Rule of St Benedict Reading for August 11, 2009

April 11, August 11, December 11

Chapter 58: On the Manner of Receiving Sisters

When anyone is newly come for the reformation of her life,
let her not be granted an easy entrance;
but, as the Apostle says,
"Test the spirits to see whether they are from God."
If the newcomer, therefore, perseveres in her knocking,
and if it is seen after four or five days
that she bears patiently the harsh treatment offered her
and the difficulty of admission,
and that she persists in her petition,
then let entrance be granted her,
and let her stay in the guest house for a few days.

After that let her live in the novitiate,
where the novices study, eat and sleep.
A senior shall be assigned to them who is skilled in winning souls,
to watch over them with the utmost care.
Let her examine whether the novice is truly seeking God,
and whether she is zealous
for the Work of God, for obedience and for trials.
Let the novice be told all the hard and rugged ways
by which the journey to God is made.

If she promises stability and perseverance,
then at the end of two months
let this rule be read through to her,
and let her be addressed thus:
"Here is the law under which you wish to fight.
If you can observe it, enter;
if you cannot, you are free to depart."
If she still stands firm,
let her be taken to the above-mentioned novitiate
and again tested in all patience.
And after the lapse of six months let the Rule be read to her,
that she may know on what she is entering.
And if she still remains firm,
after four months let the same Rule be read to her again.

Then, having deliberated with herself,
if she promises to keep it in its entirety
and to observe everything that is commanded,
let her be received into the community.
But let her understand that,
according to the law of the Rule,
from that day forward she may not leave the monastery
nor withdraw her neck from under the yoke of the Rule
which she was free to refuse or to accept
during that prolonged deliberation.

Some thoughts:

Benedict certainly did not want people jumping in with both feet who did not know what they are getting into. That's pretty clear. He gives a full 12 months for people to absorb the Rule. During this year, they can leave whenever they want.

What happens during these 12 months? Discernment for one. Learning to give up one's own will for God's. Developing a desire for the Daily Offices. All while being guided by those more senior, more experienced.

Takes a certain amount of humility to be willing to be taught.

Reading for Dec 12Ru, 2007

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

April 12, August 12, December 12
Chapter 58: On the Manner of Receiving Sisters

When she is to be received
she promises before all in the oratory
stability,
fidelity to monastic life
and obedience.
This promise she shall make before God and His Saints,
so that if she should ever act otherwise,
she may know that she will be condemned by Him whom she mocks.
Of this promise of hers let her draw up a document
in the name of the Saints whose relics are there
and of the Abbess who is present.
Let her write this document with her own hand;
or if she is illiterate, let another write it at her request,
and let the novice put her mark to it.
Then let her place it with her own hand upon the altar;
and when she has placed it there,
let the novice at once intone this verse:
"Receive me, O Lord, according to Your word, and I shall live:
and let me not be confounded in my hope" (Ps. 118[119]:116).
Let the whole community answer this verse three times
and add the "Glory be to the Father."
Then let the novice prostrate herself at each one's feet,
that they may pray for her.
And from that day forward
let her be counted as one of the community.

If she has any property,
let her either give it beforehand to the poor
or by solemn donation bestow it on the monastery,
reserving nothing at all for herself,
as indeed she knows that from that day forward
she will no longer have power even over her own body.
At once, therefore, in the oratory,
let her be divested of her own clothes which she is wearing
and dressed in the clothes of the monastery.
But let the clothes of which she was divested
be put aside in the wardrobe and kept there.
Then if she should ever listen to the persuasions of the devil
and decide to leave the monastery (which God forbid),
she may be divested of the monastic clothes and cast out.
Her document, however,
which the Abbess has taken from the altar,
shall not be returned to her, but shall be kept in the monastery.

Some thoughts:

Is anyone else as moved as I by this reading. My heart leaps and dances.

As many of us who read this already know, Benedictine monastics do not vow poverty, chastity and obedience but promise stability, conversion of life and obedience. For monastics of course this means staying in this monastery with these people for the rest of their lives, conforming all aspects of one's self to the Rule of St. Benedict as practised in that community and obedience to the Abbott, the Rule and the community.

