For those who think spirituality is about a woolly kind of feel-good experience, the Rule of Benedict will proved interesting reading.
Waaijman, in his work on Spirituality, describes Benedictine spirituality as follows:
The Benedictine community is meant for those who desire to search for God. They form and live in a place where they can experience God’s presence. They experience the divine presence especially in liturgy with its communal worship. This worship is about awe of God. The other fundamental aspect is that the abbot represents Christ and mediates God’s will.
But God is also present in those who visit the community, in the sick and the young people. Obedience is an important characteristic of Benedictine spirituality. Obedience and discipline are focused on “tasting” God. The communal life also counters selfishness, wants to inspire members to respect each other and intends to lead the soul to God.
There are for this purpose also the spiritual exercises of prayer, fasting and lectio divina which are done in order to be receptive for God’s presence. One is purified by God’s presence. This purity means that one is filled with awe of God in silence, prayer, obedience and the study of Scripture. But purity also comprises a contrite, humble heart which sheds tears, but which is also filled with a deep spiritual joy and peace.
Everything one does is ultimately about loving God and others.
This is a profound portrait of Benedictine spirituality. But these beautiful remarks are linked with a tough, hard spirituality of real life. There is nothing woolly about the contents of the Rule and what it requires of the members of the community.
Some parts of the Rule are extreme. They seem strange, even weird in a modern context, because they stem from an older context in which society was much rougher, even primitive.
The Rule has practical and concrete prescriptions. Some of them even seem cruel. The member who transgressed, we read, must be excluded. No one should have contact or speak with the person. He should work on his own, persisting in confessing his transgressions, receiving meals on order of the abbot only, should not be greeted with a benediction and his meals should not be blessed. There are also prescriptions abot corporal punishment of children and prohibition of hitting a fellow member without permission.
Such prescriptions are often debated. But one should understand them as part of the time in which the Rule originated. And one should also understand the deeper spiritual intention of the concrete prescriptions.
Take, for example, the prescription that a member of the community should be friendly, without laughter and should talk humbly. Should one never laugh then? The answer is clear. The problem is not humor, but the jeering laughter of rejection and humiliation. See for this, for example, the discussion at: http://thewingedman.wordpress.com/2006/10/09/living-a-lay-monasticism-further-thoughts-on-humility-and-the-rule-of-benedict/. In this sense it is a rule of special significance in our judgmental and self-righteous societies.
I can imagine how rewarding it would be to reflect on the Rule, now 1500 years old, and spell out in what ways it is still relevant for our spiritual journey today.
The rules are strict and demanding. They spell out a spiritual journey in which a lukewarm, comfortable lifestyle has no place. There is no sentimentality here. Purity, we learn, is not a matter of sweet words, good intentions and exterior piety. It requires dedication, sacrifice, humility, effort.
One of the popular definitions of spirituality is that it is about faith experienced. The experience of faith in a Benedictine context is not about fairy tales. It takes one on a challenging, transformative journey which requires dedication and commitment.
History shows how, time and again, the toughness of the Rule was watered down and how, repeatedly, reformers had to bring back communities to discipline and obedience. And yet, we must keep in mind that the Rule should be experienced in a new way in our times. Someone wrote that today the Rule suggests at least three challenges for contemporary Christians:
The Rule asks, first of all, commitment and involvement – something which is tough in our non-committal, uninvolved lifestyle and society.
The Rule also asks patience in the process of sanctification: to keep on pursuing, every day, the small changes which we seek in our lives. To live a quiet life of peace, to work attentively – even, for example, when we peel potatoes.
It also asks obedience, which is not servile subjection to others, but which means to listen, to hear the other, to be open for the one who is talking to me, to be aware of the other.
We live in a restless society in which chaos often overwhelms us or dictates our lives, where we are not committed to our promises and where integrity has little meaning. We care not much about what we do during the week. Our work is a burden. The TGIF-syndrome runs our lives.
Already from this perspective, commitment, the desire for a mature, holier lifestyle and obedience are invaluable. This is the face of faith experience in the Benedictine sense of the word.
There is nothing woolly about this.
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