aug. 26 – Dec. 26

  Monastics may be assigned a burdensome task or something they cannot do. If so, they should, with complete gentleness and obedience, accept the order given them. Should they see, however, that the weight of the burden is altogether too much for their strength,
then they should choose the appropriate moment and explain patiently to the prioress or abbot the reasons why they cannot perform the task. This they ought to do without pride, obstinacy, or refusal. If after the explanation the abbot or prioress is still determined to hold to their original order, then the junior must recognize that this is best. Trusting in God’s help, they must in love obey.

  An old Jewish proverb teaches, “When you have no choice, don’t be afraid.” A modern saying argues, “There’s no way out but through.” The straight and simple truth is that there are some things in life that must be done, even when we don’t want to do them, even when we believe we can’t do them. Is the Rule cruel on this point? Not if there is any truth in experience at all. The reality is that we are often incapable of assessing our own limits, our real talents, our true strength, our necessary ordeals. If parents and teachers and employers and counselors and prioresses somewhere hadn’t insisted, we would never have gone to college or stayed at the party or tried the work or met the person or begun the project that, eventually, changed our lives and made us more than we ever knew ourselves to be. Benedict understood clearly that the function of leadership is to call us beyond ourselves, to stretch us to our limits, to turn the clay into breathless beauty. But first, of course, we have to allow it to happen.