Every
age and understanding should have its proper discipline. Whenever, therefore,
boys or immature youths (or any who fail to understand the seriousness of
excommunication) are guilty of a serious fault, let them undergo strict fasting
or be disciplined with corporal punishment, so that they may be healed.
These
days, we tend to shy away from corporal punishment, but in the Middle Ages, they
beat kids like it was going out of style.
For that matter, they beat everyone: wives, criminals, adulterers,
sailors… There were all sorts of laws
about who could beat whom and how many times and what sort of stick they were
to use. (If you don’t believe me, look
up the ‘rule of thumb.’) What is
interesting about Saint Benedict’s take on discipline is that he is so careful
to limit corporal punishment and
focus on its purpose. Truly, there are
some people—kids in particular—who just won’t get it unless you ‘speak their
language.’ A bully, for example, may
never quite understand the gravity of his sin until he runs into someone who
fights back.
Since my monastery runs a school,
most of our monks have worked in the classroom at one time or another. Each, of course, has his own stile of
teaching, and some are more lenient than others, but there was one monk who had
a particular reputation for strictness. He
had served in the armed forces during World War II, and a rumor spread through
the school that he had been in charge of interrogating prisoners of war—a rumor
that I’m pretty sure wasn’t true. While
he was lecturing, the kids knew that monkey business[1]
would not be tolerated. As I was walking
by his classroom one day, I heard a kid complain, “I thought monks were
supposed to be nice.” To which he
answered, “Attilathe Hun ravaged Europe.
He burnt to the ground a huge swath of the continent from Kazakhstan to France. But he avoided the monasteries. And that wasn’t because the monks were
‘nice.’”
 |
| Jesus Purifies the Temple, By Rembrandt |
Truly, Jesus had nothing to say
about being nice. But he had a lot to
say aboutbeing good, and that was not exclusive of some very harsh words—and
deeds. Look for ‘hypocrites’ in the New
Testament, and you’ll see what I mean. And
when you ask yourself, “What would Jesus do?” remember that freaking out,
flipping tables, and whipping people are not necessarily out of the question.[2] If strictness is what is needed, Saint
Benedict is fully prepared to use every option at his disposal.
Benedictines are peaceful creatures,
but that doesn’t necessarily make them pacifists. To be sure, we are the sheep of His
flock. But the flock needs sheepdogs
too.
[1] No pun intended.
[2] I’m pretty sure I didn’t
think this up myself, but I can’t find a proper source for it either.
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