This article was first published in Touchstone Magazine
Saint Benedict – Apostle
of the Incarnation
By Dwight Longenecker
While I was a student at the fundamentalist
Bob Jones University I went one Saturday to do some gardening
for a little
old lady named June who turned out to be a Catholic. We established
a friendship and when I went to England to study she loaned
me some money and stayed in touch. In one of her letters she
suggested I might like to visit a Benedictine monastery. It
was a courageous move. Suggesting a Bob Jones boy visit a monastery
was a bit like dropping an invitation to a Jehovah’s Witness
meeting on a good Catholic kid. But June had a hunch. She was
an oblate of the Monastery of St Anselm in Washington DC and
guessed I might like the monks. She was right.
A few months later I contacted the guestmaster and made
my first visit to Douai Abbey in Berkshire, England. I visited
during Lent and the monks made a suitably solemn impression
with their black robes, their courteous formality and their
beautiful and austere liturgy. They also made a good impression
with their lack of humbug and hypocrisy. There was a kind of
solemn self-mockery about them, and they extended the best
kind of hospitality--a relaxed welcome which made me feel a
part of the family. Their seemed to be an ordinariness about
the place which assumed that their unusual lifestyle was the
most natural thing in the world.
My Lenten retreat was countered
by my next visit on the 10 July. The place was buzzing with
a quiet excitement.
One particularly fat monk said with glowing eyes, ‘You’ve come
at a good time!’ I didn’t know what he was talking about, but
soon learned. July 10 is the eve of the feast of St Benedict.
The next day we had a glorious celebration of the Eucharist
followed by a splendid lunch which featured smoked salmon,
steak, strawberries and cream and a good deal to drink. The
feast was sealed with port, cigars and chocolate in the calefactory.
Coming from a background which was uneasy with both fasting
and feasting, the two Benedictine visits were a simple revelation.
A few years later, as an Anglican curate, I hitch-hiked
to Jerusalem and stayed in Benedictine monasteries en route. At
each stop I was given a similarly warm welcome in keeping with
Benedict’s rule that all guests should be ‘welcomed as Christ.’ I
stayed in some of the most beautiful and historic monasteries
in Christendom, but I was also immersed in the Rule of St Benedict.
Each day in the monastery I would hear the wisdom of St Benedict’s
famous rule as the monks read their daily excerpt. My first
two visits to a Benedictine monastery and my subsequent pilgrimage
revealed a hidden side to the Benedictine way of life which
accounts for its longevity. People like to think that monks
are somehow cut off from the physical plane; that they have
risen above the concerns of mere mortals. A study of the Benedictine
way, however, shows that the exact opposite is the case. My
experiences, from the fasting and the feasting to the daily
life of the monks showed me that the spirituality of St Benedict
is supremely intertwined with the most ordinary concerns of
everyday life. Benedictine monasticism is the ideal form of
Christian monasticism because of its integration with the ordinary,
and it is this emphasis which makes Benedict a universal apostle
of the incarnation.
St Benedict of Nursia
Benedict of Nursia was born around
the year 480 in the Umbrian province of Italy. According to
his biography, written
by Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Benedict was born into a ‘family
of high station.’ As a young man he went to Rome to study,
but was disgusted by the decadent life of the city. Some seventy
years before Benedict’s birth Rome had fallen to the barbarians.
By the middle of the fifth century the Huns were ransacking
Northern Italy and Rome had been pillaged for a second time.
By the time Benedict went to Rome to study at about the turn
of the fifth century into the sixth, the old Empire was in
tatters. Civilisation had crumbled into chaos and the social
disorder was reflected in further conflict within the church
and every institution.
Benedict decided to run away from
the city. He headed for Subiaco, a wild region just South of
Rome, where he lived
in a cave for three years. The site overlooked the ruins of
Nero’s palace and the remnants of a Roman aqueduct. Looking
over the ruins Benedict must have felt like Shelley’s traveller
from an antique land who happens across the colossal ruins
of the once great and disdainful king Ozymandias. The desert
left by the barbarian invasions had spread across the proud
Roman Empire, and Benedict’s generation were left to reflect
on the remnants and pick up the pieces. By fleeing civilisation
Benedict saved it, for it was the monasteries of Benedict which
eventually preserved the culture of the ancient world. Someone
has said, ‘In a world of fugitives, the one who runs away may
be the only one who is heading home.’ Benedict, in heading
for the hills, was heading for home in the highest sense.
