CHAPTER 59: Rich Children and Poor Children Who Come to the Monastery

      Whenever a rich family offers their son to God in the monastery, let his parents write out the promise which we have mentioned above; and with the offering, let them wrap that document and the boy's hand in the altar cloth and so entrust him to the community.
      As for their property, let them bind themselves under oath in the same document that they will never try to give him things nor pass things along to him through other persons; nor, for that matter, leave him any opportunity to inherit anything.  If, therefore, they wish to make a donation to the monastery, they may do so, but as alms for their own benefit, because we do not want the boy to grow up with the sort of uncertainty that might deceive and ruin him.  God forbid!  This is something we have learned from experience.
      Let those who are poor do the same. But as for those who have nothing at all, let them simply make the declaration, and with the document, offer their son in the presence of witnesses.

      In the old days (and again, by ‘old’ I mean medieval), people used to drop off their extra kids at the monastery and let the monks raise them.  Different kids might come to the monastery for different reasons.  One might come from a poor family who couldn’t take care of him.  Another might be an orphan.  In another case, a father or mother might feel that they owed a great debt to God and that this was a way of giving something back to His Church—like Anna did in the Old Testament.  She prayed for a child, and when God gave her one, she vowed that she would give him over to the temple in thanksgiving.  The boy grew up to be the prophet, Samuel.  Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, did the same thing. But whichever the case, such children would grow up as part of the monastic community.  They would pray with the monks, learn a trade, learn to read, and perhaps make their own vows some day.1
      Regardless of how they came to the monastery, though—who their parents were or how much money they had—each boy would enter the community on the same terms.  Rich families would bring a gift (like money or land) presumably to pay for the child’s upbringing, but that didn’t mean he would be treated differently from the others.  Rich or poor, every monk stood on equal ground.  This was, in effect, the first communist society—and the only one to last more than fifty years.
    More importantly, however, Saint Benedict wanted to be sure to avoid favoritism—either in the form of pampering for the rich, or neglect of the poor.  He didn’t want his youngest monks to grow up restless and dissatisfied, wondering at every turn whether or not this was really the right place.  If he came to another conclusion on his own, so be it, but the constant temptation to run away would be too much for any child if he knew there was a fortune waiting for him on the outside.
    Frankly, that would be a tremendous temptation to anyone, and we can see today how rough it is to enter into a commitment when the alternatives are so ready.  We live in a culture of infinite options and instant gratification; so the moment we get bored or lonely or frustrated, we are encouraged to move on.  We grow up thinking we have a right to be happy—which we don’t, of course.  We have a right to the pursuit of happiness.
    Of course, I’m not saying that it’s wrong to follow your dreams or to be ambitious.  Nor do I mean to imply that you must always be satisfied with the status quo.  But be careful that you don’t waste your life away constantly second-guessing your decisions, wondering if someone else’s life is better, daydreaming about all the other things you might be doing if you weren’t here now.
    This is what monks call “interior grumbling.”  It is a terrible disease, with the potential to eat your life away.  But there is one great antidote: gratitude.  We must be constantly thanking God for the gifts we do have in addition to asking him for the things we need.  If we take time to appreciate the abundant graces in our lives, it will result in what spiritual writers call “living in the present moment.”  And this is always accompanied by the virtue of perseverance.
    There is a great prayer that sums up this whole philosophy.  Saint Augustine wrote it: “Lord, give what you command, then…command whatever you please.”

1 At my monastery, people drop their kids off all the time, but they take them back at the end of the day, thank God.

CHAPTER 58: How to Become a Monk

Do not make it easy on a newcomer to the monastic life; but, as the Apostle says, "Test the spirits, to see whether they are from God" (1 Jn 4:1).  If, therefore, he keeps on knocking, and after four or five days you can see that he has patiently endured the harsh treatment offered him and the difficulty of admission, and that he perseveres in his request, let him in, and let him live for a while in the guesthouse.

