The Rule of Benedict

by Joan Chittister

  CHAPTER 69

  THE PRESUMPTION OF DEFENDING ANOTHER IN A MONASTERY

  April 27 – Aug. 27 – Dec. 27

  Every precaution must be taken that one member does not presume in any circumstance to defend another in the monastery or to be their champion, even if they are related by the closest ties of blood. In no way whatsoever shall monastics presume to do this, because it can be a most serious source and occasion of contention. Anyone who breaks this rule is to be sharply restrained.

  “Stay away from your enemies but guard yourself against friends,” Ben Sirach wrote in Ecclesiasticus. The Rule knows that false friendship is bad for the person and bad for the community as well. In a life dedicated to spiritual growth and direction, there is no room for multiple masters. Friends who protect us from our need to grow are not friends at all. People who allow a personal agenda, our need to be right or their need to shield, block the achievement of a broader vision in us and betray us. Supporters who risk dividing a group into factions over personal tensions rather than allowing individuals to work their way positively through the hard points of life barter the spirit and peace of the whole community. We are taught in the Rule not to take sides in issues of personal interpretation and spiritual challenge. We are to hold one another up during hard times, chapter 27 indicates, but we are not to turn personal difficulty into public warfare. The groups that would be better off if individuals had refused to turn differences of opinion into moral irreconcilables are legion. The Desert Monastics say that one of the disciples asked Abba Sisoes one day, “If I am sitting in the desert and a barbarian comes to kill me and if I am stronger than he, shall I kill him?” The old man said to him, ‘No, leave him to God.’ In fact, whatever the trial is that comes to a person, let them say, ‘This has happened to me because of my sins,’ and if something good comes say, ‘This has happened to me because of the providence of God.’”

  Life is not perfect; some of life just is. A great deal of mental, psychological, and spiritual health comes from learning to endure the average heat of the average day and to wear both its banes and its blessings with a tempered heart. No warfare. No armies mobilized on the plain. No identification of enemies. Just life.

  CHAPTER 70

  THE PRESUMPTION OF STRIKING ANOTHER MONASTIC AT WILL

  April 28 – Aug. 28 – Dec. 28

  In the monastery every occasion for presumption is to be avoided, and so we decree that no one has the authority to excommunicate or strike any member of the community unless given this power by the prioress or abbot. “Those who sin should be reprimanded in the presence of all, that the rest may fear” (1 Tim. 5:20). The young up to the age of fifteen should, however, be carefully controlled and supervised by everyone, provided that this too is done with moderation and common sense.

  If any member, without the command of the abbot or prioress, assumes any power over those older or, even in regard to the young, flares up and treats them unreasonably, let that one be subjected to the discipline of the rule. After all, it is written: “Never do to another what you do not want done to yourself” (Tob. 4:16).

  This chapter of the Rule is not about fistfighting. It is about the arrogant usurpation of authority and the legitimization of violence. Even in a culture that routinely disciplined its young or unlettered with physical whippings, Benedict simply does not allow a culture of violence. Benedictine spirituality depends on personal commitment and community support, not on intimidation and brutality. Benedict makes it clear that the desire for good is no excuse for the exercise of evil in its behalf. This is an important chapter, then, for people whose high ideals lead them to the basest of means in the name of the achievement of good. To become what we hate—as mean as the killers, as obsessed as the haters—is neither the goal nor the greatness of the spiritual life.

  CHAPTER 71

  MUTUAL OBEDIENCE

  April 29 – Aug. 29 – Dec. 29

  Obedience is a blessing to be shown by all, not only to the prioress and abbot but also to one another, since we know that it is by this way of obedience that we go to God. Therefore, although orders of the prioress and abbot or of the subprioress or prior appointed by them take precedence, and no unofficial order may supersede them, in every other instance younger members should obey their elders with all love and concern. Anyone found objecting to this should be reproved.