Eventually some other monks heard
about Benedict’s holiness
and invited him to be their abbot. His holiness must have been
more attractive from a distance however, because disgruntled
with his high standards, some of the monks tried to poison
him. Benedict shook the dust from his feet and went back to
Subiaco where he established twelve small monasteries with
about twelve monks each. Based on that experiment he left Subiaco
in about 529 to establish a monastery on the hilltop of Monte
Cassino in Central Italy. He lived there for the rest of his
life and gained a great reputation as a holy man. At Monte
Cassino he drew from earlier monastic authors to compose a
new monastic rule. It is a simple set of guidelines for a community
life based around a balance of prayer, work and study. Benedict’s
rule is the work of spiritual genius. It has stood the test
of time because of Benedict’s deep understanding of human nature.
The rule’s practical insights are flexible, moderate and wise.
They prepare the ground for a truly simple spirituality to
flourish.
Chesterton said, ‘it is a paradox
of history that each generation is converted by the saint who
contradicts it most.’[i] Benedict lived in an age of extreme
action and reaction, decadence, chaos, war and despair. He
saved it by establishing communities based on moderation and
communication, chastity, order, peace and prayer. That his
little rule has lasted for fifteen hundred years only shows
how every age cries out for the unchanging ideals which this
gentleman of the Spirit provides.
Gregory the Great’s biography of Benedict portrays not
only a holy man, but a wonder worker. Whether or not the miracles
in Gregory’s life of Benedict happened exactly as related is
beside the point. The fact is, they are fun. They are full
of didactic entertainment and earthy humour. It is both entertaining
and instructive that Benedict thought the blackbirds were demons.
Perhaps they were. There is something demonic about blackbirds,
and it makes a good story—like something out of Edgar Allen
Poe. In the legends there’s one soberingly funny story about
an enemy of Benedict’s who sent seven ladies to dance in the
monastery garden to tempt the young monks. Later a building
fell down and killed the evil man. Of course the saint was
sorry for his enemy’s death, but it does sound like the time
Elisha summoned a bear to maul the lads who mocked his bald-headedness.
It’s fun to think the miracles happened, but the main
problem is not whether they happened or not, but whether they
matter. Certainly Benedict himself would have taken a sanguine
attitude to such phenomena. As Theresa of Avila was annoyed
and embarrassed by her levitation, so Benedict would probably
have been more concerned about the novices being late for matins
than about making an iron pruning hook float for a Gothic peasant.
Benedict would have been unconcerned about difficulties of
miracles because he was more concerned with the difficulties
of real life. He could have rephrased the Lord’s command and
said, ‘Take no thought for miracles, today has enough worries
to concern you.’
Benedict’s concern for the detail of daily life comes
through his rule. There we have his portrait, and the person
we meet is a wise, dignified and loving man. He is thoughtful
and compassionate while also being shrewd and strict. The mystic
side of his character is shown in his experience one night
when praying. Suddenly it seemed to him that ‘the whole world
seemed to be caught up into one sunbeam and gathered thus before
his eyes.’ He died in the monastic chapel where he received
communion, and then passed away like Moses, standing erect
for battle with his outstretched arms supported by his monks.
The Rule of Life
If you are looking for a lofty treatise
on prayer and the spiritual life look to the Carmelite mystics
or maybe the fourteenth century English writers. The Rule of
St Benedict is very short on mysticism, and has surprisingly
little to say about prayer. The vast majority of the text is
about how to organise life in a sixth century monastery. The
Rule is one of the classics of European literature, and yet
on its first reading it seems quite unremarkable. Indeed, much
of the rule seems overly concerned with religious routine and
the petty details of daily life. Twelve out of seventy three
chapters are devoted to detailed instructions on how and when
to perform the daily office. Thus the ordinary reader is regaled
with such dull passages as, ‘On ordinary days the solemn Office
of Lauds is to be carried out as follows: Psalm 66 is to be
said without an antiphon, and rather slowly (as on Sunday)
so that all may arrive in time for Psalm 50 which is to be
chanted with an antiphon. After this let two more Psalms be
chanted, keeping to custom: meaning, on Monday 5 and 35, on
Tuesday 42 and 56’[ii] and
so on for many chapters more.
Fourteen chapters deal with the fiddly details of monastic
discipline: who should be punished, how they should be treated
and when they may be restored. Another sixteen chapters deal
with minutiae like: how the monks should sleep, how much food
and drink they should have, when they should eat, what their
footwear and clothing should be like and how they should use
the tools of the monastery. The rule deals with how kitchen
duty should be done, how boys should be disciplined and who
should look after those in the infirmary. This hardly sounds
like one of the most exalted spiritual texts of all time; but
it is in this attention to ordinary detail that Benedict is
showing the heart of his little Rule. By focusing on the mundane
matters of everyday life Benedict points to a deeper truth:
that these details are the stuff of reality, and that by paying
attention to the details of ordinary life we will find our
way to heaven. Someone has said the devil is in the details,
Benedict thinks the divine is in the details.
