Preferring Nothing to Christ

GOSPEL

‘Let us get up then, for the Scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arouse from sleep. Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God.’
(Prologue, Rule of St Benedict)

For St Benedict, Scripture is a living and active thing in the life of a monastic. He uses a description of Scripture which is unique to his writing- ‘light which comes from God’. Some translations say ‘deifying light’. His use of this phrase in the Prologue brings to mind the picture of an appearance of God (theophany): light and thunder from the sky and the voice of God appear in the theophany of Mt Sinai (Exodus 19:16-24).

St Benedict arranges the monastic timetable so that a monastic is guaranteed to be in the presence of this ‘light which comes from God’. The monastic liturgy is composed almost entirely of Scripture. And added to this are the prescribed times for Lectio Divina- the slow reading and pondering of God’s Word. Little by little the monastic learns to listen attentively to God’s voice in the Scriptures. With years of repetition some texts become woven into the heart and mind.

Sr Irene Nowell osb, a Biblical scholar, expresses her sense of the place that Scripture holds in the life of a monastic. She remembers her high school English teacher saying: ‘It’s so nice to be a Benedictine and live with the Psalms every day. They just soak into your bones.’

During her own life in monastery she has found this to be the case:

‘We are charged not to harden our hearts, nor dull our ears, nor close our eyes. We are called to integrate thinking and praying and acting. Scripture is the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. What would our monastic lives be without Scripture? How grateful we must be that God chooses every day to speak to us with our own human words in our own human lives. “The word of God is very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out” (Dt 30:14; cf. Rom 10:7).’

Spend some time today doing a ‘Scriptural brainstorm’. Don’t edit, just see which texts surface for you. Can you see any patterns? How is God speaking through the Scripture that you have stored in your heart?

Luke 9 :28-36

A voice came from the cloud saying,
‘This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.’

Much of the spiritual life involves the following of a fairly ordinary path of joys and challenges, moments of insight and times of darkness. For some there will be a mountain-top experiences. For others there will be the stories of the mountain-top experiences of others. In the story of the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John have a mountain-top experience.

Some commentators suggest that the disciples’ experience of glory is a strengthening for Christ’s impending Passion. Other commentators think that this experience on Tabor might be a resurrection appearance which Luke has mistakenly inserted here. Either way the text presents us with mystery.

I am always drawn to the fact that Jesus took with him those whom tradition considers his closest disciples. Though they didn’t and couldn’t understand what was happening, this mysterious experience would change them and bind them together. In our ordinary lives we too are offered this experience. It’s love which will transfigure us.

I was struck by the centrality of love in this verse from our Lauds hymn this morning:

Transfigured Christ, believed and loved,
In you our only hope has been;
Grant us in your unfailing love
Those things no eye has ever seen.
(Stanbrook Abbey)

How are you called to be transfigured by love today?

‘Clothed then with faith and the performance of good works, let us set out on this way, with the Gospel for our guide, that we may deserve to see him who has called us to his kingdom.‘ (Rule of St Benedict, Prologue)

St Benedict rouses us to action in his Prologue with a call that is almost impossible to ignore. Every Christian is called to live the values of the Gospel. Every Christian is called to find in the stories of Christ and his teachings the inspiration to live as Christ lived. So, what is specific about living the Gospel in monastic life?

Life in the monastery gives our hearing of the Gospel a particular focus. There are texts that stand out and have particular depth because of the way we live. Texts that talk about love, community and dying to self can remind the monastic of the essential values in Benedictine Life. Over the years you come to know some of the texts by heart and this is, in turn, deepens your response. I have found that daily engagement with Scripture, combined with periods of silence, holds me to account in a very particular way.

When we speak of being guided by the Gospel we are speaking fundamentally about good news. We are speaking about a series of events that have changed the world forever.

St Paul gives us a short and clear explanation of what that good news actually is:

Well then, in the first place, I taught you what I had been taught myself, namely that Christ died for our sins, in accordance with the Scriptures: that he was buried: and that he was raised to life on the third day, in accordance with the Scriptures; that he appeared first to Cephas and second to the Twelve.

1 Corinthians 15

If we really believe this message, then we will set out on a path that leads us towards Christ. Our hope is that day by day we will become more like Christ. Christ is our model for our daily living. The text of the Beatitudes is often quoted and often people puzzle over just what it means. All of the values of the Beatitudes are modelled for us in Christ. It has been said that the Beatitudes are not so much a spirituality but a ‘geography’: they tell us ‘where to stand’. We stand with the ‘poor in spirit’, we stand with the ‘gentle’…

How blessed are the poor in spirit: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
Blessed are the gentle: they shall have the earth as inheritance.
Blessed are those who mourn: they shall be comforted.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for uprightness: they shall have their fill.
Blessed are the merciful: they shall have mercy shown them.
Blessed are the pure in heart: they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: they shall be recognised as children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted in the cause of uprightness: the kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
Blessed are you when people abuse you and persecute you and speak all kinds of calumny against you falsely on my account.
Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven; this is how they persecuted the prophets before you.

