CHAPTER 61: How Other Monks Should be Received

   If a monk from another monastery comes to visit and is satisfied with the customs he finds here, and does not trouble the monastery with excessive demands, let him be received for as long as he likes. Furthermore, if he has advice about how things might be done differently (and he makes his complaint with humility and charity) let the abbot consider carefully whether the Lord did not perhaps send him for that very purpose.
   
    If a visiting monk has some criticism to offer, the abbot should take it seriously.  But this can’t be easy.  No one likes to be told how to run his own house.  Still, a fresh pair of eyes might notice something that the abbot and his community have missed.  Ironically, one of the universal truths of human existence is that “birds of a feather flock together.”  It’s much easier to listen to people we agree with, so we favor the company of people who think like we do.  But this makes it difficult to have a balance opinion.  If we were truly open to new ideas and anxious to broaden our horizons, we’d seek out people we don’t agree with, and hang out with them instead.

    In the fifth century, BC, there was guy who actually lived this way.  His name was Socrates.  He used to spend his days walking around Athens seeking out (and questioning) people he didn’t like.  He’d spend all day grilling them until he found a hole in their arguments.
    Socrates was a brilliant, charismatic, and honest man.  But he did this all day every day, and pretty soon the Athenians had him killed.  After all, no one can handle that kind of interrogation on a regular basis.  It’s just too annoying.  But before he died, Socrates had time to teach his method of argumentation to a few young disciples, and they passed it on to others, and eventually, it became known as “The Socratic Method.”  It’s a really great way to argue, especially if you have the patience and charity to really listen.
    It works like this:
    Before you start arguing with someone, let them know that you are interested in their opinion.  This is harder than it sounds, especially if they’re wrong and you know it.  But understand that they will be much more interested in hearing your opinion if they think you understand theirs.
    Next, repeat what they have to say.  Repeat their own words back to them so that they know you are really listening.  This is important for you too.  Maybe you have been hearing something that they didn’t intend.  Maybe you’ve been reading too much into their argument.
    Lastly, ask questions.  Lots of questions.  Anywhere that you see a contradiction or an omission, instead of pointing it out, ask a question about it.  If there’s a point you’d like to make, keep asking questions until they make the point for you.
    I’ll give an example.  I once had an encounter with a Fundamentalist who told me I was sinning because, as a priest, I allowed people to call me “Father.”  At first, this annoyed me.  After all, I hadn’t asked this guy for his advice.  But instead of explaining the title to him, I took a deep breath and said, “So you say that I am sinning whenever I allow someone to use that title?”
    “Yes,” he answered, “because Jesus said, ‘Call no man Father.’”
    “Well, you’re right there,” I said, “That’s straight out of the Gospel of Matthew:  “Call no man ‘father.’  There is but one Father in heaven” (23:9).  But I’m a little confused.  What if a child wants to address his…um…male genetic predecessor.  Does he have to find another word?”
    “That’s different,” he said.
    “How?” I asked.
    “Jesus was only referring to spiritual fatherhood, not genetic fatherhood.”
    “But I thought he said to call no man “Father.”  Are you telling me that he meant only the men who didn’t have actual children of their own?  What about adopted children?  ”
    The conversation went on a good while longer, but you get my point.  Instead of just telling him he was wrong, I explored his claim with him until he finally admitted that there were exceptions and that the passage couldn’t be taken literally.  I don’t think he changed his mind, but I think I learned something about his opinion, and he came a step closer to understanding mine.
    The Socratic Method is very Benedictine because it revolves around listening.  It also requires a great deal of humility because, no matter how stupid, arrogant, or wrong-headed your adversary may be, you have to be willing to let him teach you.  After all, as Saint Benedict points out, it may be the case that “The Lord has sent him for this very purpose.”

CHAPTER 40: Of the Quantity of Drink

Saint Paul says that "every person has his proper gift from God, some this, and some that”(1 Cor 7:7). We are reluctant, therefore, to dictate the quantity of food for others. However, allowing for the weakness of the sick, we think one hemina of wine a day is sufficient for each. But for those who are strong enough to abstain completely, let them know that they will have their special reward.  We read that wine is not at all proper for monks, yet because monks in our own times cannot be persuaded of this, let us agree at least to drink in moderation; because "wine makes even wise men act like fools”(Sir 19:2).  But in poorer places where they cannot afford wine, let the monks who live there bless God and not grumble. This we charge above all things: that they live without grumbling.

