Introducing the Rule to lay people raises certain questions, since it was written for monks -- specifically for cenobites, men who live together under an abbot and take a vow of stability that attaches them to a certain community that lives in some separation from the rest of society. How, then, can the Rule be applied to those not living in a monastic community under an abbot? The difficulty can be resolved if one examines more closely the nature of the Rule and its contents.
When Benedict wrote the Rule in the sixth century, the various religious orders, each with its own charism, did not yet exist in the Church; there were no clearly distinct patterns of religious life. Benedict did not set out to create a way of life different from those that preceded him by emphasizing some particular cult or devotion; rather, he wished to formulate the Christian concepts of prayer, work, community, and ongoing spiritual growth into a workable plan that would help the monk to welcome God's presence into every activity of the day. Not adding anything new to Christian doctrine, Benedict took the spirituality of early Christian times, which was based on Gospel values, and applied it to everyday life in an orderly fashion so that a habitual focus on Christ and the values of the Kingdom might permeate the monk's entire day and all his relationships. It is this spirit of continual refocusing on Christ amidst prayer and work in daily living that characterizes the Rule and gives it its universal applicability. Furthermore, the insights into human nature and the principles which regulate human relationships, which appear throughout the Rule, remain the same for both monks and lay people, in both the sixth century and the twentieth century.
Thus lay people and secular clergy who seek to live according to the Rule are not asked to "add" anything new to their understanding of Christian life and worship but to be enlightened more fully how to "prefer nothing to Christ" and to practice this fundamental principle in all their undertakings, "whether in affairs of Church, business, government, or any other area of life" (CE, p. 4). Br. Benet Tvedten, O.S.B., comments, "The Rule is centered on Christ and the Christian life. The ordinary Christian can accept this rule as an aid to living a virtuous life within the Church. The Rule of St. Benedict reminds us of the order we should have in our lives, the priorities, and the discipline" (SK, p. 15).
Many contemporary lay Christians have found great relevance in the Rule as applied to daily life. Esther de Waal, an Anglican lay woman who has been deeply attracted to the Benedictine way since the early 1980's, writes, "It [the Rule] was neither remote nor past nor cerebral, but immediate and relevant, speaking of things that I already half-knew or was struggling to make sense of. . . . Above all, it spoke of a life that was essentially unheroic, much in fact like the life of any ordinary Christian family. . . . The Rule speaks to those who like myself are seeking God in the midst of a busy, often confusing and exhausting daily life" (SG, p.12).
Oblate Norveen Vest likewise observes, "The whole orientation of the Rule is to the principle that God is everywhere, all the time, and thus that every element of our ordinary day is potentially holy. Very few of us believe that and/or act on it. Benedict urges us both so to believe and so to act. It is an enormous challenge, involving life-long response, and yet it is very simple and can be begun this moment. Because the Rule is so 'homely', so oriented to the opportunities of daily life as grist for the mill of Christian consecration, it has a great deal to say which is directly helpful to a Christian lay person, struggling to live the Christian life even in our contemporary secular world" (PC, p. 1).
Brian Taylor, another author, remarks about the Rule that "through the development of attitudes about such ordinary things as money, possessions, time, authority, and food, the monk (and the man and woman 'in the world') is radically transformed by grace" (SEL, p. 2). Furthermore, "in ordering one's life according to a form of spirituality that thousands of people have lived with and found freedom in for fifteen hundred years, one has a better chance of growing in grace than through any lifestyle one could dream up on one's own" (SEL, p. 13).
