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Volume 32, Number 1 |
Richardton, ND 58652 |
January 2004 |
Who Is This St. Benedict?
A Homily for July 11, 2003
by Boniface Muggli, O.S.B.
Who is this Saint Benedict, and why should we celebrate him? Benedict is a true monk, little known, and content to be so, because he focused on the truly important, on what he himself called "seeking God" and "the fear of the Lord."
We really know very little about Benedict. The stories of the Dialogues of Saint Gregory are fascinating, but how accurate are they? The one thing we really know and celebrate about Benedict, his Rule, the Dialogues dismiss in a few brief lines.
The Rule and its spirit are what we really have of Benedict, what we hear from him and celebrate every day in our schedule and our habits, in our prayer and our work, in our awareness of God and our mindfulness to all we do. And that Rule tells us a lot about the real Benedict. He took a harsh, paranoid, even barely Christian Rule, the Rule of the Master, and edited it into a Rule full of the spirit of trust and hope, full of balance and uncommon sense. It's hard enough to edit a document well, harder still to do it well enough to change its spirit. Benedict does it marvelously well, keeping what fits, getting rid or replacing almost everything that does not fit the God he knows and seeks.
And what does that tell us of Benedict? Who was this founder we celebrate? He was one who cut to the heart of things, who focused on what is important. He told us what makes a monk: seeking God, the constant awareness that is "the fear of the Lord." The rest really matters only as far as it supports that quest, by removing distractions and distress from the community, by freeing us from any need to wander about looking for our daily needs. He taught us to do all things with careful attention and in the presence of God, whether we are mopping floors, or throwing pottery, giving tours or keeping the Abbey finances in order. All things are worth doing attentively and well, for the glory of God and for the sake of one another.
Benedict was one who trusted God, who allowed the Spirit room to guide others. He did not need to control everything, but said, "If anyone can order the cycle of Psalms better, let him do so. Only, these are the principles to follow. . . ." That shows a deep trust, not in human nature, but in God's nature, trust that God will not let us go astray for long, that having tasted God enough to come and seek Him in the monastic life, we will be satisfied in the end with nothing less than God.
Benedict is a person of stern gentleness, one who builds for perseverance. He does not rely on what is harsh and burdensome to change us, because he knows that we cannot carry such efforts for long, no matter how deep our fervor. Instead he guides us gently, so we can continue and celebrate his guidance, whether for a year, or ten or twenty five, or fifty or more. Each day we are here, each Jubilee is a celebration of Benedict.
And Benedict is one who allows others to use their gifts also. He did not rule on every detail, nor did he foresee every question that might arise down the centuries. It never seems to have crossed his mind that monasteries might benefit from banding together in congregations or that regular visitations might help keep the monastic life from going astray. We are grateful for all he did give us, such as the novitiate as an extended time of formation and testing in perseverance, or the various officials such as cellarer, porter, infirmarian, or particularly the good zeal of love that leads us to God, and all the rest. But we are even more grateful that he allows us to build on such sturdy foundations.
And so we celebrate this Benedict. We call him our founder, although when you set out all the details of his Rule, how many do we still keep? As many as one tenth? I doubt it. But the spirit of the Rule has persisted, and still guides us today. And that is what we celebrate in the end: Benedict as one filled with the Spirit, one who let that Spirit speak through him, who taught us to recognize and respond to that Spirit as well. Truly Benedict is our founder, for he formed us, formed the community that we still live in, often grown to the point that it sends out daughter houses elsewhere, often fallen away and as often renewed in that same Spirit. And that is how we know and celebrate Benedict. We know him in our hearts, in every monastic moment of every day, for he still lives in the Spirit in our midst.
Fr. Raymond speaks with a visitor in the Information Center. The Center is busy in the summer, quiet in the winter, but always the nerve center of the Abbey.
