The Rule of Saint Benedict remains nothing more than a famous historical document for the casual reader, until the moment when he or she begins to admit, by grace, that there is something wrong with their life; this is what Benedict means by “the sloth of disobedience”. The whole of the Rule is predicated on a dialogue between hearing deeply or refusing to hear (obedience versus disobedience). The rest of the Rule could be said to be a practical application of this fundamental finding.
In the Prologue, Benedict asks, “Do you want to have a good time?” (Do you want life; do you wish to see good days?). And if you, like most people, say, “Of course I do”, he obligingly indicates what you must do: Keep your tongue from evil; Turn away from evil and do good. Being spiritual is not just an airy-fairy feeling; it involves practical steps of conversion. When the soul actually surrenders to God and does this, it begins to savour the “sweetness” of God’s invitation, a very beautiful moment.
Benedict, moving away from his own personal experience, is clearly more in favour of the cenobitic (that is to say, community) style of monasticism (“the strong race of the cenobites”) but can see that there are cases where a monk goes out from the strong ranks of the community, well formed and with plenty of experience, to the “solitary combat of the desert”. This, for most oblates, is their way of life, and already there is a kind of tension between their formation, which cannot be other than through the cenobitical monastery, and their lifestyle, which, for all practical purpose, is eremitical. They are hermits. No matter how much involvement they may have with their community of affiliation, in the end they are on their own.
This means that their formation needs even more care than that of a novice living in the monastery (a point to which we do not always give sufficient attention). Now, it is true that formation can be understood in a very broad sense. Most people’s life experience, if they are able to be honest about it, will have taught them that the world is deeply deceptive (superficially caring but fundamentally hard-hearted) and, though there are “jewels” of people that one meets occasionally, most people are enslaved to false ideals of material progress and have little or no idea of traditional morality. To say that is not to condemn or blame them, but simply to remark on the truth of the matter.
So the oblate needs to be well formed. Taking the chapters of the rule as they come, he needs to have a relationship with the superior of the monastery or with some spiritual father or mother appointed by the superior. The superior’s job is not to be nit-picking but to nurture the soul that is entrusted to him or her so that the best is brought out in them. The oblate will want to check out with this person any major decisions or life changes that they need to make. They will also need to establish, again under obedience, a rule of life: a practical guide to each day, their lectio, their prayer, their activities, their leisure. We are perhaps a little too fond of using the word “prophetic” in the church today, but it could be said that, by embracing a life of obedience, the oblate is being prophetic. They are showing, to a world where anything goes, that being left to the mercies of one’s personal whims is not a good idea, and very far from the much-vaunted freedom which it claims to guarantee.
The chapters on Obedience, Silence and Humility will need to be meditated on regularly by the oblate. Obedience is a form of humility. Humility is not a Uriah Heep kind of self-deprecation, but rather a realisation (fuelled only by grace) that we are not the great person we thought we were. We are invited back to ground level (humus, from which we get “humility”, is the stuff we put on our garden to make things grow). Now, of course, we have to be careful with this; and particularly careful about trying to “humiliate” people, as if that might make them humble. Individuals who are damaged, who have spent their lives beating themselves up for imagined faults, need to be very carefully handled. Humility, for them, comes when the director is able to shed light on their life experience and they are able to see (no doubt very painfully) that what has happened to them is paradoxically part of God’s will for them. There is no experience in this life that cannot be redeemed by grace. This is not an attempt to justify what cannot be just, but to see the golden thread of God’s providence in even the most miserable of experiences.
The Director, following the advice of many great spiritual teachers including Augustine Baker, will want to make himself redundant, and hand over the protégé to the Holy Spirit—though this may take some time. Above all, the Director will want to help the oblate to read their own life experience in the light of God. We are all part of the sacred history of salvation, though biographies will probably not be written about most of us.
The oblate’s domestic situation probably means that they are living at some distance from the monastery and therefore not able to be regular attenders in choir or regular contributors to the manual work of the monastery. (Those of you for whom this is the case should rejoice, and not murmur!). Instead, their local environment is the place where their ministry must be exercised. Extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion (including an old relative of mind with a very traditional mindset who did not in fact approve of the idea of lay people, and especially women, handling the Sacraments, but was slowly converted) have found themselves led into a most marvellous relationship with our Blessed Lord in his sacramental form, together with a most fruitful ministry towards the housebound and lonely. A word with the local pastor will highlight areas of need. But again, the oblate director should be involved in this decision (should at least be informed of it).
In this connection, the oblate would do well to read Chapter 2 of the Rule on the Abbot (for they will be exercising a pastoral responsibility) and Chapter 31 on the Cellarer of the Monastery (they will be providing material help) and remember: animamsuamcustodiat—let them take guard of their soul. The final words of Chapter 2 to the abbot remind him, and us, that by helping to heal the faults of others they will also purify themselves. They should also avoid imperialism: we all of us tend to have our little kingdom over which we preside, and woe betide anyone who steps on our patch! The kingdom can be enormous, or the most pathetic little thing, but it is still a kingdom. Here the oblate would do well to remember that we are allowed absolutely no property whatsoever by the Holy Rule: not even good things, like ministry. All belongs to the Lord and is dispensed by the abbot or those, like the parish priest, who are in authority over us.
A final word might be to remember the two types of zeal mentioned in Chapter 71. There is a bad zeal that separates from God, and a good zeal that leads to heaven. (Those of you with Ignatian formation might find it profitable to compare St Ignatius’ Rules of Discernment, and in particular, his notions of Consolation and Desolation with what St Benedict says here). The bad zeal, alas always present in the church, is the zeal of the terrorist: it says to itself (not to God) “these people, over there, are so bad that I am quite within my rights to punish them—indeed it would be no more than justice for them to get what is coming to them”. Ponder that for a moment, and realise that those moments of “vengeance” which we all entertain in our hearts from time to time, are based on this kind of wrongful zeal.
Let our final word be with Pope Saint John XXIII, who used to say: see everything; change a little; ignore much. We are not the church’s police force. There is only one Saviour of the world, and (as Joan Chittister so admirably put it) Honey, it ain’t you!
Fr Mark Hargreaves OSB
Director of Oblates, Prinknash Abbey