  Into a democratic country and a highly individualistic culture, into a society where personalism approaches the pathological and independence is raised to high art, the Rule brings a chapter on listening and wisdom. The Rule says that we are not our own teachers, not our own guides, not our own standard setters, not a law unto ourselves. In addition to the “officials” in our lives—the employers, the supervisors, the lawgivers, and the police—we have to learn to learn from those around us who have gone the path before us and know the way. It is a chapter dedicated to making us see the elderly anew and our colleagues with awe and our companions with new respect. In a society that depends on reputation to such a degree that people build themselves up by tearing other people down, the chapter on mutual obedience turns the world awry. Monastic spirituality says that we are to honor one another. We are to listen to one another. We are to reach across boundaries and differences in this fragmented world and see in our differences distinctions of great merit that can mend a competitive, uncaring, and foolish world.

  The Tao Te Ching teaches,

  If you want to become whole,

  let yourself be partial.

  If you want to become straight,

  let yourself be crooked.

  If you want to become full,

  let yourself be empty.

  If a member is reproved in any way by the abbot or prioress or by one of the elders, even for some very small matter, or gets the impression that one of the elders is angry or disturbed with them, however slightly, that member must, then and there without delay, fall down on the ground at the other’s feet to make satisfaction, and lie there until the disturbance is calmed by a blessing. Anyone who refuses to do this should be subjected to corporal punishment or, if stubborn, should be expelled from the monastery.

  What monastic spirituality wants among us is respect and love, not excuses, not justification, not protests of innocence or cries of misunderstandings. The Rule wants respect for the elder and love for the learner. The Rule wants a human response to the mystery of misunderstanding—not standoffs, not pouting, not rejection, not eternal alienation. The Rule wants relationships that have been ruptured to be repaired, not by long, legal defenses but by clear and quick gestures of human sorrow and forgiveness. The question in the Rule is not who is right and who is wrong. The question in the Rule is who is offended and who is sorry, who is to apologize and who is to forgive. Quickly. Immediately. Now.

  The rabbi of Sassov, the Hasidic masters tell us, once gave away the last money he had in his pocket to a man of ill repute who quickly squandered it all. The rabbi’s disciples threw it up to him. He answered them, “Shall I be more finicky than God, who gave it to me?” What monastic spirituality teaches in this paragraph of the Rule is that we must all relate to one another knowing our own sinfulness and depending on the love we learn from one another.

  CHAPTER 72

  THE GOOD ZEAL OF MONASTICS

  April 30 – Aug. 30 – Dec. 30

  Just as there is a wicked zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from evil and leads to God and everlasting life. This, then, is the good zeal which members must foster with fervent love: “They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other” (Rom. 12:10), supporting with the greatest patience one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior, and earnestly competing in obedience to one another. No monastics are to pursue what they judge better for themselves, but instead, what they judge better for someone else. Among themselves they show the pure love of sisters and brothers; to God, reverent love; to their prioress or abbot, unfeigned
and humble love. Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may Christ bring us all together to everlasting life.

  Here is the crux of the Rule of Benedict. Benedictine spirituality is not about religiosity. Benedictine spirituality is much more demanding than that. Benedictine spirituality is about caring for the people you live with and loving the people you don’t and loving God more than yourself. Benedictine spirituality depends on listening for the voice of God everywhere in life, especially in one another and here. An ancient tale from another tradition tells that a disciple asked the Holy One,

  “Where shall I look for Enlightenment?”

  “Here,” the Holy One said.

  “When will it happen?”

  “It is happening right now,” the Holy One said.

  “Then why don’t I experience it?”

  “Because you do not look,” the Holy One said.

  “What should I look for?”

  “Nothing,” the Holy One said. “Just look.”

  “At what?”

  “Anything your eyes alight upon,” the Holy One said.

  “Must I look in a special kind of way?”

  “No,” the Holy One said. “The ordinary way will do.”

  “But don’t I always look the ordinary way?”

  “No,” the Holy One said. “You don’t.”

  “Why ever not?” the disciple demanded.

  “Because to look you must be here,” the Holy One said. “You’re mostly somewhere else.”