How do we apply these concepts to our lives when we are not in monastic community? What does look like? If one is an Oblate of a particular Benedictine monastery, this is defined for one, if I understand correctly. But what about for the rest of us?

Stability... In a mobile society reams have already been written about our inability to stay in one place for very long be it job, church, house, relationship. The list could go on ad nauseum, I daresay. But I would like to focus on stability of the heart, of a heart set on Jesus. There are so many ways we could embrace. It is hard to choose. I know of people who buy every new Breviary that is published and who switch out books from time to time. I mean no disrespect even though it will probably sound this way, it reminds me of people who buy every new diet book and chop and change diet plans constantly, never really sticking with one and letting it work. Benedictine stability asks us to stand against all such temptations and to choose, commit and stick. So obviously we have to prayerfull choose very carefully before we undertake to commit and stick.

Conversion of life... As with stability this is extremely personal. One tool I really like os Jane Tomaine's _The Benedictine Toolbox_. What a challenging book. I like the way she takes one thing at a time. An aspect of conversion of life i have been working on is to cease to curse out the other drivers and to pray for them instead. I am incapable of immediately and all at once changing everything in my life that does not reflect Jesus. It has to be one step at a time.

Obedience... In a "me! me! me!" world, obedience is an ugly word. Perhaps even unnecessary. Certainly many people find obeying the law optional. Hate to use another driving example, but there is an intersection in my neighborhood through which people on my street have the right of way. People coming the other way have to stop and it is rare that anyone does. So many of us demand a personal application, a personal relevance before we will agree to cooperate. How do we get past the egocentricity of our fine selves to consider the greater good and our role init?




Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

Benedictine life is rooted in three dimensions: commitment to a community, fidelity to a monastic way of life and obedience. It is a life that sees sanctification as a by-product of human society, the development of a new way of thinking and living, and a total openness to the constantly emerging challenges of the God-life within us. To pursue a Benedictine spirituality, we must carry our part of the human race and allow it to mold and polish and temper us. We are to be people who see the globe through eyes softened by the gospel. We are to see change and challenge in life as God's voice in our ears. Benedictine spirituality goes into the heart in order to embrace the world. It forms us differently than the world forms us but it does not attempt to shape us independently of the real world around us. The whole point of the profession ceremony itself is quite the opposite. We are, in fact, to make this commitment consciously and knowledgeably and publicly, in the presence of the community, the communion of saints that are represented by the relics of the church, and the leader of the community. This is a declaration that binds us to others and raises us beyond the changing feelings of the day to the obligations of a lifetime.

This passage of the Rule points out in a particularly graphic way that Benedictine spirituality demands a total change of the way we relate to life. In the first place, monastics are to depend entirely on the community for their support. They don't bring with them the family wealth and they don't have any claim to personal property, not even their clothes. They give everything that they have gained up to the time of their entry into the community either to the poor or to the monastery itself. From then on, it is the support of the community and the providence of God upon which they are to depend, not on their savings, not on their business acumen, not on their relatives and connections. From then on they go through life as a people whose trust is in God and who are responsible for one another. The purpose, of course, is to free a person forcibly from the agenda of the world. "Those who have cattle have care," an African proverb teaches. We "can't serve God and mammon," the scriptures say. The point of Benedictine spirituality is that we have to decide, once and for all, what we are about and then live in a way that makes that possible and makes that real.

Reading for Dec 11, 2007

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

April 11, August 11, December 11
Chapter 58: On the Manner of Receiving Sisters

When anyone is newly come for the reformation of her life,
let her not be granted an easy entrance;
but, as the Apostle says,
"Test the spirits to see whether they are from God."
If the newcomer, therefore, perseveres in her knocking,
and if it is seen after four or five days
that she bears patiently the harsh treatment offered her
and the difficulty of admission,
and that she persists in her petition,
then let entrance be granted her,
and let her stay in the guest house for a few days.

After that let her live in the novitiate,
where the novices study, eat and sleep.
A senior shall be assigned to them who is skilled in winning souls,
to watch over them with the utmost care.
Let her examine whether the novice is truly seeking God,
and whether she is zealous
for the Work of God, for obedience and for trials.
Let the novice be told all the hard and rugged ways
by which the journey to God is made.

