Thursday 23 May 2019

Saint Benedict – Hero of the Faith JAMIE MILLER


 On Tuesday the 21st of May Jamie Miller conducted the Spiritual Reading Group at the Library on the Prologue of St Benedict’s Rule. Here is Jamie’s introductory paper.

The Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Benedict xvi both refer to Saint Benedict as the patron saint of Europe.  Pope Gregory the Great recorded his biography in his Dialogues.  Modern scholars nominate Saint Benedict as the father of western monasticism and credit the lifestyle he developed and promoted in one of the darkest periods of history with the very preservation of European culture.  Thousands of people down through the ages and around the world look to Saint Benedict for guidance for living a holy life, following his ‘little rule for beginners’.

There is a sense in which they are all correct, but all at least partially wrong.  The fact is that we don’t actually know whether there ever was a man called Benedict of Nursia, and we know very little about him.  We only have Pope Gregory’s word for it.  That, and a rule for living that Benedict refined out of the work of others before him.

The story goes that Benedict was a bright young student living in Rome at the beginning of the sixth century; in the very centre of the empire with all the excitement and glamour that suggested.  Born in the year 480 of well-to-do parents at Nursia in the province of Umbria, Benedict realised that the glory of that once powerful city was on the wane.  At the start of the sixth century Rome was an economic basket-case.  Crime of every kind abounded.  At its borders pagan and Arian hordes waited their opportunity to pour through the gates and take the city by storm.  Rome the invincible was about to be sacked and descend into barbarism.  The Church was torn by conflict, towns and cities were desolated by war and terrorism.  Violence was rampant.

According to Pope Gregory, Benedict was appalled by what was happening and retreated to the hills outside Rome, to a place called Subiaco.  Here he adopted the hermit life, living in a cave and supported by a monk, Romanus, from a nearby monastery.  There he lived for the next three years.  Word of a holy man living in nearby hills attracted travellers and local shepherds who would bring him small offerings of food.  In return Benedict would pray with them and offer words of wisdom and encouragement.

Not far away, at Vicovaro, there lived a community of monks whose Abbot had recently died.  The community visited Benedict at his hermit cave and asked him to become their Abbot.  Initially reluctant, Benedict eventually accompanied the monks back to their monastery.  At first everything went well but eventually the monks became dissatisfied with the strict and simple life Benedict insisted they live.  In order to get rid of him they gave him a cup of poisoned wine.  When, as was his habit, Benedict made the sign of the cross over the cup before drinking, the cup is said to have shattered.  Gregory records that Benedict forgave the monks, but retreated to his hermitage in the hills of Subiaco.

Word of Benedict’s wisdom and holiness spread quickly.  Numbers of men who wished to flee the ravages of Rome and its suburbs as Benedict himself had done, along with a growing number of monks who lived as hermits or in widely scattered communities across the region began to assemble around Benedict.  Out of this Benedict formed twelve small monasteries, each autonomous with its own Prior but under the general care and governance of Benedict himself.  When these Benedictine houses were settled and functioning well Benedict left Subiaco with a small number of his monks for the more southerly territory of Monte Cassino.  Here Benedict built the most famous Abbey the world was ever to see.  The foundation of Abbey of Monte Cassino was probably laid around the year 520.  At its height Monte Cassino housed several thousand monks.

It is probable that it was at this time Benedict composed his now famous Rule.  Although the Rule professes to lay down a pattern of life for monks living in community at Monte Cassino under the authority of their Abbot Benedict, it rapidly came to serve as a guide for monks and nuns living in monasteries across the whole western empire.  It is addressed to all who, renouncing their own will, take upon themselves “the strong and bright armour of obedience “.  

“Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart.  This is advice from a father who loves you, welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice.”
We are about to found therefore a school for the Lord’s service, in the organisation of which we trust that we shall ordain nothing severe and nothing burdensome.”     Prologue 1,45.

The Rule of St. Benedict describes a diversified routine of liturgical prayer, study and physical work.  It was written for lay men and women, by one who was not a priest.  Its asceticism was intended to be gentle and reasonable.  The rule demanded a simple lifestyle; self-imposed and abnormal austerities were discouraged.

Far from confining his attention to those within the cloister, Benedict extended his care to those living in the countryside around the monasteries.  Benedictine monasteries offered hospitality and aid to the poor, and comfort and healing to the sick and injured.  In time Benedictine houses became places of learning and education was offered to those who sought it.  Benedictines refined the methods for growing crops and breeding stock.  Benedictine libraries ensured the preservation of important documents and books.  Soon there were Benedictine monasteries across the length and breadth of the land. Many were strategically located so that pilgrims and travellers could move from the safety of one Benedictine house to another in a day’s walk.

More than 1500 years after Benedict founded Monte Cassino, men and women around the world, lay people as well as monastics, find in the Rule of St. Benedict a pattern for living a holy life.  A guide for living in a world that is often stressful, sometimes painful, always confusing.  Benedict has left us a “little rule for beginners” that teaches the wisdom of a balanced life – balanced between work, rest and prayer.  Thoroughly grounded in Holy Scripture, the Rule of St. Benedict has an amazing affinity with 21st century life.

I have travelled with the Rule of St. Benedict metaphorically in my hip pocket for the past quarter century.  Let me share with you just two aspects of the Rule to illustrate my point.

The brothers should serve one another.  Consequently, no one will be excused from kitchen service unless he is sick......for such service increases reward and fosters love......let those who are not strong have help......let everyone receive help as conditions warrant.  Let (everyone) serve one another with love.  (RB35, 1-6)

Benedict has no patience for the spiritually pretentious, those who think they know everything there is to know about spiritual theory and think that is enough.  Benedict says that the spiritual life is not just what we think about.  It is what we do because of what we think.  Benedict knows it is possible to spend our whole lives thinking about the spiritual life without ever living one.  So Benedict here uses the family meal to illustrate that the Eucharist comes alive for us outside the church.  It is in kitchen service that we prepare good things for the ones we love, where we sustain them and clean up after them.

Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly Christ is received............. (RB 53, 15)

For Benedict the care of the poor is the essential part of living a holy life. We cannot be too busy, too isolated, too removed from the world of the poor to receive the poor and take care of them.  The Benedictine heart for the poor is a radically different from the world we live in today where strangers are ignored, where self-sufficiency is considered a sign of a virtuous life and poverty a sign of failure.  Benedict teaches in his Rule that true hospitality requires a change of attitude more than it does a handout.  Hospitality for Benedict demands that we work to change the way things are.
The Benedictine charism, flowing from the work of this sixth century monastic about whom we know very little and whose legacy lies with a little Rule for living a holy life, has much to offer us and the Church.  Today, around the world, people are seeking out monasteries and monastics for guidance and wisdom.  Around the world people are visiting Benedictine houses, seeking counsel, making retreats and reading books by Benedictines like Joan Chittister, Ester de Waal and Michael Casey.  People are eagerly taking up spiritual disciplines like lectio divina or sacred reading and meditation that originate with the 4th century desert mothers and fathers of the Church.

At the end of his Rule Benedict does not promise us perfection, even if we keep all its elements.  What Benedict does promise is that we will be well disposed towards the will of God, attuned to the presence of God and just beginning to understand the power of God in our lives.  Why?  Because the simplicity of the Benedictine way of life gentles us into the arms of God.  Benedictine balance makes a wholesome journey possible.  The Benedictine way of life can be profoundly life altering.  If you will let it.
©Jamie Miller, Obl OSB 2019
Jamie is an Oblate of the Benedictine Community of St. Mark, Camperdown Victoria

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