History of Religious Life
The Rise and Growth of Western Monasticism: Part 3
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
One last word on this business of stability, not to change
monasteries. As you know in the Benedictine tradition when a monk takes his
vows in an Abbey he vows obedience to the superior of that monastery. For
example, in Hungary the Communists suppressed all the monastic houses. Yet
in spending some time with a Benedictine monk from Hungary, I asked him who
is his superior. He said, “He is somewhere in Hungary and he is my superior."
Which creates problems, doesn't it? The Holy See is making provisions. But
the monastery is the one to which I bind myself till death. And for centuries
it meant not even physical mobility. Then over the years it has been interpreted
especially by the women's communities as practicing what we call even the
strictest papal cloister.
But Benedict in the context
of talking about stability warned his followers against what is called acedia.
There is almost no English translation for it. The nearest approximation is
boredom. This, he said, along with chaffing under obedience is the second
and most popular reason why religious want to move, they want a change. Now
you might say: Isn't that legitimate? Yes except when you are talking about
sanctity. And this is the presumption: If a person has a vocation to this
way of life then it is a vocation to cope with that demon of change, that
I will find ways of changing my phantasm not so much by seeing different scenery
but by thinking different thoughts. All boredom is psychological. The secret is to have a change of mental climate.
Now of course you've heard
this cynical definition of work: Work is that which a person would rather
not be doing if they could be doing something else. By that standard many
people are bored to death with what they are doing.
Benedict assumes that a
religious likes to do what they are doing. And if boredom still steps in,
change your thought patterns. Even prayer. I've found out that not a few
people pray in the same way. What's your particular examen? How long have you had it? Ten years. No wonder
you're bored. You must have other defects. Just to find out what different
things are wrong with us is fascinating. It will also be challenging.
Finally, work. The motto
of St. Benedict was Ora et Labora,
which are imperative moods: pray and labor, and in that order. But while
he said pray first and then labor next he didn't mean just pray. What is more
important, to commune with God or to commune with human beings? To commune
with God. No question about it, except that part of God's will is that we
commune with human beings. I would say the hardest work for a religious, and that's apart from any physical labor you may
have to exert yourselves on, is just to live with other people. That's work.
It requires infinite ingenuity.
It is well to know, and
Benedict never had any mistaken notions about this, there are those who have
claimed that had men not fallen they would have not had to work; they envision paradise as a place where you don't work. Not
so. Even in Genesis didn't Adam somehow till the soil before he fell? The
duty to work is not a consequence of the fall. I like that passage in Proverbs:
Man is born to labor and the bird is born to fly - avis ad volatum, homo
ad laborem. Fancy a bird who can't
fly; he'd be in real trouble. But there is something about work and man's
fallen nature - not that fundamental duty to work; we would be expected to
work and work out our salvation - but because of our fallen human nature work
has now become rough, fatiguing, tiring, unpalatable and even if it is not
that hard, boring.
The secret therefore of
imitating Christ, Benedict lays the ground work, Francis developed it very
much, is to recognize that when God became man He became a human being like
all of us except for sin and we've got it in the gospels He was reputed to
be the Son of a workingman, which means
Christ Himself was a workingman; that therefore work is noble, work is dignified;
and that we become more like God when we work even as Christ worked as Man.
Because that too is a mark of humility. Only God does not have to exert Himself
to achieve what He wants. What's the difference between God and us in terms
of achievement? God wills it and it is. I need not say that's not us. We
will something otherwise we don't even start, but then we must work. We admit
therefore our need to exert ourselves in order to achieve what God wants us
to do.
Finally, as you recall
in the book of Genesis, and this is in the Benedictine tradition, what did
God do on the seventh day? Symbolically speaking He rested. What is the implication
of that seventh day? We are supposed to commemorate
each Sunday, partially as a day of rest, to recall the fact that God created
the world symbolically speaking in six days. But God worked for His six days.