A quiet
and regular reading of the Rule of St Benedict reveals a depth
of understanding
about the incarnation. The Benedictine monk or nun makes three
vows when they are solemnly professed. They promise stability,
obedience and conversion of life. These three vows reflect
the mundane quality of Saint Benedict’s Rule. All three echo
the truth over and over again that the Christian God is to
be found here and now—not there and then. Through the vow of
stability the monk promises to stay put in one place for life,
and to find God in that place and with those same people. The
monk’s physical commitment to a particular monastery is linked
with his spiritual stability. He cannot have one without the
other. Benedict contrasts the rooted-ness of the community-based
monk-- with those monastic mavericks he calls ‘gyrovagues’.
The gyrovagues, ‘are never stable their whole lives, but wanderers
through diverse regions, receiving hospitality in the monastic
cells of others for three or four days at a time. Always roving
and never settling, they follow their own wills, enslaved by
the attractions of gluttony.’[iii] Benedict
has no time for church shoppers.
If the
vow of stability is an affirmation that God works through real
places, then the
vow of obedience is linked with the belief that God works through
real people. The abbot is a representative of Christ and the
monk vows to obey his abbot as though God is speaking through
him. ‘The first step in humility,’ says Benedict, ‘is prompt
obedience…immediately when something has been commanded by
a superior, it is for them [the monks] as a divine command
and they cannot allow any delay in its execution…for the obedience
that is shown to superiors is shown to God; for he said himself, “He
who listens to you listens to me.”’[iv] Furthermore,
God speaks through the other brothers in the monastery as well.
If the monk is
to submit in love to the abbot, so each monk is to submit mutually
to one another. Benedict writes, ‘the goodness of obedience
should be shown not only…to the Abbot, but the brethren should
also obey each other in the knowledge that by this path of
obedience they will draw nearer to God.’[v] In
other words, Benedict teaches that God can speak to us through
all the people we are given
to live and love—even the difficult ones.
The third
vow of the Benedictine is conversion of life. This is more
than the simple Christian
ideal of being converted or ‘getting saved.’ It certainly includes
repentance and conversion in the traditional sense, but it
is more than that. Not only is one to be converted, but one
is dedicated to converting the whole of one’s life. The conversion
of life must become a life of constant conversion. For conversion
of life to be real we must maintain a metanoia mentality;
in other words we must have a mindset that is always expecting
transformation. Indeed the Benedictine seeks not only to have
his whole life transformed by the grace of God, but desires
the whole of the Life to be conformed to the image of Christ.
This is mysticism in action. The Benedictine is not content
until the whole world ‘is charged with the glory of God.’ This
is incarnation taken to the radical extreme, and through it
each Christian soul becomes the agent for the continual dynamic
action of the Holy Spirit in the physical world.
Incarnation by Analogy
Poetic language points to incarnation. In a fascinating book on
Benedictine monasticism a hesitant Protestant named Kathleen
Norris describes why she, as a poet, is attracted to the monastery.
She quotes a Cistercian monk who takes a book of poems on retreat, ‘because
of poetry’s ability to draw together the sacred and secular.’ She
goes on to ‘refer to the incarnation as the ultimate metaphor,
daring to yoke the human and the divine.’[vi]
In many
ways Benedict sees the monastic life as a kind of metaphor
for the whole Christian
experience. This is not to make the Christian life less real,
but more real. In the details of life Benedict sees the gospel
shining through. In his mundane instructions on looking after
the material objects of the monastery Benedict hints at the
glory which shines through ordinary things. The cellarer is
to ‘regard the chattels of the monastery and its whole property
as if they were the sacred vessels of the altar.’[vii] People
especially are Christ-carriers. ‘All who arrive as guests
are to be welcomed like Christ, for he is going to say, “I
was a stranger and you welcomed me.”’[viii] Likewise,
in serving the sick Benedict reminds the monks that they are
serving Christ.[ix]
For Benedict it is in the day to
day life of community that God is to be found. If Christ is
hidden in God then he
is also hidden in the mundane life of everyman. The cornerstone
of Benedict’s way of life is that we find sanctity hidden in
ordinary life—right here and right now. The same truth is hidden
in Jesus’ parables of the lost coin, the lost treasure in the
field, the prodigal son and the pearl of great price. In each
case the treasure is a little thing hidden in the dust of a
house, in a newly ploughed field, in a pig pen and in a merchant’s
stall. The hidden treasure is the truth that salvation is hidden
in this present moment, and spiritual discipline is a method
to focus our attention on the grimly joyful news that salvation
is buried in the mud beneath our feet.