Before one can begin to read the Rule intelligently and fruitfully, one must understand the type of document it was meant to be. Fr. Terrence Kardong, O.S.B., comments, "A monastic rule is a literary phenomenon in its own right, with its own characteristics and genre. A Christian monastic rule is an attempt to concretize the Gospel demands of Jesus in a given situation and community. Because a monastic rule is an interpretation of the Gospel, we should always ask what Gospel values a given passage is trying to inculcate" (TU, p. 7). Also, the Rule is not principally a matter of "controls or laws or demands. . . . On the contrary, the Rule of Benedict is simply a plan of life, a set of principles" (WD, p. 7). The Latin word for "rule" is regula, which "in the ancient sense meant 'guidepost' or 'railing,' something to hang on to in the dark, something that leads in a given direction, something that points out the road, something that gives us support as we climb. The Rule of Benedict, in other words, is more wisdom than law. The Rule of Benedict is not a list of directives. The Rule of Benedict is a way of life. . . . That's why it can be just as important to lay people as it is to monastics. 'Listen ... whoever you are,' Benedict says in the Prologue to the Rule. Whoever you are" (WD, pp. 7-8). The wisdom of the Rule pertains to all Christians because it arose from the lived experience of St. Benedict and the monastic communities that preceded him.
Esther de Waal asserts that St. Benedict "was happy to take what was good from the existing monastic heritage, to make it his own, and to color it with his own personal experience. . . . The consummate wisdom which it [the Rule] shows could only have emerged from a long and thorough assimilation, not simply in his mind but in his whole being" (SG, p. l8).
How, then, are we today to tap into this practical wisdom and to begin to assimilate its relevant values? We must read it, reflect on it, as lectio divina. Having become aware of the marvelous challenge of the Rule from her personal experience, Norveen Vest could share with us that "the modern reader often finds the Rule hard to understand, even though it emphasizes daily life. That is because it is written within the context of the ancient monastic art of lectio divina, and it needs to be read in that way, if it is to be truly appreciated. Lectio divina literally means 'divine reading', and carries the same double meaning in Latin as in English: what is being read is divine/holy, usually the Scriptures; and how it is being read is with the help of God's Spirit. In order for this 'how' to happen, one slows down radically so as to open up freely. It is the monastic insight that reading, if it be authentic, cannot be undertaken simply with the eyes and the mind. Rather, it must involve the whole person: mind, heart, body and spirit. It is reading not so much for information as for formation, that is, for encounter with the living God in this moment in such a way that one's heart catches fire and one's life is transformed" (PC, p. 1).
Thus the aim of "reading" the Rule (i.e., pondering the verses of the Rule in a slow, prayerful way) is to open ourselves to let God's ever-present grace pervade our hearts and transform us more and more into a holy people, other-Christs, as in the case of reading the Bible. It makes no sense to read the Rule as if it were a novel or a newspaper or a set of directions. One must place oneself in God's presence and be eager to hear God's message and to grow in union with Christ. Such growth is possible because throughout the Rule "St. Benedict points to Christ. It is as simple as that. Christ is the beginning, the way and the end. The Rule continually points beyond itself to Christ Himself, and in this it has allowed, and will continue to allow, men and women in every age to find in what it says depths and levels relevant to their needs and their understanding at any stage on their journey, provided that they are truly seeking God" (SG, p. 23).
According to RB+, the Rule "remains a complete treatment of all the essentials required for cenobitic life [i.e., the life of monks in community]: both the spiritual doctrine and the practical ordering of life are provided in quite a full manner. . . . St. Benedict had the clear vision of a man who instinctively perceives what is important and isolates it from the mass of secondary detail" (p. 91). In its overall structure, the Rule is divided between spiritual doctrine (the Prologue and chapters 1-7) and regulations for community living (chapters 8-73); however, these later chapters also contain much spiritual doctrine amidst the details of organization and good order. The Prologue is an exhortatory sermon in its own right which is "designed to produce a direct and dramatic effect on the hearer" (TU, p. 12). Included among the regulations are sections on the Divine Office (chs. 8-20); on delinquency and punishments (23-30, 43-46); on the acceptance of new members and the order of the community (58-63); on monastic officials (21-22, 64-66); on material goods (31-34); on food and sleep (35-42); on work, prayer, and exterior relationships (47-52); and on guests and related subjects (53-57). Finally, there is an appendix (67-73) which deals largely with fraternal relationships, one of the Rule's special emphases.
