Rule of St. Benedict ~ for beginners

HERE BEGINNETH THE PROLOGUE TO A RULE FOR MONASTERIES

"Hearken continually within thine heart, O son, giving attentive ear to the precepts of thy master. Understand with willing mind and effectually fulfil thy holy father’s admonition; that thou mayest return, by the labour of obedience, to Him from Whom, by the idleness of disobedience, thou hadst withdrawn. To this end I now address a word of exhortation to thee, whosoever thou art, who, renouncing thine own will and taking up the bright and all-conquering weapons of obedience, dost enter upon the service of thy true king, Christ the Lord."

St. Benedict starts his Rule off as a welcome to comers to the monastery. 

We are looking forward to welcoming a new Postulant on Monday. 

So lets give the Lord the ear of thine heart, and listen to what is calling us to for the greater glory of His Kingdom. 

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The text is in the public domain.

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E~ is for ....

Exercises of the Rule

Do I appreciate the sanctifying effect of the exercises of the Rule?

Is my interest in active works balanced by my fidelity to spiritual exercises?

Do I make an honest effort to resist drowsiness during prayer?

Spiritual Gem Selections Grand Central Annex New York, N.Y.

Rule of St. Benedict Prologue 1-3

St. Benedict statue in Mother Mary Anne's office

Hearken continually within thine heart, O son, giving attentive ear to the precepts of thy master. Understand with willing mind and effectually fulfill thy holy father’s admonition; that thou mayest return, by the labour of obedience, to Him from Whom, by the idleness of disobedience, thou hadst withdrawn. To this end I now address a word of exhortation to thee, whosoever thou art, who, renouncing thine own will and taking up the bright and all-conquering weapons of obedience, dost enter upon the service of thy true king, Christ the Lord.



Reflection:
Hearken continually within thine heart, ( Listen carefully)  giving attentive ear to the precepts of thy master.
The master, is one who has truly lived the monastic life (or what ever vocational you are called to) and can by instruction and example, form the hearts of the new comers.
We all need to be constantly forming our hearts into Christ's heart.
We need time to stop and reflect on how God is instructing us in the vocation that we are called to fulfill.



The Rule of St. Benedict, translated into English. A Pax Book, preface by W.K. Lowther Clarke (London: S.P.C.K., 1931).

Copyright information: The text is in the public domain.
Fair use statement:
This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.

Concluding the Retreat

Suscipe me Domine 

This morning at Holy Mass we renew our profession, re-commiting ourselves to our promises of stability, conversion to a monastic manner of life and obedience that we each made on the day of our profession.

That's why retreat is so important.  Sometimes we can get so busy with the needs and cares of daily life, that we can forget that first fervor, that first love that initially brought each of us to the monastery.

We all need to take time to step aside and let God renew us.  We hope that these reflections we have shared with you over the last few days have been a gift in your lives, as these days of retreat have been for all of us.  Together, let us pray the verse that we will sing at Mass, echoing that first time we sang it on our profession day:

Suscipe me Domine secundum eloquium tuum et vivam: 

Et non confundas me ab exspectatione mea.

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto

Sicut erat in principio,

et nunc et semper,

et in saecula saeculorum.  Amen.

(If you uphold me by your promise, I shall live;

let my hopes not be in vain [Psalm 119:116]. 

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. 

As it was in the beginning,

is now and will be forever.  Amen.)

Eighth Day of Retreat

Preferring Nothing Whatever to Christ

In Chapter 72 of his Rule, St. Benedict talks about the good zeal that he desires his monks to have that leads to God and everlasting life.  This zeal just as Webster defines does mean eagerness and ardent interest in pursuit of something:  self-forgetfulness. 

It's the final goal, God and everlasting life, that makes the self-forgetfulness possible.  And it is in looking at Christ, and his cross, where we have our greatest example. 

And it is in the cross that we find our consolation, our encouragement to seek the narrow way and foster fervent love.  Boniface Wimmer, in writing to the monks who would come with him from Germany to make the first foundation of Benedictine monks in the United States could only promise them the cross.  Christ promised the same thing to his apostles and disciples.  Can we expect any different?

Lord

Jesus

Christ,

give me

an ardent love of your cross.

May it be my consolation and my hope.

May it lead me where I would not chose

to go, so that I

may follow in

your footsteps,

your paths,

your ways,

not my own.

