Chapter 2, part 4 - January 12

In her teaching the Abbess should always follow the Apostle's formula: "Reprove, entreat, rebuke" (2 Tim. 4:2); threatening at one time and coaxing at another as the occasion may require, showing now the stern countenance of a mistress, now the loving affection of a mother. That is to say, it is the undisciplined and restless whom she must reprove rather sharply; it is the obedient, meek and patient whom she must entreat to advance in virtue; while as for the negligent and disdainful, these we charge her to rebuke and correct. And let her not shut her eyes to the faults of offenders; but, since she has the authority, let her cut out those faults by the roots as soon as they begin to appear, remembering the fate of Heli, the priest of Silo (1 Kings 2-4). The well-disposed and those of good understanding let her correct with verbal admonition the first and second time. But bold, hard, proud and disobedient characters she should curb at the very beginning of their ill-doing by stripes and other bodily punishments, knowing that it is written, "the fool is not corrected with words" (Prov. 18:2; 29:19), and again, "Beat your son with the rod, and you will deliver his soul from death" (Prov. 23:13-14).

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The message here is to treat others for whom you responsible in the direct manner needed. We hear serious, difficult words in this passage. Reprove, rebuke, threaten, sharpness. We are to cut out faults and to beat our sons. To ears, this are disdainful words and actions but we have to look past our present perspectives to look at the reality of the days of Benedict. Harsh treatment was not out of the ordinary but it was likely something to be expected, even by those who were at fault. There is also a need to consider Benedict was making a point through exaggeration much the same as Jesus did in the gospels when he spoke of cutting off hands and plucking out eyes.

I can only hope that I was right more than I was wrong in how judged what my sons needed and that good I did was not washed away by the evil I caused in my disobedience. Their mother was a good influence, however, and I am sure I had some value as my sons are both good men in every sense of the word.

Chapter 2, part 3 - January 11

Let her make no distinction of persons in the monastery. Let her not love one more than another, unless it be one whom she finds better in good works or in obedience. Let her not advance one of noble birth ahead of one who was formerly a slave, unless there be some other reasonable ground for it. But if the Abbess for just reason think fit to do so, let her advance one of any rank whatever. Otherwise let them keep their due places; because, whether slaves or free, we are all one in  Christ (Gal. 3:28) and bear in equal burden of service in the army of the same Lord. For with God there is no respect of persons (Rom. 2:11).

Only for one reason are we preferred in His sight: if we be found better than others in good works and humility. Therefore let the Abbess show equal love to all and impose the same discipline on all according to their deserts.

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In my imperfect way, I have done will enough in this area. I love my children, all 4, both the living and the dead with all of my being. It is hard to measure equality. It is hard to love your living children the same as you do the ones who have not passed. It is also hard to love the living children equality because they are different, one from another so I love them differently. Not less, not more just differently. What is true is I given them all my entirety and I would give all that I have for any of one of them but I could never give  one of them for another. That would be un-makeable choice.

Equality cannot be measured except from the view point of whether or not each have been loved in the way they needed and not how I chose to love them. I cannot place a value or price on that result. Only they might now if they were given what they needed or if I failed any or all of them. Again, my failures are not their fault and my successes, if any, don't spring from my effort but through God's grace and power made effective through my weakness.

Chapter 2, part 2 - January 10

Let the Abbess always bear in mind that at the dread Judgment of God there will be an examination of these two matters: her teaching and the obedience of her disciples. And let the Abbess be sure that any lack of profit the master of the house may find in the sheep will be laid to the blame of the shepherd. 

On the other hand, if the shepherd has bestowed all her pastoral diligence on a restless, unruly flock and tried every remedy for their unhealthy behavior, then she will be acquitted at the Lord's Judgment and may say to the Lord with the Prophet: "I have not concealed Your justice within my heart; Your truth and Your salvation I have declared" (Ps. 39[40]:11).  "But they have despised and rejected me" (Is. 1:2; Ezech. 20:27). And then finally let death itself, irresistible, punish those disobedient sheep under her charge.

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Again,  I see myself as the abbot or shepherd of the family who is charged with caring for the master's riches while he is away. Teaching and obedience are the first two and most important charges. Obedience continues as a main ingredient for monasticism. It is no less important in the family or in secular life at large. Yes, the family should be obedient to the head of the family but the authority of the abbot is not absolute and there has to be limits, limits scribed in time by a  timeless call to holiness and righteousness. The abbot, abbess, lion or father does not have all ending power to judge, only that which is granted by God and without God's stamp, there is no real authority, no true mastery only slavery and even abuse.