If she promises stability and perseverance,
then at the end of two months
let this rule be read through to her,
and let her be addressed thus:
"Here is the law under which you wish to fight.
If you can observe it, enter;
if you cannot, you are free to depart."
If she still stands firm,
let her be taken to the above-mentioned novitiate
and again tested in all patience.
And after the lapse of six months let the Rule be read to her,
that she may know on what she is entering.
And if she still remains firm,
after four months let the same Rule be read to her again.

Then, having deliberated with herself,
if she promises to keep it in its entirety
and to observe everything that is commanded,
let her be received into the community.
But let her understand that,
according to the law of the Rule,
from that day forward she may not leave the monastery
nor withdraw her neck from under the yoke of the Rule
which she was free to refuse or to accept
during that prolonged deliberation.

Some Thoughts:

As one who has knocked at doors to discern if such and such is the place to which God calls me, I can attest that patience is definitely needed!! At issue, of course, is the validity of the call. If someone is hungry enough for God, they will do what it takes, bear what they must. Those who will not or cannot for whatever reason, demonstrate that God is not the most central and primary relationship in their lives. It may seem harsh, but the truth of the matter is that the monastic life is no easy. It is hard. It has been a trueism for centuries, borne out by centuries of monastic reformation, renewal and stories of the lives of monastics that when the monastic life is easy, one isn't doing it right. Conversion of life, after all, is hard work.

So what can we glean from today's reading for our own lives? Anything that God calls us to is worth the effort? The struggle? The hardship? Each and every day, God calls each and everyone of us into relationship with Him. God calls each one of us to our vocation which is to say to our truest identity hidden within Him. Is knowing God and being known by Him worth it?


Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

The spiritual life is not a set of exercises appended to our ordinary routine. It is a complete reordering of our values and our priorities and our lives. Spirituality is not just a matter of joining the closest religious community or parish committee or faith sharing group. Spirituality is that depth of soul that changes our lives and focuses our efforts and leads us to see the world differently than we ever did before. The Mezeritizer Rabbi taught: "There are sparks of holiness in everything. They constitute our spirituality." Benedict, too, wants proof of this commitment to truth and perseverance in the search before a new member is even admitted to the community. "Test the spirits," the Rule says, and test he does, in more than one place. Even the newcomer is left sitting in the guesthouse until the community is sure that the applicant is sure. No one is to enter a Benedictine community on impulse and, once there, no one is to treat life as a series of hapless circumstances. In fact, life itself is a discipline. Life is something that we are to live with purpose and control right from the very beginning. Life is not easy and life is not to be lived as if it were, for fear that when we really need internal fortitude we will not have developed it.

It is an important insight for all of us. We must develop the rigor it takes to live through what life deals us. We can't set out to get holy in the hope that we will then automatically become faithful. We must require fidelity of ourselves even when we fail, in the hope that someday, as a result, we will finally become holy.

There are two elements of this paragraph that may come as a surprise in the wake of early twentieth century spirituality with its emphasis on particular examens and reparation for sin. The first is that it is not perfection that Benedict insists on in a newcomer to the spiritual life; it is direction. "The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life," Robert Browning wrote. The Rule of Benedict wants to know at what we're aiming: prayer, concern for the will of God, commitment--whatever the cost--or lesser things?

The second surprise in a document that was written in a century of harsh penances and rigorous pious disciplines is that the director is not asked to be harsh and demanding but "skilled in winning souls," someone who can make a hard way possible.

In the spiritual life we may fail often but we may never change course and we must always seek the help of those whose ways are wiser and more tried than ours.

Benedict allows no one to take on the monastic life without knowing what it entails--in full and without gloss. At the same time, the Rule makes it quite clear that this is the process of a lifetime. It is not a year's experience; it is not a degree once gotten and then ignored. This is not a spiritual quick-fix. It is a way of life and it takes a lifetime to absorb. Nothing important, nothing life-altering, nothing that demands total commitment can be tried on lightly and easily discarded. It is the work of a lifetime that takes a lifetime to leaven us until, imperceptibly, we find ourselves changed into what we sought.