The Prologue may be regarded as a stirring invitation to the reader from God Himself to renew one's Christian commitment and to receive true life. Here the Rule "speaks to all of us. Right at the very start . . . its approach is wide open: 'Whoever you may be . . . he that has ears to hear.' A variety of images comes tumbling out as in his excitement St. Benedict addresses his listeners at one moment as recruits for the army, and the next as workmen in God's workshop, then as pilgrims on the road, then as disciples at school. Each of us is to hear the call in different ways. . . . But . . . the message is to be heard now, we must rouse ourselves, shake ourselves out of our apathy. The Rule questions the assumptions by which we live and looks at some of the most basic questions that we must all face. . . . There is no evasion here of the complexity of life, and yet the final paradox is that running the way to God appears modest and manageable while at the same time it is total. These are the demands of extreme simplicity which cost everything" (SG, pp. 28-29).
It is significant that the first word of the Rule is "listen" (in Latin obsculta). Like the bells of a monastery, this summons is meant to make us "conscious over and over again of the frailty of life and the demanding presence of God in the minute by minute circumstances of our lives" (WD, p. 15). Indeed, "listening is what Benedictine spirituality is all about in a culture that watches but very seldom hears" (WD, p. 15).
Thus the Prologue challenges all Christians to be "ready to renounce their own wills and to labor under obedience to seek God alone" (MBO, p. 26). For the Christian, progress in "faith and good works" constitutes success, whereas pride in one's own efforts must be seen as a key temptation that is to be crushed by a continual turning to Christ. Ordaining nothing harsh and burdensome, the Rule nonetheless points out the way to amend evil habits and to grow in Christ's love through moderate discipline. St. Benedict urges all Christians humbly to welcome the radiant light that comes from God, stirring us out of complacency, making us aware of our own sinfulness, and attuning us to the continual outpouring of graces that can heal our defects and make us holy. The monk and the Oblate learn to become good listeners in the ordinary affairs of daily life so that God may lead them on the road to sanctity.
The central values of the Rule appear in RB 4-7. Like the Prologue, these exhortations to Christian living apply largely as they stand, not only to monks but to any committed Christian seeking to grow in obedience, humility, a spirit of silence, trust in God and hope in His mercy, devotion to frequent prayer, death to sin and rising to life in Christ, and love of God with one's whole being. Chapter 4, the "Instruments of Good Works," stands as a treatise on its own and provides the reader with a list of 74 Christian maxims, each of which could be the subject of prolonged meditation; these are "the dimensions of Benedictine life that lead to conversion of heart and breadth of soul and depth of insight and richness of life" (WD, p. 165). The three major values of obedience, silence, and humility pervade the entire Rule. In particular, humility, the subject of the longest chapter of the Rule, "is the virtue upon which Benedict places greatest importance. The beginning of all sanctity is an awareness of our own nothingness and our utter dependence on God" (MBO, p. 39).
It is important to realize that the three key values of RB 5-7 are essentially interrelated as dimensions of a vibrant Christian life. The Latin word for obedience, obaudire, comes from the word audire, to listen, and means "to listen thoroughly." In order to be obedient, that is to listen to and for God's word, one must nurture a certain silence of lips, mind, and heart. In order to obey, one also must be humbly receptive. Humility encourages one to think, "I am not the ultimate source of wisdom; I need to change again and again according to God's direction, which often reveals itself through other fallible human beings." Humility likewise nurtures an eagerness to let God's word transform oneself so that one seeks to be silent and obedient. Silence is not to be soughtfor its own sake but for loving obedience to God, for which we were created; and silence is an outgrowth of humility, since a humble heart knows its insufficiency and becomes silent in readiness to hear. All these virtues are naturally directed to love, since the aim of all virtue is to enable the monk or Oblate to "arrive at that 'perfect love' of God which 'casts out fear' (1 Jn 4:18)" (RB 7:67). Our lives are to become permeated by Christ's own life until our every thought, word, and action become a reflection of Christ's own generous, self-giving, self-sacrificing love.