      The contemplative life is rewarding, but it isn’t easy.  Only about one in four even makes it through the training.  And this is by design.  You can’t judge a man’s spiritual strength by looking at him, so you have to “test his spirit.”  Saint Benedict’s first test is to slam the door in his face.  If he’s still knocking after five days, we let him in.
     Again, this might strike the reader as rather severe.  It is.  But it’s also charitable.  In the long run, you don’t want a man in the monastery who is going to take vows and end up too weak to keep them.  For his own sake, it’s better to challenge him early on, because ours is a very special, very rare, very difficult vocation.
     It used to be that when Catholics spoke of “having a vocation,” what they meant was a calling to the consecrated life—that of a priest or nun, for example.  But the Second Vatican Council made it clear that everyone has a vocation to holiness, and now the term has lost much of its meaning.  So I’d like to coin a new word.  When you’re called to this special kind of Christian life, you have an e-vocation —a calling apart, a calling away from the rest of humanity.  And it’s not just that the calling is special.  It is privileged—even, in a certain sense, superior, though admittedly that term demands clarification.
Here’s one way to think about it:
     Imagine that you are on the beach at the lake of Gennesaret.  You’re a fisherman.  It’s right around the sixteenth year of the reign of Tiberius.  Jesus of Nazareth is starting to stir things up in Israel.  You’ve heard stories about him.  You’ve heard him preach.  You realize that this is one of the most extraordinary men in the history of the world. 

"Hey, you!  Wait...no, never mind."

    So there you are, packing up your fishing gear, when you look up the beach, and there He is.  He’s walking along the shore in your direction.  He is choosing his apostles.
Here he comes.
He’s walking toward you.
     As he draws closer, you see that he is looking in your direction.  He’s walking straight toward you.  He draws closer.  Closer.  And just as he gets to your boat, he stops, turns around, and chooses the guy in the boat next to you.  Then he walks away.
     If the ending of this story disappoints you, then you may have an e-vocation.  Because, you see, everyone on that beach at Gennesaret was called to be a disciple.  But the apostles were evoked—called apart—from the others.  They weren’t just disciples, they were the chosen twelve.  And that is the kind of vocation that the monk has—a vocation to give up everything and follow Christ.
     Now, not everyone has this special kind of calling, but on some level, everyone is called to contemplative prayer, so even if you don’t think you have what it takes to be a full-time monk, you can, at any rate, be a part-time monk—called apart, maybe just for five or ten minutes a day, to give yourself over to Christ in contemplation.
      Consider this warning though, from the Book of Sirach: it won’t be easy.  “My son, if you want to enter the Lord’s service, be prepared for trials. Set your heart on a straight course, stay focused, and do not lose your head in times of struggle. Hold fast to Him, never desert Him if you would end your days well.  Endure every hardship that is sent you; be patient under humiliation, no matter what the cost.  For gold is purified by fire, and the Lord purifies men in the furnace of humiliation.” (Sirach 2: 1-5)

CHAPTER 57: Monks with Skills

If there are skilled craftsmen in the monastery, let them work humbly at their art, provided that the abbot has given permission. But if the artist should grow proud because he is so good at what he does (as though he were doing the monastery a favor) he should be removed from that work and not return to it until he has humbled himself. If any of his work is to be sold, let a third party negotiate the sale, provided that they do not try to take advantage of the monastery. On the other hand, when it comes to setting a price for these items, they should be careful not to be greedy, but should set the prices a little cheaper than the competition, so that God may be glorified in all things.

Here in Chapter 57, Saint Benedict puts his money where his mouth is.  Every man comes to the monastery with a set of skills[1] and sometimes these skills can be very lucrative.  At my monastery, we’ve got monks from all kinds of backgrounds: professors, artists, musicians, soldiers, programmers, economists, physicists, mathematicians, writers…we even have a monk who worked in the movies!  And any one of these guys could be making a load of money at what they do.  But they gave it up to be contemplatives, so no matter how much wealth they might generate for the community, the abbot cannot allow their talent to get in the way of their holiness.  In the words of Saint Therese of Liseux, “without love, even the most brilliant deeds count as nothing” (The Story of a Soul).

Monks with skills!

But, the monastery isn’t a hangout for freeloaders either.  If the community can’t support itself, it has to shut down, so every abbey takes on a “work” of some sort.  Some monasteries brew beer, some bake cakes, some run farms, others run schools.  The work varies, but the purpose remains the same: to support and nourish the community’s prayer.  Thus, everything the monks do—working, sleeping, praying, playing—is done with that one goal in mind, which is why Benedict ends this chapter with a quote from Saint Peter’s second letter: “that in all things, God may be glorified”—ut in omnia glorificatur Dei. 