    The exact measure of the hemina is a topic hotly debated by monks all over the world.  It could be anything from a glass to three quarters of a gallon.  But one thing is certain: wine meant something entirely different to monks of the Middle Ages than it does today.  For starters, it wasn’t entirely recreational.  Wine made dirty water drinkable.  So it was actually rather hard to survive without it.  Nonetheless, I find it amusing that Benedict tried—and failed—to talk his monks out of recreational drinking.
    I operate under no illusions when it comes to teenage alcohol consumption, but for the purposes of this commentary, we may do better to use the analogy of video games or internet usage.  It is entirely appropriate to use either or both in the course of a day.  But like alcohol, the computer can become addictive and soul-destroying; and one must be capable of doing without.
    I have a friend who claims he once spent thirty-six straight hours playing “World of Warcraft,” breaking only for bathroom and pizza runs.  Honestly.  This can’t be healthy.  We have to set limits for ourselves, and if we can’t meet those limitations by virtue of our own self-discipline, we may need to enlist the help of friends or family.  One of my students invented an ingenious solution to his late night gaming:  every evening at 6pm, he would hand the computer cord to his dad.  When his laptop battery ran out, he knew he had reached his limit.  It wasn’t very good for his laptop, but it was good for his soul.
   Oh!  And did you notice the bit about grumbling?  It will turn up in the next chapter too.

CHAPTER 23: Excommunication

If a brother behaves in a way that is stubborn, disobedient, proud, grumbling, or opposed to anything in the Holy Rule and disrespects his superiors, let him be admonished once and again in secret, according to the command of our Lord. If his behavior does not improve, he should be rebuked in public before everyone. But if he does not reform even then, and he understands the punishment, let him be excommunicated.

Wherever there’s a rule, you’ll find a guy who wants to break it, even in a monastery.  For people like this, there have to be consequences.  Otherwise, the order of the community falls apart.  Worse still, the monk himself may lose his vocation.  Saint Benedict’s first response is to reason with him, but if that doesn’t work, the monk needs to see in some practical way that his disobedience is affecting the whole community.  As a last resort, the abbot may decide that it is better for the community—indeed, better for the monk himself—if he spend some time alone.

By modern standards, this sounds severe,[1] but considering that the Rule was composed at a time when you could lose a hand for stealing, and homelessness was rewarded with a brand on the forehead, the penalty of excommunication is surprisingly moderate.  Notice too that Benedict doesn’t excommunicate someone for a mistake, or even for misbehavior.  Thoughtlessness, impulsivity, ignorance…these aren’t what he’s afraid of.  The abbot should only exercise this authority when the offense is deliberate and rebellious.

Today we often misunderstand excommunication.  We tend to think of it in secular terms the way we might think of a prison sentence or a fine.  We wonder, for example, why the Church didn’t excommunicate more Nazis during the Second World War.  But excommunication is something a superior only does when he still believes he can bring the disobedient Christian back into the fold. It’s not really a punishment, therefore, it’s a wake-up call—and a chance to atone for the harm that one has done.

           Have you ever got the impression that someone was mad at you, but you had no idea what you did to cause it?  You end up walking around all day trying to guess what you did wrong.  Worse yet, have you been in a situation where you angered someone, but didn’t find out they were upset until days later?  These situations are doubly frustrating because there’s no way to set them right.  Saint Benedict has no interest in holding a secret grudge.  When someone does something wrong, you tell him straight away.  You tell him twice in private, then you tell him publicly.  It’s a blunt system, but simple, and, ultimately, charitable.  It’s better to be openly angry than politely resentful.

---

[1] Though, as Philip Jenkins points out in The New Anti-Catholicism, most organizations—and certainly all businesses—enforce some kind of behavioral standards on their members (p. 116).

CHAPTER 11: How the Office of Vigils is to be Said on Sundays

      The monks should wake up even earlier for the night office on Sunday.  And this should be done the same way in all seasons.  After the usual lessons and psalms, three canticles should be chanted with Alleluia; once the Abbot has given his blessing, four passages from the New Testament should be read, followed by the Te Deum.  Then the abbot should read a lesson from the Gospel, while the rest of the community stands in fear and trembling.
      If—God forbid—the brethren should rise too late, some of the lessons or the responses may have to be shortened. But try to be sure that this never happens. If it does, let the monk responsible make due satisfaction to God in the oratory.