These chapters form a bridge between the chapters on spiritual doctrine and those on the organization of community life. Perhaps this arrangement reminds us that prayer is the hinge on which depends both our growth in virtue and our charitable functioning in family and community. Although neither monks nor Oblates are expected to heed the detailed formulas for communal prayer specified by St. Benedict, these 13 chapters testify to the importance of community worship for all committed Christians and include the eternally relevant plea "that our minds [be] in harmony with our voices" (RB 19:7) when we pray aloud.
Abbot Parry comments, "The amount of space St. Benedict devotes to organizing the Divine Office is significant of the importance he attached to it. Nor was it merely a matter of long vocal prayer. For the early monks understood prayer to be the principal means for attaining union with God, and union with God was the end of human living and therefore of the monastic organization. It should be noted that while Chs. VIII-XX are all about prayer, the subject recurs again and again in the Rule. It is hardly too much to say that it gives meaning to the whole" (AP, p. xiii).
St. Benedict's allotment of large blocks of time each day for community prayer and lectio divina is aimed at nurturing the monk's continual awareness of God's loving presence, or the "practice of the presence of God." This purpose seems to be revealed in the "practical examples which St. Benedict gives of the times outside those times of formal prayer at which the monk offers that particular happening, that particular person, to God with a brief prayer. . . . This is a re-focusing of our attention on God at specific moments" (SG, p. 151). This goal of total attentiveness to God is a fundamental value to be lived by Oblates. Genuine prayer must overflow into a prayerful life, a God-centered existence; and our authentic daily Christian living is necessarily supported by prayer that opens us to Christ's transforming love. Thus "our prayer reflects the way in which we respond to life itself, and so our prayer can only be as good as the way we live" (SG, p. 151).
Growing in attentiveness to God's presence leads us to realize that it is God who seeks us first, so that performing the "Work of God" means "not so much that we actually say prayers as that we live open to grace" (SG, p. 153). St. Benedict offers us the opportunity to be as available as possible to God's loving call so that "if we are truly seeking God, we know that we shall be found by Him" (SG, p. 154). Amidst all our talk about arduous efforts to seek God in prayer and work, it should be consoling to know that it is He who takes the initiative and He who provides the overflowing grace for our every response; we need only to trust, to let go of our selfish ways, and to respond lovingly to the love of Christ poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit!
". . . Because it [the Rule] is also essentially a working document, legislation for the common shared life of a group of men (and we know from the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great, AD 590-604, how disparate a group Benedict gathered around him at Monte Cassino), many of the chapters are concerned with minutiae which today make tedious, sometimes apparently irrelevant, reading. It is important to recognize this and see beyond it. It is in fact ironically just because it is so mundane and so concrete that the Rule continues to speak so forcibly" (AP, p. xix). The very fact that St. Benedict pays so much attention to the details of ordinary life reinforces the Christian truth that we become holy through the ordinary, not by escape from the sometimes wearisome demands of daily life. "To become fully human in this life as it has been given us is to allow the sacredness of the ordinary to become manifest. To seek God in work, cooking, prayer, community, greeting strangers, and dealing with possessions is to enter into the mystery of the incarnation" (SEL, p. 13).
Although many practical details of the Rule may seem harsh to the modern reader, they embodied a spirit of great moderation in St. Benedict's day. In fact, St. Benedict has been known as a master of moderation, and the Rule has often been praised for its promotion of sensible moderation. This "moderation" entails an avoidance of extremes of too much or too little in such realms as food and clothing, personal asceticism, communal discipline, time spent on prayer, and quantity and rigor of work. Such moderation does not imply mediocrity. On the contrary, maintaining moderation in the details of everyday living was meant to foster a radical commitment to seek Christ in the most intense way. From his experience St. Benedict learned that various extremes do not dispose a monk (or anyone) for spiritual growth, whereas moderation can open the way for each individual to become, to his maximum capacity, a whole, integrated, holy, self-giving disciple of Christ. In the same way, each Oblate is called to find a balanced, moderate discipline of daily life that can open his or her heart to expand as fully as possible in the love of Christ.