Whose day is the seventh? Ours. God did His, we are to
do ours. We are now in the seventh day of the universe where God tells us:
"Now it's your turn."
So much on the spiritual
combat of the active life. The spiritual combat is Benedict's great masterful
contribution to the spiritual life.
The
apostolate is of two kinds: the apostolate of holiness and the apostolate
of
service. What's the difference? Both are forms of the apostolate. Do the Carthusian
monks or nuns that do no active work outside of their respective monasteries,
are they practicing the apostolic life? Yes. How are they doing it? It
is the apostolate of holiness through virtue. The prayer of the holy person
wins
many souls to God. Through the liturgy. A great saint, Lawrence, on one occasion
observed that the world would long ago have been destroyed for its sins except
for the Sacrifices of the Mass that are being offered throughout the world.
The
Mass is apostolic. The best thing in the world that you can do for a sinner
is to
pray for them. And the apostolate of witness: not merely being holy but behaving
in a holy way. Then what is most obvious is the apostolate of service.
St.
Benedict did not institute, because they already existed, but he did develop
the idea of religious conducting schools. And as we also know some of the
great missionaries of the early Church were Benedictine monks: Ansgar, Boniface,
Columban. Benedict assumed that his monasteries as monasteries
would become means of evangelization. Ireland for centuries had Benedictine
monks traveling all over the then known world
establishing monasteries in distant outposts that nobody had ever
been in and right in the midst of paganism. Often they were martyred and the faith would spread.
So evangelization.
And
of course the liturgical movement. The Benedictines have been over the centuries
outstanding for their devotion to the liturgy. The daily order had to
conform to the liturgy of the Hours; whatever else the person was doing had
to
be left, to say that Hour of the Divine Office. So everything - sleep, meals,
work took second place,
primary is especially the Divine Office.
Now
the contemplative life. Much of this we have already touched on. There
was never any doubt in Benedict that the primary purpose of the religious
life
is to pray. Any religious who has any other idea is in the wrong place. The
primary purpose of the religious life is to pray. Now there are ways and ways
of praying; as Christ tells us, we are to pray always. Unquestionably, first
prayer.
Secondly,
what is called the lectio divina, which literally means divine reading, but more properly
means reading the Bible and biblical commentaries. For centuries the Benedictine monks, those who were
capable of doing it and had a good
hand, their job for a lifetime was to transcribe the Bible. That's how the Bible was kept in tact. Thousands of manuscripts
which took years to produce, what a labor of love! Isn't that a tribute to
the faith! Except for the thousand years of Benedictine monasteries the Protestants wouldn't even know there
was a Bible. So reading the Bible,
transcribing the Bible, and all the homilies by the great masters of
monastic spirituality have been on the Bible.
Meditation belongs in the contemplative life before contemplation.
What is meditation
as the monastic tradition has passed it on to the Church? It is reflecting on the truths of the faith in order to better
understand them. That's not
contemplation. But you don't love what you don't know. And either we spend
the mental effort in trying to understand and ask God for
light to tell us what this means - without Me you can do nothing - or we shall
not live out what we believe.
Meditation is the effort of the human mind in God's presence to understand what He revealed. This too is in the best Benedictine
tradition because this requires work.
Opus Dei is the Divine Office. The term is Benedict's own;
it means literally the work of God. He did not invent the Divine Office; the
psalms had been recited in
fact by Our Savior at the Last Supper. But to structure the Divine Office
as we now know it, to make it the norm for one's whole life
and to make that the centerpiece of spirituality
we owe to Benedict.
Contemplation. This is to build on meditation. When I meditate
I pray but I
mainly use my mind. When I contemplate I pray but I mainly use my affections.
But I had better have meditated before, otherwise I won't
know what to use my affections
on. How can I tell God that I love Him unless I know something about this God that I claim I love. Some people find contemplation
easier than others. Some have to do a lot of bridge building in meditation
to contemplate. No matter. Both forms of prayer are pleasing to God; both are part
of the Christian spiritual life as Benedict conceived
it.