Finding eternal reality here and
now is the burning heart of incarnation. The saint is able
to see that each moment
is electric with eternity. Benedict’s attention to daily detail
makes the point in a pure way. For Saint Benedict the physical
opportunities of every moment are a sacrament of spiritual
realities. To make this point Benedict very naturally weaves
spiritual meaning into mundane matters; so in his instructions
on how the monks should sleep he teaches a lesson about a sleepy
spirit as opposed to contemplative watchfulness. He also makes
the gospel come alive in daily life. Alluding to the gospel
about the watchful virgins Benedict says, ‘A candle should
burn continuously in the room until morning. They should sleep
clothed, girt with girdles or cords…And so let the monks always
be ready and when the signal is given they should get up without
delay and make has to arrive first for the Work of God.’[x] In
a homely detail he echoes the gospel again: just as the virgins
encouraged one another on the way to meet the bridegroom so, ‘When
they get up for the Work of God they may quietly encourage
one another since the sleepy are given to making excuses.’[xi] In
Benedict’s time the office
of matins took place in the wee hours of the morning. Because
the monks arose in the middle of the night to watch and pray,
the night office was an identification with the watchful virgins
of the gospel and an embodiment of the watchful spirit.
The kitchen is another place where
the mundane becomes infused with the divine. For Benedict what
happens in the kitchen
is just as important as what happens in the church. Some of
Benedict’s most moving and meaningful chapters discuss how
the brothers should serve one another in the most ordinary
tasks. Kitchen duty is not a dull chore, but an opportunity
for divine service, and is therefore demanded of everyone.[xii]
‘…the one who is finishing his week’s duty does the
washing on the Saturday; he should also wash the towels with
which the brethren dry their hands and feet. Moreover, he who
is ending this week’s service together with him who is about
to start should wash the feet of all…the incoming and outgoing
servers should prostrate themselves… at the feet of all the
brethren in the oratory and ask to be prayed for. The outgoing
server is to say the verse, ‘Blessed are you Lord God for you
have helped and strengthened me.’ When this has been said
three times, and he has received a blessing the incoming server
follows and says, O God come to my aid, Lord make haste to
help me.’[xiii]
Benedict imbues ordinary tasks with spiritual meaning.
His ritual for kitchen service echoes the foot washing of the
Last Supper, and the communal meal in the refectory becomes
an extension of the communion meal in the church. The versicles
and responses in the kitchen also echo the antiphonal praises
from the choir. Thus each small action becomes an act of faith,
and in each moment of time eternity is unlocked.
The Wedding of East and West
This
way of living the gospel is an inheritance from Benedict’s
formation by Eastern Christianity. The monastic movement had
started two centuries before when Saint Anthony, Pachomius
and others had fled the cities for the desert. The torch was
picked up by the monks of Palestine and the zealous spirits
of Asia Minor. Benedict was heavily influenced by Basil, Cassian
and the anonymous author of the Rule of the Master. These Eastern
influences helped to form a spirituality which was incarnational
and poetic rather than intellectual and prosaic.
From the East comes a deeper understanding of the necessity for
the spiritual to speak through the physical. The incarnational
approach is powerful through the veneration of images and sensual
liturgy of the East. As a monk of Athos has said, ‘The Orthodox
has icons, and candles, and murals so that he can learn from
them. Everything symbolises some aspect of his faith. Our whole
life here is praying the mysteries of the church, the work
a little reading perhaps. We grow spiritually from these things,
there’s a oneness through them all, a unity which helps one
feel the peace and love of God.’[xiv]
Linked with an incarnational and poetic approach to theology is
the insistence that the monastic life must be experienced,
and that intellectual knowledge can only take one so far and
no further. This is one of the gifts which the Eastern churches
offer the West even today. As a former surgeon who is now a
Coptic monk at Baramus has said, ‘It is like surgery. You can
learn so much from books, but books do not teach you how to
make a good incision in the skin. That you must learn from
experience. It is the same with being a monk.’[xv]
Basing the Christian life in experience
and the physical, however, is not to make the mistake of teaching
salvation by
works. Benedict lived and wrote in the sixth century when the
ghosts of Pelagianism and semi-Pelagianism were still flitting
about. He is careful to avoid the idea that the monk can win
his own salvation. In the Prologue Benedict roots the whole
monastic enterprise in God’s grace. He begins by setting up
the ground rules, ‘First of all, whenever you begin any good
work, you must ask of God with the most urgent prayer that
it may be brought to completion by him.’[xvi] This
principle is fleshed out with Benedict’s later instruction
that each office must begin with the ancient prayer, ‘O God
come to my assistance, O Lord make haste to help me.’[xvii] The
monk must follow the famous dictum of St Augustine, ‘Pray as
if everything depends on God, work as if everything depends
on you.’