  Just as Benedict insisted in the Prologue to the Rule, he requires at its end: We must learn to listen to what God is saying in our simple, sometimes insane, and always uncertain daily lives. Bitter zeal is that kind of religious fanaticism that makes a god out of religious devotion itself. Bitter zeal walks over the poor on the way to the altar. Bitter zeal renders the useless invisible and makes devotion more sacred than community. Bitter zeal wraps us up in ourselves and makes us feel holy about it. Bitter zeal renders us blind to others, deaf to those around us, struck dumb in the face of the demands of dailiness. Good zeal, monastic zeal, commits us to the happiness of human community and immerses us in Christ and surrenders us to God, minute by minute, person by person, day after day after day. Good zeal provides the foundation for the spirituality of the long haul. It keeps us going when days are dull and holiness seems to be the stuff of more glamorous lives, of martyrdom and dramatic differences. But it is then, just then, when Benedict of Nursia reminds us from the dark of the sixth century that sanctity is the stuff of community in Christ and that any other zeal, no matter how dazzling it looks, is false. Completely false.

  CHAPTER 73

  THIS RULE ONLY A BEGINNING OF PERFECTION

  May 1 – Aug. 31 – Dec. 31

  The reason we have written this rule is that, by observing it in monasteries, we can show that we have some degree of virtue and the beginnings of monastic life. But for anyone hastening on to the perfection of monastic life, there are the teachings of the early church writers, the observance of which will lead them to the very heights of perfection. What page, what passage of the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments is not the truest of guides for human life? What book of holy writers does not resoundingly summon us along the true way to reach the Creator? Then, besides the Conferences of the early church writers, their Institutes and their Lives, there is also the Rule of Basil. For observant and obedient monastics, all these are nothing less than tools for the cultivation of virtues; but as for us, they make us blush for shame at being so slothful, so unobservant, so negligent. Are you hastening toward your heavenly home? Then with Christ’s help, keep this little rule that we have written for beginners. After that, you can set out for the loftier summits of the teaching and virtues we mentioned above, and under God’s protection you will reach them. Amen.

  This last chapter of the Rule leaves us with a reading list for future spiritual development: the Bible, the Mothers and Fathers of the Church and their commentaries on Scripture, and the classic contributions of other writers on the monastic life. But Benedict does not believe that the simple reading or study of spiritual literature is sufficient. He tells us to keep this Rule, its values, its concepts, its insights. It is not what we read, he implies; it is what we become that counts. Every major religious tradition, in fact, has called for a change of heart, a change of life rather than for simply an analysis of its literature. The Hasidim, for instance, tell the story of the disciple who said to the teacher, “Teacher, I have gone completely through the Torah. What must I do now?”

  And the teacher said, “Oh, my friend, the question is not, Have you gone through the Torah? The question is, Has the Torah gone through you?”

  Even at the end of his Rule, Benedict does not promise that we will be perfect for having lived it. What Benedict does promise is that we will be disposed to the will of God, attuned to the presence of God, committed to the search for God, and just beginning to understand the power of God in our lives. Why? Because Benedictine simplicity gentles us into the arms of God. Benedictine community supports us on the way to God. Benedictine balance makes a wholesome journey possible. Monastic prayer, rooted in Scripture, lights the way. It is a way of life, a spirituality that makes the humdrum holy and the daily the stuff of high happiness. It is a way of living that leads us to pursue life to its fullest. As this final chapter promises, the meaning of the human enterprise is for our taking if we will only follow this simple but profoundly life-altering way.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  It comes as no surprise to anyone that though books are written by one person, they are the product of many. My own writing is always an ongoing dialogue between myself and a bank of readers who argue and puzzle and struggle their way through a first draft so that, given their concerns, the second draft can be more usable to many others. The readers for this book were especially helpful. I am grateful for the time, the effort, and the insights of each of them. I took most of their suggestions but I did not take them all so what the manuscript lacks is no fault of theirs. For instance, though one reader recommended it strongly, I did not include examples from my own monastic life to demonstrate the specific concepts here because I felt that the text itself is too ancient and too venerable to be tied down to any one local practice or history of it. This book, I judged, is not about Joan Chittister and a specific community; it is about being able to read the Rule and imagine its potential for everyone everywhere, monastics and nonmonastics alike. Also, though I have included a book list of stories and proverbs that I used, I did not cite each of the tales separately since the same stories exist in multiple forms in all the great literary traditions of the world. If those were mistakes in judgment on my part I take full responsibility for them. I did, nevertheless, profit mightily from the marginalia and the questions each of the readers contributed and have tried to answer them one by one.