Paradisus claustri. That means the paradise of the cloister. This can be
cheapened by saying the paradise of exclusion, the paradise
of seclusion or the paradise
of solitude. It's that but not really. The exclusion or the seclusion is not from other human
beings, quite the contrary, but from any persons or objects that would distract or detach me from the main purpose
for being a religious - which is
to be concerned with the things of God. Cloister means an enclosure. Now we can have high walls but if the mind and the
thoughts are on the world outside,
the walls might just as well be down. No; it is a paradisus claustri
mainly that each person lives in
his or her own life, so that the cloister though external is mainly the symbolization of that separation from
the world. Angelic life. Benedict
meant it. He was no starry-eyed poet. He believed that the more perfectly a religious lived his or her spiritual life,
the more perfectly they approximate the life of the angels.
We have two purposes for existence. One is to praise God
and the other is to be sent as messengers to others, to be of service to human
beings. But as Benedict was
quick to point out, one is only as effective a messenger to the world as one
has first been steeped in the vision and contemplation
of God. On both levels the angels can teach us
a lot.
I would like to expand a little bit on the apostolate within
the Benedictine monastic
tradition. As you know, Benedict's concept of religious life spanned what he called the active and contemplative life, but then
immediately he distinguished
within the active life between the so-called spiritual combat and the apostolate. Now technically the active life on the side
of the spiritual combat is
the ascetical life and this has to do with one's own struggle with one's fallen human nature in order to conquer inordinate passions
and fears and thus equip
oneself for the work of a religious. The apostolate on the other hand is the social side of the active life. It presumes however
that the spiritual combat is
carried on successfully. Notice, I don't say that the apostolate presumes
that the spiritual combat has already been won, or that
victory has been achieved. Because
then most of us would be waiting till almost our dying day to engage in the
apostolate.
Moreover, within the spiritual combat there are some that
are more immediately interior
and there are others that are more external. But taken as a whole they are the precondition in Benedict's view for an effective
apostolic work. Now within
the apostolate, first it is always assumed the apostolate is authorized by
the Church through legitimate superiors. Not everything that I do for my neighbor
is an apostolate. The apostolate is only that which the
Church, speaking through my superiors, has authorized
me to do.
All the fancy talk about 'open placement’ is beginning to
haunt many communities, because
the Internal Revenue is making it very difficult for a community with open
placement to continue.
The apostolate is of two kinds. Why distinguish, as Benedict
does, between the
apostolate of holiness and the apostolate of service? In general the apostolate
of holiness refers
to that apostolate where graces are given by God to others because of the apostle's own personal union with God or
of the community's union with God, or
at least the efficacy of the apostolate is seen as depending on one's union
with God. Per se, therefore,
the apostolate of holiness is engaged in by a person who does
not engage in anything that is technically apostolic work.
It
means, consequently, that by the very fact that a person is
striving to bring souls either to Christ or closer to Christ, if
the one engaging in the effort is him or herself closely united with God that
person
will be used by God no matter what they do, on an absolute sense, even if
they don't do anything except remain bedridden for thirty years. In other
words
sanctity is apostolic by its very existence. And it is here that for failure
to make the distinction
people will train themselves in so many ways for effective apostolic work;
no blame there; but all the while if they have neglected the One Who is the
principal Instrument for communicating grace, then - -
For example, in the priest. He may be in the state of grave
sin. Is the Mass that he offers valid? Yes. Is the Communion that he gives
or the sacrament of absolution that he gives valid? Yes. In the early Church
the problem was the other way around. They were so concerned about the sanctity
of the one administering the sacraments that the very validity of the sacraments
was called into question; unless the one
offering the Mass or administering absolution were holy they would question
the very validity of the Mass or the sacraments. Not true.