The leader must also be obedient to the will and the word of the Lord. The father in the parable in the prodigal son is the best example given us. Obedience, which is, in its original meeting, means to listen at the level of an encounter. Those who are assigned to a leader are obligated to obey or listen to their leader but the leader is equally obligated to listen to his charges in return that he might learn and understand their needs. Obedience, as we are shown by God, is bilateral. Each must listen to the other just as God chooses to listen to us even if we are his people, the flock he shepherds.

Teaching is the first half of the two charges given leaders. Teaching is all important because the purpose of obedience is to enforce and reinforce knowledge and understanding so wisdom might also grow in measure. The teaching must be true and based in the word of God or it means nothing and is worth even less. I did not teach my children as well as I would have liked because at the time I was not obedient beyond a token gesture offered in public  but was not supported in practice. If I were obedient, I would have listened and learned what I was supposed to transmit in turn. A teacher cannot share what he does not have to share. Fortunately my wife more than ably filled the gap. Still, my children learned only from the lioness and as sons, they needed to have more taught to them by their father who should have been the lion.

I will not be acquitted because of the nature of my family but they have forgiven me. I will be only acquitted through his gift of mercy and grace. My children were not disobedient. I was.

Chapter 2: What Kind of Person the Abbess Ought to Be - January 9

An Abbess who is worthy to be over a monastery should always remember what she is called, and live up to the name of Superior. For she is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery, being called by a name of His, which is taken from the words of the Apostle: "You have received a Spirit of adoption ..., by virtue of which we cry, 'Abba -- Father'" (Rom. 8:15)!

Therefore the Abbess ought not to teach or ordain or command anything which is against the Lord's precepts; on the contrary, her commands and her teaching should be a leaven of divine justice kneaded into the minds of her disciples.

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The abbot or abbess is the leader, the head of the monastery. As a married man and father, I have been called by God to be the leader of my family. Over the years my understanding and belief of how to be a leader has varied but always needed to be retooled to be more effective and to be the leader I was called to become.

The image of a lion comes to mind. The male lion is the head of the pride and the safety and well being of all members from the smallest cub to the nearest rival male is his responsibility. If the pride is attacked or threatened by a rival or outside threat, he must respond to overcome the challenge given him because if he fails it is likely all of his offspring and the younger males will be killed by the new leader.

My family was never threatened physically in the way a pride of lions might expect but there is world that is full of sin and temptation that we live in and my job was to protect my family be my example, by my teaching  and by my love. I did not always succeed as a leader and I regret deeply I did not understand what was expected of me as my children were growing up.

Rather than being a protector, I became another threat my wife had to face. I regret that even more.

The lion does not dominate the pride by making all decisions. He lets the most experienced lionesses make the daily decision about hunting, seeking shelter or water or how the structure will develop. He only watches and contributes to the hunt and teaches the younger males how to be men.

At this late hour, I still am called to be a leader, to be the lion and now that I am beginning to understand what that means, I hope to everyday grow ever more powerful in love and devotion to be the example and teacher my family still needs and the partner my wife deserves.

This relies completely on me emptying myself of me that God may fill the emptiness with his goodness and so I will grow toward becoming the Father in the prodigal son, a reflection of God and not of myself.

Chapter 1: On the Kinds of Monks - January 8

It is well known that there are four kinds of monks. The first kind are the Cenobites:

those who live in monasteries and serve under a rule and an Abbot.

The second kind are the Anchorites or Hermits: those who, no longer in the first fervor of their reformation, but after long probation in a monastery, having learned by the help of many brethren how to fight against the devil, go out well armed from the ranks of the community to the solitary combat of the desert. They are able now, with no help save from God, to fight single-handed against the vices of the flesh and their own evil thoughts.

The third kind of monks, a detestable kind, are the Sarabaites. These, not having been tested, as gold in the furnace (Wis. 3:6), by any rule or by the lessons of experience, are as soft as lead. In their works they still keep faith with the world, so that their tonsure marks them as liars before God. They live in twos or threes, or even singly, without a shepherd, in their own sheepfolds and not in the Lord's. Their law is the desire for self-gratification: whatever enters their mind or appeals to them, that they call holy; what they dislike, they regard as unlawful.

The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagues. These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province, staying as guests in different monasteries for three or four days at a time. Always on the move, with no stability, they indulge their own wills and succumb to the allurements of gluttony, and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites. Of the miserable conduct of all such it is better to be silent than to speak.