May it give

me courage

in difficulties

and strength

in weakness.

Amen.

Seventh Day of Retreat

Uniting Ourselves to the Cross

At the heart of the Christian life stands the cross.  You can't go around it.  It's present in everyone's life:  from the greatest saint to the greatest sinner.  The difference is the saint learns to embrace it and the sinner always tries to avoid it.

At the end of Chapter 7 (on Humility), St. Benedict tells us

Now, therefore, after ascending all these steps of humility, the monk will quickly arrive at that perfect love of God which casts out fear (1 John 4:18).  Through this love, all that he once performed with dread, he will now begin to observe without effort, as though naturally, from habit, no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit and delight in virtue.  All this the Lord will by the Holy Spirit graciously manifest in his workman now cleansed of vices and sins.  (RB 7:67-70)

It is love that makes a saint out of sinner:  love of Christ, and love of his cross.  Not the love that our society so strongly calls love, when it's lust.  Not the "love" we have for our car, or our favorite dessert.  No, it's the self-sacrificing love mirrored so beautifully by Christ on his cross.  A love so great that He was willing to offer himself so that we could be re-united to Him.

It's not an easy love.  It calls for a lot of death to self.  A lot of stumbles, and backslides.  A lot of picking yourself up and beginning again.  A lot of surrendering yourself, only to have to do it again and again because our human nature is not good at letting go.

Is it worth it?  Yes!  Is HE worth it?  Absolutely, positively, YES!

Lord, I desire your cross

and at the same time I run from it.

I want to give myself to You,

but keep pulling little bits and pieces back.

Lord, help me to embrace the crosses in my life,

and help me to be able to

surrender my life fully into your hands.

Please, Lord,

help me...

Amen.

Sixth Day of Retreat

The Work of God

Coming together six times a day to chant is what our life at the monastery is truly about.  Our vocation, our ministry, if you will, is to sing the praises of God. 

The Liturgy of the Hours, the prayer of the Church, is for all peoples -- not just monks and nuns in monasteries.  The psalms take us through a whole gammit of emotions, not just what we are feeling at the moment.  The psalms help us call to mind God's faithfulness and our sinfulness, God's glory and our lowliness. 

In other words, The Liturgy of the Hours necessarily puts those words on our lips that we find difficult to express -- be it thankfulness and praise when we are going through a particularly difficult struggle with something to an acknowledgement of our sinfulness in the midst of a surge of pride. 

Most of all, The Liturgy of the Hours helps us pass through the Church year with a greater appreciation to God for all that He has done for us. 

Lord,

You search me and You know me.

Thank you for allowing me,

an unworthy sinner,

the grace to sing your praises

in the name of the Church.

Help me to be mindful

of my brothers and sisters

who I uplift in my prayer.

Amen.

Fifth Day of Retreat

Lectio Divina

Interestingly enough, St. Benedict talks about lectio divina, or prayerful reading, in Chapter 48, The Daily Manual Labor.  The monks day was punctuated with The Liturgy of the Hours; lectio divina provided a means for the prayer that was begun in the oratory to continue and the fruit that came out of the time spent in lectio divina could then be further mulled over during times of work -- thus sanctifying the entire day.

Too often we confuse lectio divina with spiritual reading.  Both are important, but they are distinctively different.  The best book used for lectio divina is the Bible, Old Testament or New.  Our aim is to allow God's Word to transform our hearts.

Spiritual reading encompasses many different categories, from books on the saints, writings of the saints, theology, Christology, church history, etc., and while the text we read impacts us, can change us, it doesn't put us in touch with God's own Word.  Only Sacred Scripture can do that.

Lord,

let your Word come alive for me,

as I sit with Sacred Scripture. 

Let it transform my heart and mind,

may I hear your still small voice

leading me into deeper union with You.

Amen.

Fourth Day of Retreat

Using the Tools - Part II

The first tools dealt with duties toward those around us; the second half deal with duties toward the self.  One might wonder why this is so, but then again the Greatest Commandment was to "love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, all you mind, all your soul and all your strength;" and Christ told us the second is like it, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  With that admonition from Christ in mind, it only makes sense that the second half of St. Benedict's tools of good works deal with the self.