But having said that, same with a teacher. Suppose I'm
teaching sacred doctrine. I've got a good book in front of me and I say the
right things and certain ideas enter people's heads. Is it true they profit,
they get something out
of what I say? Yes. But assuming this, sanctity in the apostle is the thing that needs to be mainly cultivated for effective
apostolic work. This principle
seriously taken would change religious life in the Catholic Church.
Now of service. Again, an apostle is one who communicates
grace. Where the apostolate
is one of service, the graces are given by God to others through some form of what we call ministry. It may be for the priest
a sacramental ministry, or it can be the corporal works of mercy or the spiritual
works of mercy. In
any case, in each one of these that we call the apostolate of service there
is some medium between the apostle and the one who is being
influenced, something that
goes out of me that I share with the person. But there also, even as the apostolate's efficacy within the active life depends on
the success of my spiritual combat,
so within the apostolate my apostolate of service depends on my apostolate of holiness.
In Archbishop Meyer's talk at the St. Louis congress
we had on the religious life, he urged religious especially those in schools
to remain in the schools because, as he
said, "True, others can replace you as teachers, but no one can replace
you as religious except other religious." And he was there making
the Benedictine distinction - as a good Benedictine himself.
And
it's not something mysterious or mystical; it's very real. The union of the soul with God in the classroom. She may not be teaching
religion formally. Now
either we believe this or a religious can have misgivings about her apostolic
work. Don't you think it is important to realize which
comes first and which is a
condition for the second? God will infallibly bring souls to Himself provided
the
apostle himself is holy. Infallibly.
Regarding the contemplative life, I would like to comment
on the Divine Office. It
is well to know, in spite of what you may read somewhere, the Divine Office
as we now have it in religious communities has a twofold
origin. It first began in
the Cathedrals of the earliest churches of antiquity. It was thought that
a Catholic Church and especially the see city of a diocese
should not only have worshippers on Sundays or on feast days or even for a
Mass or two that might be offered even daily, but throughout the day this
should be the house of God, that prayer
should be offered. So the Cathedral chapters recited or generally sung the Divine Office in the earliest Cathedrals of Christianity.
And by the end of the first century there were already one hundred dioceses
in the Church. And this by the way was a continuation of the Jewish practice
- both the temple and
the synagogue. And this is one of my hopes for other Churches. I think they can be used far more than they are for just the Eucharistic
liturgy. There are two kinds of liturgy,
the Eucharistic and the liturgy of the Hours.
In other words by the time Benedict came along the Divine
Office was an established
fact and not only among religious but also among the secular clergy and the laity who would participate. In any case, the Divine
Office in the monastic
tradition was more extensive, more detailed and involved especially the recitation of the psalms. The Little Hours of the monastic
tradition go back already to apostolic times. I would like to recommend to
all of you as religious to
give serious thought to anything in which we can get the faithful involved
in
the recitation of the Divine Office. The Church wants it.
We shall say more when we take up St. Francis about the
characteristic form
of the Divine Office; it is a prayer of praise. So much then for that.
The
continuity and the permanent values. Regarding continuity. What do
I intend to bring out here? I wish to show that the monastic
tradition has first of all affected all religious institutes. There is no such thing as a
religious congregation or order in the Church today that is not somehow built
on the monastic model.
What are some features of the monastic life that have affected all communities?
First of all the notion of central authority. In other words
it is true that
the Church already had central authority vested in the Holy Father and in Rome, and then outside of Rome in the various dioceses.
In each diocese the
people were responsible to the Bishop. The Church herself is highly centralized; the whole world today is divided into dioceses, there
is no place in the world
which does not have its hierarchical jurisdiction, and all those who belong to that jurisdiction are responsible to the authority
in that area, and of
course all ultimately are responsible to Rome. So that, whatever other image
we
have of Catholicism, it is a divinely established centrality.
Conference transcription from a talk that Father Hardon gave to the
Institute on Religious Life
Institute on Religious Life, Inc.
P.O. Box 410007
Chicago, Illinois 60641
www.religiouslife.com
Copyright © 1998 by Inter Mirifica
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