    Saint Benedict only foresees one occasion when the monks should cut short the Sunday prayer: when, by some accident, they fail to wake up on time.  And whoever is at fault needs to make an apology to everyone in church—including God.  Prayer, you see, is fundamentally an act of justice.  We owe God our prayer.  It’s not something we do for ourselves (though of course there’s a lot to be gained), and it certainly isn’t a favor we do for God (though of course it pleases Him).  When we neglect our prayers, we are actually cheating God out of something that is His due.  Truly, Jesus has a right to a personal encounter with each of us.  And the privileged time and place for that is Sunday at church.
    Obedience, however, shouldn’t be our only motive for going to mass on Sunday.  Our true reason for being there is gratitude.  The Eucharist is God’s gift to us, and the church is the most powerful locus of prayer at our disposal.  In fact, those who really understand this make a point of going to church more than once a week.  They realize that, since humans are built for prayer, the more we pray, the more powerfully human we become.  Moreover, when we pray together in Christ, we are ‘no longer strangers and guests, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the capstone.” (Ephesians 2:19)
    When Saint Benedict reflects on how his monks should say their Sunday prayers, he uses this unusual phrase: cum honore et tremor—“with honor and trembling.”  Benedict wants his monks to feel the importance of the Sabbath.  Sure, we’re obliged to be there on pain of our immortal souls, but more importantly, we are privileged to be there.  We are honored to be there, and we tremble at the magnitude of that honor.  Of course, that’s hard to do when you’re sleepy or the music doesn’t suit your taste or the congregation is obnoxious and lukewarm.  At times like these, we have to try to see with the eyes of faith.  Whenever I want to get psyched up about going to mass, I reread this quote from the Anglican monk, Gregory Dix:
    “For century after century, spreading slowly to every continent and country and among every race on earth, this action has been done, in every conceivable human circumstance, for every conceivable human need from infancy and before it to extreme old age and after it, from the pinnacle of earthly greatness to the refuge of fugitives in the caves and dens of the earth. Men have found no better thing than this to do for kings at their crowning and for criminals going to the scaffold; for armies in triumph or for a bride and bridegroom in a little country church; for the proclamation of a dogma or for a good crop of wheat; for the wisdom of the government of a mighty nation or for a sick old woman afraid to die; for a schoolboy sitting an examination or for Columbus setting out to discover America; for the famine of whole provinces or for the soul of a dead lover; in thankfulness because my father did not die of pneumonia; for a village headman much tempted to return to superstition because the yams had failed; because the Turk was at the gates of Vienna…for the settlement of a strike; for a son for a barren woman; for Captain so-and-so wounded and prisoner of war; while the lions roared in the nearby amphitheatre; on the beach at Dunkirk; while the hiss of scythes in the thick June grass came faintly through the windows of the church; tremulously, by an old monk on the fiftieth anniversary of his vows; furtively, by an exiled bishop who had hewn timber all day in a prison camp near Murmansk; gorgeously, for the canonisation of S. Joan of Arc—one could fill many pages with the reasons why men have done this, and not tell a hundredth part of them. And best of all, week by week and month by month, on a hundred thousand successive Sundays, faithfully, unfailingly, across all the parishes of Christendom, the pastors have done this just to make the plebs sancta Dei—the holy common people of God" (The Shape of the Liturgy, p.744).
     Is that awesome or what?

Chapter 4, Part 3: Tools, continued...

The tools of good works are these...

(23) Not to cultivate a desire for revenge
(24) Not to entertain deceit in the heart.
(25) Not to make a false peace.
(26) Not to forsake charity.
(27) Not to swear, lest perchance you swear falsely.
(28) To speak the truth with heart and tongue.
(29) Not to return evil for evil.
(30) To do no injury, and even patiently to endure the injuries done to you.
(31) To love your enemies.
(32) Not to curse those that curse you, but rather to bless them.
(33) To bear persecution for the sake of justice.

      A few years ago, some obnoxious idiot made an extremely offensive video mocking the prophet Mohammed.  If you were watching the news (and I don’t necessarily recommend it) you saw video feeds from across the world of angry Muslims burning American flags and rioting in the streets.  I suppose you can’t really blame them.  Or maybe you can.  After all, there were millions of other Muslims across the world who, no doubt, were equally insulted, but who did not riot in the streets.  And to be sure, in America we had our own reactions.  Both the President and the Secretary of State filmed apologies.  The producer of the offending video was apprehended by the F.B.I. and taken in for questioning.  The film itself was publicly condemned by the World Council of Churches.  Even the Jewish Anti-Defamation League disavowed it.
       Interestingly, a very similar video surfaced not long before.  One of my students was the first to show it to me.  This other video started with a procession of monks trudging across the screen before a statue of the Sacred Heart chanting, “The Vatican is B*** S***”  Next, an actor, dressed as the pope, walked on screen holding a cell phone, pretending to talk to god.  Later in the film, they refer to Mother Theresa and her nuns in terms so foul, I can’t even hint at them in writing.  So you see, these two films had a lot in common.

      But here’s the clincher:  the anti-Islamic film was produced by some nobody in his basement and aired on YouTube.  The anti-Catholic film was produced by Showtime (a division of CBS).  You do remember hearing about it, though, right?  Don’t you remember the outrage in the media?  The presidential apology?  The expressions of sympathy from other religious authorities?  No?  Well, you wouldn’t have because they never happened.  In this country, bigotry and hate speech are acceptable—so long as they are directed at the Catholic Church.  Anti-Catholicism is, in the words of Philip Jenkens “the last acceptable prejudice.”  Frankly we’re used to it.
      Still, I’d be lying if I said that part of me didn’t want to storm the corporate headquarters of CBS and burn Matthew Blank’s office to the ground.  But of course, tool number twenty-nine says never to return evil for evil.  So instead, we pray for Mr. Blank.  And we pray for Penn Jillette and we pray for Raymond Joseph Teller.  We bless those who persecute us.  We love our enemies.  And if that doesn’t make us feel better, well…one or two of the cursing psalms couldn’t hurt.