Rule of St Benedict Reading for September 21, 2009

January 21, May 22, September 21

Chapter 4: What Are the Instruments of Good Works

To fulfill God's commandments daily in one's deeds.
To love chastity.
To hate no one.
Not to be jealous, not to harbor envy.
Not to love contention.
To beware of haughtiness.
And to respect the seniors.
To love the juniors.
To pray for one's enemies in the love of Christ.
To make peace with one's adversary before the sun sets.
And never to despair of God's mercy.
These, then, are the tools of the spiritual craft.
If we employ them unceasingly day and night,
and return them on the Day of Judgment,
our compensation from the Lord
will be that wage He has promised:
"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
what God has prepared for those who love Him" (1 Cor. 2:9).

Now the workshop
in which we shall diligently execute all these tasks
is the enclosure of the monastery
and stability in the community.

Some thoughts:

There are those who criticize the Benedictine way as an ivory tower with no engagement with the world. I would maintain that a life of prayer engages one with the world in a way too deep for words. Ch 4 of the RB is about as practical as anything I've ever read. If we Christians could absorb ch 4 and make it part of our very marrow, the so-called ivory tower way would transform the world. Ok, not a very profound or original thought, but true nonetheless. The 1st 2 instruments of good works are to love God and to love one's neighbor as one's self. The remaining 70 instruments are commentary on the 1st 2. They tell us how to accomplish 1 & 2.

Evelyn Underhill wrote, and this is a bad paraphrase, that the love we share with God is genuine, it will overflow the bounds of our human flesh and pour out to all of humanity. The RB is a school for learning to love God and neighbor in this manner. I call that engaging with the world

Reading for Jan 18, 2008

Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

January 18, May 19, September 18
Chapter 4: What Are the Instruments of Good Works

1. In the first place, to love the Lord God with the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole strength.
2. Then, one's neighbor as oneself.
3. Then not to murder.
4. Not to commit adultery.
5. Not to steal.
6. Not to covet.
7. Not to bear false witness.
8. To honor all (1 Peter 2:17).
9. And not to do to another what one would not have done to oneself.
10. To deny oneself in order to follow Christ.
11. To chastise the body.
12. Not to become attached to pleasures.
13. To love fasting.
14. To relieve the poor.
15. To clothe the naked.
16. To visit the sick.
17. To bury the dead.
18. To help in trouble.
19. To console the sorrowing.
20. To become a stranger to the world's ways.
21. To prefer nothing to the love of Christ.

Some thoughts

Can't tell you why this image pops into my head but as I read the above, I found myself imagining some smart aleck of a monk, possibly among a group of young monks all snickering, whispering and giggling, and this monk says " So, Benedict, my dear man, just what do you mean by good works anyway?" Benedict aims a steely gaze in the direction of the snickering monks and rattles off the list that becomes Ch 4 of the RB. I imagine the fatuous expressions being replaced by surprise and then consternation as the list gets longer and longer.

Maybe they were surprised at the ordinariness of the list. It's all right out of the Bible and more than likely already familiar to them. But for some reason, Benedict felt he had to spell it out. Maybe he wanted to dispel any notion that good works meant anything other than very concrete actions and attitudes of the heart. Maybe his monks were beginning to think too highly of themselves as prayerful people, emphasizing so-called spiritual things over the so-called mundane. Perhaps Benedict wanted to remind them that there is nothing on this earth which is n not spiritual. The only question is which spirit is represented.

So no dualism of mind or spirit over the body for St. Benedict. One could consider anything which follows #2 as commentary on 1 and 2. If we actually do 1 and 2 then the rest very naturally follows, according to the saint.

Reading for January 18, May 19 September 18

January 18, May 19, September 18
Chapter 4: What Are the Instruments of Good Works

1. In the first place, to love the Lord God with the whole heart, the whole soul, the whole strength.
2. Then, one's neighbor as oneself.
3. Then not to murder.
4. Not to commit adultery.
5. Not to steal.
6. Not to covet.
7. Not to bear false witness.
8. To honor all (1 Peter 2:17).
9. And not to do to another what one would not have done to oneself.
10. To deny oneself in order to follow Christ.
11. To chastise the body.
12. Not to become attached to pleasures.
13. To love fasting.
14. To relieve the poor.
15. To clothe the naked.
16. To visit the sick.
17. To bury the dead.
18. To help in trouble.
19. To console the sorrowing.
20. To become a stranger to the world's ways.
21. To prefer nothing to the love of Christ.

Some thoughts:

Benedict sure gets to brass tacks, doesn't? Do these verses sound familiar? Where have you heard or read them before?

Love of God/love of neighbor: Benedict constantly emphasizes these 2. It seem to me that by opening this chapter with love of God it's like consecrating every moment, action, thought to God. We do these things for the love of God and know other consideration. Theoretically.

Are you as struck as I by the plain common sense of the list of good works? At first I was bemused at the idea that burying the dead is a good work because it is just common sense and that opened by eyes to the common sense of the good works. When it comes right down to it, what could be more commonsense than for creature to love Creator. Preferring nothing to Christ puts everything into perspective? And then Benedict goes on to list these good works which are how we love God and neighbor and prefer nothing to Christ.

The Christian life is not one of dos and don't but a relationship of love. In any loving relationship there are those things which detract from the love and that which increase it and nurture it. The Rule of St Benedict is the guide to increasing and nuturing our liove for God and our neighbor.

Commentary by Sr Joan Chiittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

At first glance, of course, 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.

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.