And this part of the list does not seem like dos and don'ts, but rather challenges on how to live an authentic Christian life.  Giving over selfwill and allowing God to be God and admitting and claiming him as our King.  St. Teresa of Avila whenever she referred to God would call him her Majesty. 

While that sounds crazy, unheard of, stupid perhaps to our democratic sensitivities, until we claim Jesus as our Lord and King, our Master, we cannot fully surrender to Him working in our lives.  And that is what the second part of the tools is about.  And there's even a line, Verse 74 to be exact, to console us when we fall and need to pick ourselves up:  never lose hope in God's mercy. 

Lord, you know my heart.

You know my good intentions,

and You also know my sinful folly.

Fill my heart with so great a love for You,

that the narrow and rugged path that I am on,

widens in the delight of that love.

Help me to yearn for You

with all my heart,

all my soul,

all my mind, and

all my strength.

And Lord,

help me to love myself,

with the same love

with which You love me.

Amen.

Third Day of Retreat

Using the Tools - Part I

Chapter 4 of the Rule of Our Holy Father Benedict lists a number of "tools" to help us live a more Gospel-centered/God-centered life.  Tools are only a help though, if we put them to use.

The first tools that St. Benedict lists have to do with the Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments, the Corporal Works of Mercy, rounded out with other admonitions on how to live with/get along with others.  Some might call it a simple list of dos and don'ts.  Unfortunately, most of us have a problem with someone else suggesting how we are supposed to live -- God, at times, included. 

Monastic life is a call to live the Christian life in a radical way.  It calls us to love deeply, be extravant in sharing ourselves, to hold nothing back -- to give our all. 

And like others, we do fall.  Someone recently shared a story about a monastery in a city where everyone one wondered want on inside.  As so one day one of the monks was out, and the people who encountered him on the street wondered if they dared ask.  Finally someone got up the courage and approached the monk and inquired, "What's life like in the monastery?"  His reply?  "We fall down, and we get up.  We fall down, and we get up.  We fall down, and we get up."

But that's the Christian life.  And that's why St. Benedict in his Rule, provided his monks with these first set of tools.  So that we can learn how to live with one another better, how to love more generously, how to share ourselves.

Lord, You search me and you know. 

You know when I stand and when I fall. 

Help me to remember that You are there

to help me to rise up when I stumble. 

Help me with your grace

so that I may love as You love,

see as You see,

give as You give,

live and You live. 

Lord, make me a mirror of Yourself.

Second Day of Retreat

Silence

When one thinks of the word silence, normally the first thought is the absence of physical sound.  Yet, when we learn about silence in Chapter 6 of the Rule of St. Benedict, he is referring to refraining from speech -- even good, edifying conversation.

Why the emphasis on silence, you might ask?  It is in silence that one is able to enter into deep communion with God.  Prayer becomes wordless.  It is an act of love.

Yet, on the other hand, absence of speech is at times in hurtful when it is done in giving "the cold shoulder" to someone who knowingly or unknowingly hurt or offended us, i.e. we act unloving.

We should desire our relationship with God to be one where we are content simply to be with Him in silence.  A good image of this is the older couple who sits quietly beside each other, not needing to chatter, enjoying the beauty of the sunset together.

Lord, may I learn to savor and value silence in my life, not as an absence of noise or speech, but as a means of deeper communion with You.  May I be mindful of the impact of my words, or lack of them, on those around me.  May my speech be an instrument of your love.

First Day of Retreat

Obsculta

 The first word of the Rule of Our Holy Father St. Benedict is listen (obsculta).  If we are to truly listen to another person and more importantly for the voice of the Lord, we need to put aside our own thoughts.

Have you ever heard someone make the comment that someone is a good listener?  What can that mean, but that the other person puts listening (i.e. actually paying attention to what the other person is saying) ahead of what they are going to say next.  They put the other person first.

The same is true with prayer.  In giving our whole attention to listening for God to speak, we put Him first -- not our own agenda of what we would like God to do for "us." 

Prayer is about changing us and changing our hearts, not changing other people or circumstances. 

Lord, so often I let my own thoughts become distractions

when spending time with you.  Help me to become a

better listener to those around me and most especially

of your voice calling to me.  Amen.

The "Ora" of Labora

So often the term ora et labora (prayer and work) and highlighted as the Benedictine motto.  In honor of today's seculary "holy-day", we thought a few thoughts on work appropo!