Passing these over, therefore, let us proceed, with God's help, to lay down a rule for the strongest kind of monks, the Cenobites.

This calls me to me to assess who I might be and within which group I might be pegged if St. B. were in the room. The 4th kind of monk are not really monks at all, only impostors. Is that I how I lived my life for years prior to 2007? To pretend to be something is far worse than simply being bad because of the damage we do to those who might who might believe the pretense we show the world. I can't long consider this possibility because if it was me, I choose to put that reality far back in the past. The future might find me coming back to the life of the Gyrovagues if I should stumble and fall but I pray that my direction will lead me ever further from such a disastrous future.

How about the Sarabaites? Have I climbed up out the depths where the Gyrovagues  dwell? Is there hope I am moving in the right direction, toward the Lord rather than away? This is likely more were I belonged before my dedication to recovery. Not truly bad but certainly not good. I pretended to be faithful but it was only a mask that only glimmered faintly with a true expression of belief. I am certain that without daily commitment and re-conversion, I would easily  back slide into this status. I can see where leading what appears to be holy life can be easy to mimic but with no real heart, I would still fall prey to the things which would distract me from my true calling, union with and a pervading love of God which is expressed in devotion to those who rely in me. I am only just now realizing the extent to which it is necessary to push away and tear free from anything that might become an unnatural desire. Things are not God and they offer nothing more than a gauzy appearance of fulfillment.

I still hear reverberations of the recent past echoing around like the call of the sirens but the sounds no longer lure me. The tend to sickened me and cause me to turn away just as the smell of alcohol now repulses me rather tempting to sip the next swallow. The reprieve from addiction is only temporary because I can relapse at any moment so I have to be just as painstaking about any form of addiction as I was alcohol.

Finally we come to the Cenobites. I am an oblate so I do not live in the abbey and I have not taken a vow any more stringent than to follow the rule every day to the best my station in life will permit. What does that mean? I am called to finally study the rule to see how it applies to me, today in the evening of my life. My re-commitment is to pray the hours using my breviary every day that I can. On the days when I cannot, I intend to pray in some fashion to keep the daily prayer habit going. I will truly engage the challenge of Ora et Labora and the nature of stability as it should apply to me. I am not a Cenobite. I am an oblate but I am an oblate of Mt. Angel Abbey, a Benedictine monastery.

Prologue, Part 7 January 7

And so we are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord. In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome. But if a certain strictness results from the dictates of equity for the amendment of vices or the preservation of charity, do not be at once dismayed and fly from the way of salvation, whose entrance cannot but be narrow (Matt. 7:14).

For as we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God's commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love. Thus, never departing from His school, but persevering in the monastery according to His teaching until death, we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13) and deserve to have a share also in His kingdom.

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Benedict continues with his own words, setting forth his intent to form a community which will not be severe. Truly, the Rule of Benedict paled in comparison to the burdensome requirements found in other orders. While the bar might seem to be rather high as go forward, comparison to other rules proves out that Benedict's rule was neither harsh nor burdensome.

It is, however, strict as it must be in order to maintain order amongst a group of men living in a very unsettled time. Personal discipline was not something commonly found in general society. Yes, there were rules and laws proscribing behavior but nothing which held an individual accountable for living a life of holiness. Some orders prided themselves in being literally oppressive in setting unmeetable expectations.

Still, he did not want anyway to fly away from salvation because of the needed discipline. He promised us "unspeakable sweetness" if we persevere .

Prologue, part 6 - January 6

So, brothers and sisters, we have asked the Lord who is to dwell in His tent, and we have heard His commands to anyone who would dwell there; it remains for us to fulfill those duties.

Therefore we must prepare our hearts and our bodies to do battle under the holy obedience of His commands; and let us ask God that He be pleased to give us the help of His grace for anything which our nature finds hardly possible. 

And if we want to escape the pains of hell and attain life everlasting, then, while there is still time, while we are still in the body and are able to fulfill all these things by the light of this life, we must hasten to do now what will profit us for eternity.

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In these paragraphs, Benedict speaks for himself using his own words in an exhortation to take up the challenge of being one chosen to dwell in his tent. This is not just any struggle but it is a literal battle we engage in and we are urged to prepare our hearts and are bodies to do battle. The battle is not just spiritual but it would seem to be physical as well.  There is a final plea for God's grace to carry us when we cannot carry ourselves any further.

Finally, we are to do so with all due speed - "we must hasten to do now what will profit us for eternity." There it is again. We are supposed to be quick about what we are supposed to be doing.