In the middle of the Prologue Benedict
explains what the perfect Christian looks like. His list reads
like a second
Sermon on the Mount. It is Benedict’s Beatitudes. The blessed
person is: ‘He who walks without fault and does what is right;
he who tells the truth in his heart; he who works no deceit
with his tongue; he who does no wrong to his neighbour; he
who does not slander his neighbour. He who casts the wicked
devil, even as he beguiles him, out of the sight of his heart,
along with the temptation itself.’[xviii] But
these good works aren’t enough. Benedict crowns the list
with an inner gift without which the other virtues are mere
virtue. The perfect disciple, ‘does not become conceited about
keeping the law well, but realises that the good in himself
cannot be his own work but is done by the Lord, and who praises
the Lord working within him.’[xix]
Benedict’s reliance on grace is the theological seal
on his incarnational approach. In every case Benedict calls
his monks to work hard and strive for spiritual mastery while
all the time reminding them that it is God who is working in
them. Meditation on this everyday grace takes one directly
to the heart of incarnation because there, in the mystery of
man’s co-operation with God’s grace the mystery of incarnation
dwells in our own lives. When infused with grace my actions,
my worship, my words and my thoughts become the actions, words
and thoughts of God. ‘My life is hid with Christ in God’ (Col.
3.3) and ‘it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
(Gal.2.20) Living this mysterious and marvelous incarnation
lies at the heart of the Benedictine life of contemplation.
John Paul II points out how the mystery of grace ‘moves us
towards God himself, indeed towards the goal of “divinisation”… the
Fathers have laid great stress on this soteriological dimension
of the mystery of the incarnation: it is only because the Son
of God truly became man, that man, in him and through him,
can become a child of God.’ [xx] The
emphasis on ‘divinsation’ is also
a gift from the East. Benedict’s profoundly incarnational spirituality
therefore bridges East and West, allowing Western Christians
to better understand the Eastern mindset, and allowing the
East to appreciate the dominant spirituality of the West.
St Benedict Today
In
our post-modern, individualistic, experience-based society
the Benedictine way offers a valuable
and positive spirituality.
Because it is incarnational and experience-based, the Benedictine
way will appeal to many who are disenchanted with a Christianity
that seems overly intellectual or puritanical. At the same
time, the deep historic, Biblical and patristic roots of the
Benedictine way, along with its instinctive conservatism can
help bring shipwrecked post-moderns to a spiritual shore.
Being formed in the spiritual traditions of the East, and producing
his work five hundred years before the Great Schism, Benedict’s
spirituality provides a bridge from West to East, but Benedict
is also a unifying force between Catholicism and the Reformed
traditions. Benedict’s Rule is deeply imbued with Scripture.
Every page surges with quotations from all parts of the Word
of God. Because of his love of Scripture and his reliance on
grace, and because he writes one thousand years before the
sixteenth century split in Western Christendom, Benedict also
extends a hand to all those from a Reformed tradition who are
seeking deeper roots in the undivided church. As such, Benedict
preaches a ‘mere Christianity’ which is soundly Scriptural
and profoundly spiritual. His is a way which is both deeply
Orthodox and thoroughly Catholic. At the same time it calls
for evangelical simplicity and radical discipleship.
As a sign of the times an increasing
number of books and articles are being published about the
Benedictine way. The attraction of the monastery to twenty-first
century Westerners is the same as it was to the fourth century
citizens of the Roman Empire. Drunk with the excesses of materialism,
power and pleasure, they were drawn to the pioneers of spirituality
who had turned their back on the way of the world in favour
of a way which was more whole; a way in which the spiritual
and the physical were in harmony once more. As the sixth century
monks laid the foundation for the flowering of Christian culture
in the Middle Ages, it may be that the sons and daughters of
Saint Benedict may even now be laying the foundation for a
new flowering of Christian culture. In the early Middle Ages
it must have seemed like all was dark and all was lost. That
is simply because the seed was still in germination.
Dwight Longenecker is the author of the Path to
Rome and Listen My Son, St Benedict for Fathers. His
third book, Challenging Catholics is published by
Paternoster in October. The Little Way of St Benedict—a
study of Benedict of Nursia and Thérèse of Lisieux is
published in Spring 2002.