In recent years we have begun describing our work as our love made manifest.  Our love for Christ, our Divine Spouse, needs a physical manifestation.  Just as husbands and wives have a physical expression of their love and care for each other in the time they spend taking care of each other through the various "jobs" they do around the house -- from cooking to laundry, lawn care and taking out the garbage, just to name a few -- so, too, does our care get expressed in the work we do here the monastery.

It is more than that as well.  In his letter, St. James proclaims I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works (2:18).  For St. James, work was not an end in itself, but rather a vehicle that allowed him express his faith.  So, too, with prayer.  Work becomes prayer when the disposition of one's heart is right:  one needs to do it joyfully, generously -- and with a desire to offer it wholly to God.

And as one can see clearly in the Latin text, the last three letters of labora spell ora -- God certainly had a hand in that!

Humility as Truth, Part IV

We Are Stalled Human Beings

None of us has had an uninterrutped journey through life.  We have all had bad experiences which have led us astray, slowed us down, brought us to a halg, or maybe even sent us tumbling backwards.  There have been difficulties, mistakes, inconsistencies.  Sometimes these are caused by others.  Sometimes they are aided and abetted by ourselves.  As a result, we adults carry through life a measure of woundedness, although we are rarely conscious of its full magnitude.  the fact is that we have not progressed to the extent of our innate potentialities.  Many past events continue to have a permanent effect on our lives.  We also bear the burden of shame at our own imcompleteness.  Each one of us has fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23).

Humility involves the acceptance of the liabilities of our personal history as reality.  We do not have to approve what others have done to us or the ugliness that we have embraced and the laziness that has left us stagnant.  It is a question of recognizing the truth of our present situation as deriving from the past and beginning anew.  Pride denies the past has passed.  It ignores present possibilities by constantly reliving former experiences in an effort to correct what is beyong our power to change.  It is the kind of perfectionism that cannot accept the approximativeness of most human life...  Trying to tinker with the past is an exercise in bad faith.  We use former unfairness, for example, as an excuse to refuse the demands of the present.  Those who consider themselves victims are often notoriously insensitive to the hurt they inflict on others...

If we do not accept the unreality of some of our ideals, it may be that disappointment will make us unwilling to attempt anything bold.  Challenges are unwelcome because each choice we make narrows the possibilities for the future...  We will never interact creatively with the present unless we accept that whatever we do will involve leaving aside alternatives and being satisfied with something that may well be imperfect.

from A Guide to Living in the Truth:  Saint Benedict's Teaching on Humility

by Michael Casey

Humility as Truth, Part III

We Are Sinners

...Sinfulness is not the whole truth about the human condition, but it is certainly a reality.  Nobody wants to admit bing a sinner, so must of us have to make a conscious effort to discover the reality of sin that is hidden beneath the surface of our well-meaning lives.  Otherwise we quickly slide into delusion.

Here it is important to realize that weare speaking of sin more as a theological reality and less as the experience of personal guilt.  WE are not identifying humanity or human weakness with sin.  Instinctual thoughts and desires, no matter how disreputable, are not sin.  Sin is the free preference for evil over goodness.  Itis the absurd choice we humans often make for what is intrinsically of less value.  Sin is the rejection of the human tendancy to see the good, the beautiful, and the true.  Sin is, fundamentally, the denial of our nature.

Sin concerns especially the breaking of relationships.  When we sin against God, it is not mearely a violation of the divine law, but it is a turning away  from the God who seeks us and call us to fuller life.  Like the Prodigal Son, we turn away from the warmth of paternal love and lose ourselves in searching for oblivion.  It is not a cosmic disaster on a grand scale, but simply a puzzle of personal tragedy.  No wonder God regards our aberation, as Julian of Norwich says, "more with pity than with blame."

Humility as Truth, Part II

We Are Creatures

The recognition of our earthly nature leads us to affirm that our fundamental relationship with God is one of dependence.  We are not the source of our own being:  our race exists only because we receive life from another.  However great the divine condenscension, we are never on a par with God.  Truth in prayer, worship, and service of God is characterized by the realization that all that we have comes from God; we have nothing to contribute to the relationship but our needs.  Our deepest spiritual experience is to feel utterly dependent on God and to want to submit ourselves to the divine will.  The mystics talk about a point at which the soul becomes absorbed in God and seems no longer to have an automomous existence.  God creates.  God sustains us in being.  Like children who buy Christmas gifts for their parents with money received from them, we can give nothing to God that has not first been God's gift...

