We have just had a summer of one horrifying news item after another. The surface cause of many of these incidents is religious intolerance, despite all main religious leaders having condemned the use of violence to impose one set of beliefs over another. History shows that this is not a new phenomenon, but then the only lesson that we seem capable of learning from history, as generations of history teachers have intoned, is that we never learn the lessons of history. I found myself wondering what we could learn from the Rule of St Benedict. The Rule was written with one enclosed community in mind and there are only a few hints that St Benedict expected it to be applied to other communities. It is short, simple and undramatic, even humdrum, with its detailed instructions on the minutiae of monastic life. There is no hint of aspirations to world domination. Yet, this simple document has achieved the sort of influence that the terrorist groups can only dream of. There are monks and nuns in almost every corner of the world who shape their daily activities around the requirements of the Rule. In addition there is an invisible army of lay oblates who do the same, although perhaps to a lesser degree.
So what is it that the Rule offers that is so appealing? The answer will vary from person to person but I suggest that for many people it will be found in the first few paragraphs of the Rule. In the first sentence we are told that we have a master. For some terrorists, this is an important ingredient of their allegiance to their group – they need to feel part of a group that has a well-defined hierarchy with a strong leader. All monasteries have a well-defined hierarchy with a recognised, if not strong in the political sense, leader. This same sentence contains two words that mark the crucial difference between a failed terrorist leader and a successful religious leader – the words ‘loving’ and ‘advice’. The failed terrorist leader acts out of hate and preaches totalitarianism. The successful religious leader, following the Rule, exercises his authority out of love for his followers, not for his own gain, to enforce a specific ideology or even out of love for his God. Yes, he is the leader of a religious community because of his love for God but that in itself is not the motivation for his control over the other members of the community. He is not dragging anyone kicking and screaming in a certain direction out of conviction that that is the right direction. He is advising the community on the most advantageous way for them to grow in their love of God and he is doing this because he loves them as individuals and wants what is best for them. If they choose to ignore his advice, they are free to do so. If their disobedience disrupts the others, they may be asked to leave the community, but the choice is theirs. They can even leave and come back twice before being permanently excluded from the community (see ch. 28 and 29). Just as loving parents try to influence their children to lead a good life, so the religious leader tries to create the conditions needed for his followers to grow in love of God and each other. This is clearly a more appealing lifestyle choice than that offered by the terrorist leaders.
Just in case you were wondering – the ‘few hints’ that the Rule contains suggesting a wider application than one monastery can be found in chapters 1, 55, 66 and 73.
P.S. my apologies to any female religious superiors reading this for the non-inclusive language used! It would just have been too clumsy to keep repeating he/she.
Jane Coll
Oblate of Pluscarden