  The readers who helped, then, to create this book include Gerald Trambley, Gene and Lisa Humenay, John and Karen Dwyer, Lawreace Antoun, S.S.J., Mary Lou Kownacki, O.S.B., Stephanie Campbell, O.S.B., Patrick Henry, Bro. Thomas Bezanson, Ann Marie Sweet, O.S.B., Kathy Stevens, and Diane Wilson.

  Special acknowledgment is due a few: Marlene Bertke, O.S.B., brings precision, style, and consistency to all of my work and stayed with this one from beginning to end. Maureen Tobin, O.S.B., as personal assistant and appointments secretary, made the work logistically possible and my life quiet enough to do it. Mary Grace Hanes, O.S.B., brought the manuscript from the dark and tricky recesses of a computer to the light of day.

  My editor, John Farina, who conceived the idea for this series, gave me encouragement, direction, and generous scope. Without him the world would be one attempt poorer to make the best of Western spirituality alive and accessible today.

  Whatever the book is or is not able to bring to the lives of other people, it brought me hours of the most refreshing lectio of my life for all the months of its making. I am more grateful for that than for anything.

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sp; PHOTO CREDITS:

  p. 1: St. Benedict delivering his Rule to St. Maurus and other monks of his order, (France, Monastery of St. Gilles, Nimes), public domain; p. 4: Pietro Perugino: Polittico di San Pietro (San Benedetto), public domain; p. 6: Croce e mura, © infoseat/PixMac; p. 8: baby hand 3, © Peter Galbraith/Fotolia; p. 10: Time, © Paul Morley/Fotolia; p. 18: Jean-François Millet, Angelus, public domain; p. 22: Climbers, © Oleg Kozlov/Fotolia; p. 24: Andrea Mantegna, Saint Lucas altarpiece, detail: Saint Benedict of Nursia, public domain; p. 28: Trabajar la tierra, © Jose Juan Castellano/Fotolia; p. 38: Old wagon wheel, © Olivier/Fotolia; p. 48: Chapel, © Mirek Hejnicki/Fotolia; p. 52: Tipi village, © Melissa Schalke/Fotolia; p. 55: Saint Scholastica, © zatletic/Fotolia; p. 59: Mahatma Gandhi on postage stamp from India, © PictureLake/Fotolia; p. 65: Sapling, © smartsun/Fotolia; p. 70: Night Prague fog, © Peter Zurek/Fotolia; p. 74: Kreuzgang, © Harald Schmid/Fotolia; p. 79: Calvaire, Bretagne, © Xavier29; p. 81: Waimea bay wave, © NorthShoreSurfPhotos/Fotolia; p. 87: Wooden bridge, © Marko Cerovac/Fotolia; p. 92: Trekking path, © Jaroslaw Grudzinski/Fotolia; p. 96: Mountain stream, © Carl Southerland/Fotolia; p. 99: Fra Angelico, Annunciation, 1433–1434, Museo Diocesano, Cortona, public domain; p. 102: Old bronze bell on a church, © Tjommy/Fotolia; p. 109: Dipinto, © LittleSteven65/Fotolia; p. 115: Christ Panocrator, Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, photo Eve Vaterlaus; p. 117: Mother Teresa on postage stamp from India, © PictureLake/Fotolia; p. 120: live-forever, © Kaj Gardemeister/Fotolia; p. 123: Fürbitte, © Alterfalter/Fotolia; p. 126: Footprints, © Paulus Rusyanto/Fotolia; p. 129: Bible, © Kwest/Fotolia; p. 131: Musik, © Berchtesgaden/Fotolia; p. 135: Indian fishermen, © Alexey