The truth is that our being is incomplete without God.  To seek God is, therefore, a fundamental tendamental tendency of our nature.  "You have made us for yourself and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."  We cannot attain human fulfillment except in relationship with God.  There is a space in us that can be filled by only God.  There is a certain spiritual potentiality that never comes alive if we are locked in a world of self-sufficiency.  "Look to God that you may become radiant" (Ps. 34:5).

from A Guide to Living in the Truth:  Saint Benedict's Teaching on Humility

by Michael Casey

Humility As Truth, Part I

We Are Not Divine

In the Garden of Eden the first temptation succeeded because it promised that we should become gods.  This desire is the essence of pride.  We want to deny our earthly origins with their consequences of vulnerability, weakness, labor, social constraint, and limitation.  We refuse to be satisfied with a medium level of gratification.  We demand a high level of pleasure, total freedom, power, a good reputation and a complete absence of irritants.  And we want them now.  Whatever gnaws away at our capicity to be happy in the restricted possibilities normal human life offers may be labeled as the opposite of humility, that is "pride."  We demand from others what they cannot possibly give us.  We are resentful that they do not give us all that we want.  Humility, on the other hand, leads us to find contentment in the ordinary, obscure, and laborious occupations that constitute our daily existence.

from A Guide to Living in the Truth:  Saint Benedict's Teaching on Humility

by Michael Casey

Stability of Heart

The spiritual value of stability lies in commitment.  Like everything else in monastic life, stability works best when it is wholehearted, without escape hatches or preserves of autonomy.  Having committed boht spiritual and material fate to a particular community, a Benedictine has a stake in keeping the community focused on what they are meant to be about.  She must be faithful to the work of God, lectio divina, personal prayer.  She has committed herself to being present to her sisters in the monastery.  She works in support of their life together.  She attends chapters and community meetings, welcomes guests and newcomers to the community.  She helps to care for those who are ill or in distress, and helps to bury the dead.  She works at seeing Christ in the people with whom she lives.  Where better to find him?

from Prayer and Community:  The Benedictine Tradition

by Columba Stewart, OSB

One in Christ

For Benedict, everything is centered in this loving of Christ that has become our own loving and which establishes our identity as true Christians.  He writes, "Your way of acting must be different from the world's way; the love of Christ must come before all else" (Rule of St. Benedict, 4:20-21).  In other words, it is precisely inthe way that Christ's loving has become the center of our being that we are distinguieshed from the world, for all those who have not know or accepted Christ in faith.  Ultimately, it is the Father's love that finds expresssion in Christ and in all those who have come to know and appropriate that love because they are one with Christ.

from Cherish Christ Above All:  The Bible in the Rule of St. Benedict

by Demetrius Dumm, OSB

Owning Up to Our Faults

St. Benedict realized that in owning up to our faults, we would be freed from the chains that bound us – the chains of our guilt.  Already asking ourselves the question, “Did anyone see that?”, already shows our embarrassment.  We want others to think well of us.  We want their admiration and applause.   We do not want their disdain.  We do not want them to think less of us. 

Could it be, though, that by owning up to our fault, especially at those times when it is severe, could realistically help someone else over come their own timidity and seek the forgiveness and healing that they need and desire?  Could it be that our example of admitting we are wrong and doing what it takes to set things right actually be the first part of the grace that our Heavenly Father has in store for us.

Growth in the spiritual life does not come with leaps and bounds.  It usually comes by falling down and picking oneself up again.  It comes by being broken open so that there is room for the Spirit to enter into our lives and work. 

Growth also means being patient with ourselves and with those around us who are also on the journey.  We only get to graduate from this school of the Lord’s service when we enter fully into the embrace of our Heavenly Father upon our death.  Until then, we are learning the rugged and difficult path that leads to the high places in the kingdom of heaven. 

Let our prayer be that of Habakkuk:  Yet will I rejoice in the Lord and exult in my saving God.  God, my Lord, is my strength; me makes my feet swift as those of hinds and enables be to go upon the heights (3:19).  Lord, make our feet like those of hinds…