Matthew 5

When we speak of Gospel values, in any walk of life, we have specific things in mind. Our baptismal call invites us to a life that holds these values as central. Every Christian is called to walk a beatitudinal path.

Where are you most aware of the values of the Beatitudes in your own life?
Where do you see these values in others?
Where do you see these values in yourself?
Are there particular Biblical texts that rouse you to action?

Luke 12:13-21

Scholars tell us that in the time of Jesus 90% of people relied on the agricultural economy for their survival. The well-being of your family depended on the well- being and right use of the land. Many were tenant farmers who lived with the pressure of the landowner’s expectation of the biggest yield possible.

And yet, in our parable today this big yield is not to be celebrated. We are confronted instead with the rich man’s greed. His desire to store this yield is seen as short-sighted. In his master plan of tearing down barns and building bigger he has missed the point of human existence. In the language of the Psalms ‘he has no regard for God.’ His greed has paved the way for the last plan he will ever make. Denis McBride CSSR comments that this rich man dies twice. His first death is his own choosing of self above all else.

The hearers of Luke’s Gospel lived with the expectation that the second coming of Jesus was imminent. Every choice had an implication for that day of judgement. The message is clear: don’t be like the rich man. Parables are intended to shock us and to jolt us. If you are left slightly uncomfortable by this text, then it has done its work. Parables are not gentle stories.

It’s a fairly easy leap from this parable to words about the dangers of amassing wealth, the scandal of inequality and the perils of a consumerist society. These are all important areas. But what if we look inward and ask ourselves ‘What am I willing to tear down in order to build bigger barns?’, ‘What is it that blinds me to my need for God?’

We can expect to be unsettled as we answer these questions. Our ancestors in the faith grappled with these questions too and from this place they sang: ‘O Lord, you have been our refuge from one generation to the next.’

How can you make God your refuge this week?

SEEK

A senior chosen for his skill in winning souls should be appointed to look after them with careful attention. The concern must be whether the novice truly seeks God and whether he shows eagerness for the Work of God, for obedience and for trials. The novice should be clearly told all the hardships and difficulties that will lead him to God.
The Procedure for Receiving Brothers, Ch 58

A person can have a desire to enter a monastery for many different reasons. This desire might have grown since childhood; a quiet, insistent voice that won’t go away. Or sometimes this desire can be prompted by a particular set of circumstances; a chance meeting, a retreat, a book, or a person. Many different experiences can lead a person to enter a monastery, but once there ‘the concern is whether or not the person truly seeks God.’

The Benedictine path offers the opportunity to search for God and to follow the deepest longings of our hearts. This search for meaning in life is something which binds all of humanity, whether they express it in formal religion or not.

Seeking God in a monastic context means being open to God in the Scriptures and liturgy, the Rule of St Benedict, the teaching of your Prioress and the example of your sisters. The monastic path is a particular way of shaping your search for God. For the monastic the search is ‘in this place, with these people.’

St Benedict understands the search for God in a monastic context to involve ‘eagerness for the Work of God, for obedience and for trials.’  Do you have any experience of praying the Divine Office? Praying the Office alone isn’t always easy. Is there anything that you have found helpful over the years?

When St Benedict speaks of ‘eagerness for obedience’ how does this strike you? Can you bring to mind experiences in your life where obedience seems straight forward? Can you bring to mind experiences in your life where obedience is a challenge?

‘eagerness for trials’ can seem a rather difficult idea. St Benedict wants to be quite sure that a person is serious about their desire for monastic life. How do you hear St Benedict’s words? How do you respond when trials come? Is there anything that you learnt about yourself during the pandemic?

Reflect on your own search for God. What are your hopes and dreams?

SEEK

Seeking his workman in a multitude of people, the Lord calls out to him and lifts his voice again: Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days? What, dear brothers, is more delightful than the voice of the Lord calling to us?

Rule of St Benedict, Prologue

For many people their first contact with Benedictine Spirituality is through Esther De Waal’s book, Seeking God. Her title highlights one of the defining characteristics of St Benedict’s Rule. The monastic embarks upon a journey where every action, great or small, is a search for the God who called them into being.

This deep desire to search for God is something which God has planted within each one of us. For St Benedict this search and longing is a response to God who has sought us first. In the Prologue to his Rule, St Benedict uses the imagery of the Lord searching for his workers in the marketplace. I love this imagery.

Sr Aquinata osb comments that the Lord attracts his workers with a question:

I might suppose he asks if someone has good capacities and wants to work hard in his vineyard. So I am surprised at Christ’s question: Who is there who longs for life and desires to see good days? This is very enlightening. God seeks not my achievement, not even my service. No, what God seeks is my person, desiring that I have life, which corresponds to my heart’s desire.