Kuznetsov/Fotolia; p. 136: San Pietro, © M.M/Fotolia; p. 137: Relief from the abbey of Saint-Denis, 1250–1260. Épisode in the life of Saint Benedict Photo Marsyas, public domain (permission granted by photographer, Marsyas, on the Internet); p. 139: Stanza per la meditazione, © Ernesto Notarantonio/Fotolia; p. 151: Lüneburger Heide 080922 026, © crimson/Fotolia; p. 154: Old suitcase, © rimglow/Fotolia; p. 159: Frisches gemüse, © Dirk Houben/Fotolia; p. 161: Broom, © Liette Parent/Fotolia; p. 164: Plant in hands of people, © EdwardSV/Fotolia; p. 171: Elderly woman with vegetables, © Sandor Kacso/Fotolia; p. 176: Commitment, © marilyn barbone/Fotolia; p. 179: Hildegard of Bingen receives a divine inspiration, Miniature from the Rupertsberg Codex de Liber Scivias, public domain; p. 181: In church, © MassonOdessa/Fotolia; p. 185: Cut bread, © aragami/Fotolia; p. 188: Eiche #2, © RalfenStein/Fotolia; p. 193: Man washing tableware 2, © Valeriy Kirsanov/Fotolia; p. 196: Angel silence, © Jason Cosburn/Fotolia; p. 199: Kreuz mit See in den Alpen no. 1, © studali/Fotolia; p. 201: St. Benedict Eating with his Monks (Painting by Giovanni Sodoma) Abbey of Monteoliveto Maggiore, Siena, public domain; p. 205: Prayer old rabbi at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, © Mikhail Levit/Fotolia; p. 208: HuddleCLR, © monique delatour/Fotolia; p. 213: Équilibre en pleine nature, © minicel73/Fotolia; p. 215: Age of contemplation, © Kelly Ann/Fotolia; p. 217: Senior woman gardening, © Elenathewise/Fotolia; p. 219: Tea bowl, photo Eve Vaterlaus; p. 221: Water, photo Eve Vaterlaus; p. 223: Three Nuns worship outdoors, © Scott Hales/Fotolia; p. 226: Sonnenuhr, © Christa Eder/Fotolia; p. 228: Door and vines, © ADV/Fotolia; p. 231: Hands of the old woman, © Sergey Galushko/Fotolia; p. 237: Blessed Hildegard von Bingen, © zatletic/Fotolia; p. 239: Flea market, © reb/Fotolia; p. 242: Flowers for grandma, © Marzanna Syncerz/Fotolia; p. 245: Korbflecfhten, © fotografci/Fotolia; p. 252: Pflug mit wasserbüffel, © Digitalpress/Fotolia; p. 255: Scenes Depicting the Life of St. Hildegard by Fr. Paulus Krebs, in the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Hildegarde, permission Abbey of St. Hildegard in Ruedesheim, Germany; p. 260: Hiker on the trail, © Jens Ottoson/Fotolia; p. 262: Abbazia di montecassino, © kenzo/Fotolia; p. 264: Maske, © DarkRamses/Fotolia; p. 266: Seashells, © BVDC/Fotolia; p. 268: Freunde, © Michael Kempf/Fotolia; p. 272: Canada geese in flight, © Xiaodong Ye/Fotolia; p. 274: Potters team, © Ints Vikmanis/Fotolia; p. 275: Charrette a boeufs, © photlook/Fotolia; p. 279: The Twelve Apostles, © jvimages/Fotolia; p. 283: La portr cloutée, © Pierre Bonnel/Fotolia; p. 285: Still life with flowers, baking and lemon, © Alexey Khromushin/Fotolia; p. 288: Icon paintings in monastery interior, St. George, © Dessie/Fotolia; p. 289: Two boy monks walking on the street in Luang Prabang, Laos, © chrswbrwn/Fotolia; p. 291: Old bridge, © Hunta/Fotolia; p. 299: Africa, © africa/Fotolia; p. 303: Walking in alley, © .shock/Fotolia