July is a special month for oblates, we celebrate the feast of St Benedict and set out on a new journey of making our oblations or we pause as we re-dedicate ourselves and remember setting out on this journey, taking time to reflect on where we were then and where we are now. Summertime is good for giving us the chance to stop and reflect, to sit on the grass and feel the warmth of the sun and remember good times, friends, camaraderie, community, recall our memories of where we have been and discern where we are going.
Setting out on this oblate journey is rather like setting out to sea, learning to trust the journey and all the challenges that it brings, navigating through all the risks and dangers that may be faced by the seafarer, trusting ourselves to the vessel we travel in and the people we travel with and continuing to raise our hearts to God as we find our safe harbour.
St Benedict talks of keeping death before our eyes daily which can initially seem a morbid way to live but doing this in a healthy way helps us to live life to the full. If we could live well, as though today was our last on this earth, how much more might we appreciate everything around us. During the pandemic we had death thrust before us every day due to a new disease which engendered fear and profound anxiety which is still reverberating through our communities. Looking to an earlier wisdom is to accept life and death in the grace of God so that we do not fear but accept all that comes to us so that facing death does not stop us in our tracks but rather heightens our ability to live with gratitude for our life.
The pandemic has caused a great tsunami of grief, fear, anxiety, uncertainty and distress and a loss of trust which will all need attention and healing. St Benedict says that before all and above all attention shall be paid to the care of the sick so that they shall be served as if they were Christ Himself. We will all have times when we are sick or care for those who are sick and when others care for us. There is a generational cycle of care and we all have a responsibility to care for each other within that cycle.
It is easy to look at parts of the Benedictine rule and see harshness rather than care such as in the discipline of children and treating delinquent behaviours by severe fasts or harsh beatings, that they may be cured. I was offended by the first part and did not see the last-that they may be cured. We could join the movement to redact and cancel all the unacceptable writings which offend our eyes and our sensibilities but then we also lose the sense of what is being said and what was meant and how this was interpreted which also provokes us to think about our world now. The methods described here are unacceptable to us but the sense is that severe treatments may be needed that they may be cured. It is easy to extrapolate that to medical or surgical treatments and the ethics of treatments. Sadly, it is also easy to think of people hurt by harsh judgements and severe treatments in recent times beyond the pandemic experiences including mothers who lost their children to a harsh society judgement system which lacked compassion and separated families. There is learning for all of us here. We can all be harsh. It is easy to judge people and systems with the eye of hindsight but we also have to look at ourselves and ask ourselves some difficult questions. How well do we judge? How merciful are we? How merciful am I? How compassionate are we? How compassionate am I?
If we look again at the pandemic experience with the lockdowns and the social restrictions for families during illness and bereavement we can see how a desire to help and cure can be taken to extremes and how rules can become harsh and severe. It can be difficult to put things in the context of the situations and understandings of any particular time to see the underlying motivations, but a nuanced assessment can help us to learn how to keep our humanity and treat people well while trying to protect and save, so there is a proper balance of care or otherwise the cure can become worse than the condition.
St Benedict said “Every age and degree of understanding should have its proper measure of discipline” but he also said “be careful to be gentle lest in removing the rust you break the whole instrument.”. Measures need to be prudent, balanced and appropriate, and we need to try to treat all people as if they are Christ Himself for all of us can harbour sickness of body, mind, soul and spirit which may not be visible unless we can look with the eye of Christ and listen with the ear of the heart of Christ so that people may be healed and not harmed. That surely is the greatest learning from the pandemic, the value of community and the value of compassion. St Benedict said “It is only we who brood over our sins. God does not brood over them. God dumps them at the bottom of the sea.” He who keeps death in view in the grace of God surely lives in the warmth of life’s embrace.
Stella Maris, pray for us.
Sarah Richards, Oblate of Prinknash