From the outset the Rule of St Benedict is relational. God seeks us out, desiring that we have life. Part of the monastic’s journey is learning to hear that voice and then to take the next step in search of God.

What sense do you have of God having searched for you and called out to you in the market place of your life?

How have you responded?

LISTEN

‘Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions,
and attend to them with the ear of your heart.‘

St Benedict’s words are an invitation to intentional discipleship, an invitation to follow on a path that has been trodden for centuries. Listening with the ear of the heart is no small matter. It can challenge you at your very core. Sr Clare Condon, an Australian Good Samaritan Sister, comments:

To listen with the heart doesn’t come easily. It is a difficult and challenging journey. I need to empty my heart of my own agenda, of all that clutters my life and my survival: to empty my heart of my own assumptions and prejudices; to empty my mind of all the preconceived answers and solutions I might conjure up. This is a place of inner openness to receive the other, the word, whether that be the Word of Scripture, the word of a confrere, the cry of despair, or the hope of forgiveness and reconciliation. That inner openness is what the desert fathers and mothers called “purity of heart”.

Being open to what God has to say doesn’t happen overnight for the monastic. Those first years of formation are an intense time of adapting and sifting of all the things you are hearing. You learn, perhaps for the first time, the particular cadence of your own inner dialogue. You learn to listen for God’s voice in your sisters and your superior. Your day is shaped by the times of communal prayer and there you listen to the voice of the Church at prayer. In the psalmody and the Scriptures you listen to the story of our salvation being told over and over again. Few things are familiar. You become acutely aware of what you hear and how it is said.

St Benedict’s invitation to listen with the ear of the heart is every bit as relevant for you as it is for the monastic.

Look back over your week.
When are you aware of having listened intently?
How did God speak to you?

Will you do anything differently next week?

LISTEN

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.

The opening sentences of the Rule of St Benedict invite us to begin a journey that has been made by thousands of men and women over the centuries. Like an overture giving the listener a taste of the main musical motifs of a work, St Benedict lays out the key themes in his vision of monastic life.

We begin the Rule with an invitation to be open in every sense of the word. We are invited to open the ear of our hearts and to listen at the very core of our being to St Benedict’s teaching. Every sentence is crafted in love.

St Benedict hopes that his words will find a home in us. He hopes that his vision will so inspire us that we are prompted to action. A stirring in the heart and an action always go together for St Benedict.

At the outset of the monastic journey the most important disposition we can have is one of listening like a disciple.

Use this text for reflection during the next few days:

The Lord has given me a disciple’s tongue. So that I may know how to reply to the wearied he provides me with speech. Each morning he wakes me to hear, to listen like a disciple. (Isaiah 50.4)

How does God speak to you?
What do you hear?

In the final chapter of his Rule, St Benedict invites his monks to ‘keep this little rule that we have written for beginners.’ There’s something gently reassuring about St Benedict’s vision of his Rule being for beginners, a first step on the journey. And yet, as any monastic will tell you, the seventy-three chapters of the Rule, though simple in form, hold a wisdom that you will never fully fathom.

As a newcomer to the monastery you might see the Rule of St Benedict as a list of regulations and focus on all the things that you can and can’t do. There is much more to it than this. The Latin word for Rule, regula, has a range of meanings. It can be used in the sense of a basic principle or guide, it can also mean rod, bar or rail. I’d like to think that St Benedict had all of these in mind when he wrote his ‘Little Rule of Beginners.’ I find it helpful to think of Rule as a trellis, a support to help us grow and flower.

Are there people, books or places that have guided your own life?
What have they taught you?

You can find an online version of the Rule here:

Study the Holy Rule of St. Benedict

This is a very helpful summary of Benedictine Life:

https://countrymonks.org/holy-rule-of-st-benedict

HEARTS

When Jesus speaks to the disciples and tells them that their ‘ hearts will be full of joy’, I wonder how they understood it. John sets this lengthy discourse around the table of their last meal together. They have already shared together the ‘bread of affliction’ and Jesus now asks them to imagine a time when their hearts will be full of joy. I imagine the disciples in a haze that night.

Often when people warn us that something it going to be really hard it can be difficult for us hear them. I have certainly imagined certain situations to be much worse than they actually were. It’s a lot more subtle when people talk to us about our hearts being filled with joy. Real joy is something very personal. Though I have chosen a picture today of a girl jumping, my own experience of joy is much quieter. It has something to do with integration, with all the parts of my life fitting together. It’s not the absence of suffering. It’s more a feeling that joy and suffering can stand side by side.

If Christ is our pattern for life, love and glory, then joy and sorrow will always be woven through this.

How do you hear Christ’s promise?

( John 16:2-23, Friday, Sixth Week of Eastertide)