Humility Step 8

Three times each year we read through the Rule as a community; three times a year we read through everyone's favorite chapter: On Humility (RB 7).

Yesterday's eighth step reads as follows:
"The eighth step of humility is that a monk does only what is endorsed by the common rule of the monastery and the example set by his superiors. [my emphasis]"

Elsewhere in the Rule, Saint Benedict writes "This Rule is only a beginning of perfection [RB 73]." Indeed, any rule or law can only be a beginning. The law cannot make us righteous; on the other hand, we do not abolish the law by insisting that we go beyond it. Rather, "love fulfills the law," to use St. Paul's phrase.

Following the letter of the Rule can become self-justifiying. St. Bernard, in his Steps of Pride points out that the beginnings of pride come when we watch other brothers in order to compare ourselves--favorably--with their observance. Fr. Thomas Keating makes a similar observation in the opening chapters of Invitation to Love, where he relates his own experience as a novice of encountering someone who had more zeal for monastic observance.

In the eighth step of humility, we are bidden not merely to observe the rule in all its particulars--I mean to insist that this is necessary--but above the letter of the law is its spirit embodied by the seniors of the community, who understand that the Rule was written to serve monks; monks do not serve the Rule. This is much more difficult than it sounds because it requires us to engage in a relationship. Often times younger monks look critically at seniors, who seem on their judgment to have 'less zeal'. In fact, the zeal that the seniors have is often one that has been tempered and channeled by the demands of long term loving relationships. And so the Rule might get bent a bit, but this is the genius of Benedict's Rule: it bends but does not break, and, like a good abbot, adapts itself to all kinds of characters within the monastery.

Choir as an image of monastic life, part 1

[Chapter talk of May 10, 2007; Prior's note: Mr. Kevin Allen is our choral instructor, who spends an hour with us once every two weeks.]

I appreciate everyone’s hard work at choir practices on Wednesdays. I’ve been reflecting on the exercises and comments given to us by Kevin yesterday, in light of our lives together in community. It is significant that he kept saying the word ‘listen’ over and over again at the end of rehearsal. I wonder how many of us were aware that this is exactly the word that should characterize our Benedictine spirituality. The importance of this was what he used as a contrast to listening and what inhibited our listening, namely: an over-reliance on the literal interpretation of the words and notes on the page, and lack of good physical technique.

In the first case, I in no way am saying that rules and law are unimportant in our life. These guide us in the true path of charity and virtue. However, there is always a danger in monastic life and in the Church generally to make use of the law as a measuring stick to make sure that I am ‘doing things right’, and therefore in God's favor (more accurately, I am in my own favor in such a case). This goes further and extends to measuring whether my brothers are doing things correctly. You will notice that in the past two rehearsals, Kevin has avoided saying anything about what the correct tempo is, other than some vague ideas about the length and direction of phrasing. Rather, what he has insisted on is that we follow the brother next to us and the brother across the room and watch the cantor. Thus it is not so much a matter of being correct as it is being with my brothers. In other words, it is not a matter of the letter of the law but of the Holy Spirit of love and brotherhood. So it should be in all our observances, and I again urge mutual obedience in the life, not in such a way as to overturn the law, but so as to give the law its inner life and joy.

I will say a word about technique tomorrow.