Although the concrete practices of the Rule may, in many cases, no longer apply to today's monk or Oblate, the values expressed in the particulars of sixth-century Benedictine life are of critical value today. Hospitality, reverence for God's creation, balance in daily life, patient allowance for human limitations, prayerfulness in all activities, the sacredness of the meal, the need for good order, and the struggle against greed, for example, are no less essential for 21st-century Christian life than for monastic life in St. Benedict's time. Esther de Waal reflects that the Rule "enables me to seek God here and now, just as I am, caught up in all the absurdly down-to-earth chores and demands which I feel trap me day by day. . . . It asks of me . . . that I do the most ordinary, often dreary and humdrum things that face me each day with a loving openness that will allow them to become my own immediate way to God" (SG, pp. 104-105). In particular, material things can become channels of deeper faith if properly regarded. "Oblates must see everything they possess as gifts and blessings from God, to be used only for proper ends. The vices of avarice and excessive attachment must be excluded. . . . Benedict never looks upon material things as evil in themselves, but only warns against the excessive craving for them and against their improper use" (MBO, p. 46).
Chapters 21 through 72 of the Rule state that we become holy not only through the ordinary events of each day but also in our day-to-day dealings with other people -- people who are flawed and annoying as well as gifted and supportive. Our journey to God cannot be made in isolation but is promoted amidst the ups and downs of a life deeply involved in family and community. "Benedict wanted to establish clear principles for Christian community living, the same principles found in the Gospels and exemplified by the early Christian communities" (MBO, p. 30). Oblates can apply these values to their relationships in family, parish, universal Church, and society. St. Benedict's warnings that those in authority seek first the Kingdom, his call for special sensitivity to the sick and the poor, his mechanisms for dealing with irresponsible behavior, his persistent appeals for forgiveness and healing, his generous tolerance for human weaknesses, and his insistence on mutual love among old and young all have their counterparts in an Oblate's relationships with family and broader communities.
The Rule's concern for each individual as an image of Christ and for the individual's growth in holiness contrasts with our current culture's imbalanced extremes of individualism, on the one hand, and mindless conformity, on the other hand. In Benedictine life each individual is valued precisely because one encounters Christ in that person. The Rule "is pervaded with the idea of sacramental encounter with Christ in the circumstances of daily life and in material things, but most particularly in people. . . . Endlessly the Rule makes room for each individual to grow in holiness at his or her own speed, in his or her own way. . . . It is in the sections [of the Rule] that might at first seem most dated, the instructions to the servers, the cellarer, the door-keeper and so on, that in fact we can see this most clearly. . . . [St. Benedict] shows how the well-organized community life makes possible the growth of the individual" (SG, pp. 115- 116).
At the same time, the individual is encouraged to grow not for his or her own sake but in the life of Christ that makes the person less self-centered and more capable of serving others in love. It is a function of community "to enable us to be about something greater than ourselves. . . . Benedictine spirituality inserts a consciousness of life together in Christ, not simply a life that is convenient for me" (WD, p. 45). This Christ-centered balance of concern for individuals and bonding in communal relationships is highlighted in RB 71-72, in which all are called to mutual obedience and to the "good zeal" in which the monks "should each try to be the first to show respect to the other, supporting with the greatest patience one another's weaknesses of body or behavior. . . . No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else" (RB 72: 4,6). Thus monks and Oblates learn in community to "prefer nothing whatever to Christ" so that He may "bring us all together to everlasting life" (RB 72: 11,12).
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