While it is (barely) still March 21, the feast of the “Passing of St. Benedict” in the Order of Saint Benedict, we present the homily by Abbot John Klassen, OSB, abbot of Saint John’s Abbey, from today’s Mass. The abbot makes reference to the Rule of the Master, an earlier monastic rule which St. Benedict drew on and adapted in composing his own Rule for Monasteries in the 6th century.
Saint Benedict is routinely called the “father of western monasticism.” While the monastic movement had been in place for at least 250 years before Benedict writes the Rule, many consider his contribution to be fundamental. I wish to take this opportunity to simply point to some of the things that make the Rule so special.
Benedict reduces the Rule of the Master by two-thirds. Consider the following passage from RM 61: “If you are invited by a monk in the name of charity, and are going to eat with him, accept – provided it is not Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday. If it is one of these three days, refuse. If he presses you, accept for the sake of charity. If you are invited by one not a monk, and it is Wednesday, Friday, or Saturday, you must refuse. If he presses you, and goes on pressing you, you must go on refusing. But if he adjures you in the name of God, then accept, to show that you love the Lord… If the journey is long, and food is necessary, you can accept a layman’s invitation on condition that you promise to eat with him, but not before 3 PM. (RM 61.5-15) As you can see, the Master gets lost in detail, thinking that he has to specify every situation. All of this hits the cutting room floor with Benedict.
The Master is one suspicious man. Guests are to be distrusted because who knows what their real purpose is. At night they are to be locked into their room lest they roam about the monastery in order to steal. They are not to stay longer than a few days because surely they are a bunch of freeloaders anyway. For Benedict, guests are to be received as Christ. Their feet should be washed, they should receive a sign of peace, and the divine law is to be read.
The Master likewise displays a nasty suspicion of those who are sick. His default position is that they are fakers and frauds: “Brothers who say they are sick… At meals they should receive only juice, eggs, and warm water, which the really sick can hardly get down…
So if they are malingering, they will at least be driven to rise from bed… Let him at least go into the oratory with the brothers at the usual time. And if he cannot stand, let him chant the Psalms lying on the mat as if at prayer. Let the brother standing next to him keep an eye on him so he does not go to sleep… If he will not work, he should also receive less to eat. When someone claims he is unfit to work, from this one must assume that he also cannot eat.” RM 69.1-2, 9-11,17) By contrast, Benedict, following the Gospels, teaches that the sick are to be treated as Christ himself, given a person and a place for care.
Finally, compared to Saint Augustine or the Master, Benedict has a positive anthropology. Every moment of every day is a time for the Spirit to reach into our hearts and transform them, bit by bit. So the psalm verse, “If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.” Benedict is confident that living the Gospel and following the Rule will be fruitful, already in this life.
He is convinced that living in community is graced and that we can derive the human and spiritual support to respond positively to God’s Spirit. Community life is a rich broth medium where we can be supported as we appropriate our gifts and develop them, where we are nourished each day at prayer and Eucharist.
I love the fact that this feast is perfectly placed at the beginning of spring, with its warmth, new growth, and the renewal of life. Today we rejoice in the great gift that Benedict’s Rule is to us, to the Church, and to the culture. We ask for the grace to abandon everything that blocks us from being able to embrace this life with our whole energy. We want to let go of every hesitation, every doubt, every excuse for not giving ourselves completely to Christ. We want to say with Peter, “Lord, we have given up everything in order to follow you…” We are confident that we will be blessed beyond measure.
Abbot John Klassen, OSB
March 21, 2011
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