I have a friend who works in international business, and he made a resolution to put this philosophy into practice.  After a near-fatal car accident, he swore he would never close a deal that he wouldn’t take if he were on the other side of the negotiations.  At first, his partners were skeptical.  Was it a scam?  Was he nuts?  But then word started to get around the business community that if you wanted a fair deal, you could go to Jim, and pretty soon he was getting paid tons of money just to sit in on other peoples’ transactions and tell them whether or not they were fair.  As a business stratagem, honesty, simplicity and integrity are sound principles, which is why Saint Benedict’s monks could often afford to sell their goods for slightly less than market value.

But beware.  Holiness isn’t always profitable.  In fact, it could cost you everything.

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[1] You know, like nunchuk skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills...

CHAPTER 56: The Abbot’s Table

          The abbot's should always eat with the guests. When, however, there are no guests, he should feel free to invite any of the brethren he desires. However, he should make sure that one or two of the seniors always remain with the brethren for the sake of discipline.

This chapter might strike the reader as a little unfair.  The abbot gets to hang out with the guests while everyone else is ‘disciplined’ by a senior monk.  In fact, the abbot may be getting the raw end of the deal.  It may look like fun to wear fancy duds and boss people around, but the abbot has to do all the things that his monks manage to avoid—like paying bills, going to meetings, overseeing the facilities, asking for donations, and, yes, talking with visitors.  His job is to be a sort of buffer between his monks and the outside world.

So there’s a parallel here with the life of a teenager.  You’re essentially an adult, and yet your parents get to do all sorts of things that they probably won’t let you do: buy a car, drink beer, stay out past midnight, go to unchaperoned parties...yet they also have to pay taxes, go grocery shopping, work from nine to five…  Their freedom comes at a price.  Were you to swap places with your parents for a day or two (and more than a few movies have been made about this) I think you’d find that being a parent is less fun than it looks.

The abbot, therefore, worries about material things so that his monks can focus on their prayers.  He pays the bills and imposes discipline so that his monks won’t have to use up their time making those kinds of decisions.  When someone invites me out to dinner, I just say, “The abbot won’t let me.”  And when someone asks me to say a funeral or go out to lunch or referee a rugby game, I say, “Let me ask the abbot.”  And if I don’t want to do one of these things, I ask the abbot to say “No.”  Similarly, when someone asks you to stay out past midnight, you can just say, “I have a curfew.”  And when they want you to have a beer at a party, you can just say, “My parents will know that I’ve been drinking.”

When you think about it in these terms, “discipline” is actually something that gives you freedom.  G.K. Chesterton used an interesting metaphor for this: he imagined a group of kids playing soccer next to a cliff.  The game is really boring, and the players are really timid because they’re all afraid of falling off the edge of the field.  No one will take the corner kicks, and every time the ball strays to the left, the game has to stop.  Then someone comes along and builds a big sturdy fence, and all of a sudden the kids can enjoy themselves.

Sure, some rules can be oppressive, but a good rule—like a true doctrine or that big, sturdy fence—actually frees you to do be yourself.  That’s how the psalmist can sing, “Your Law to me, O Lord, is sweeter than honey in the mouth” (Ps 119:103).

CHAPTER 55: How a Monk is to Dress

     Let clothing be given to the brethren according to the circumstances of the place and the nature of the climate in which they live. In warm climates, a cowl and a tunic should be enough for each monk: the cowl should be of heavy material in the winter but thinner in the summer: so too with his scapular and shoes. Let the monks not worry about the color or the texture of all these things, but let them be such as can be bought more cheaply. Those who receive new clothes should always return the old ones, to be put away in a wardrobe for the poor. It is sufficient for a monk to have two tunics and two cowls, for wearing at night and for washing. Anything else should be taken away. So, too, let them return socks and other old clothes whenever they receive new ones. Let those who are sent out on a journey receive trousers from the wardrobe, which, on their return, they should return, washed. For their bedding, a straw mattress, a blanket, a cover, and a pillow should be sufficient. These beds must, however, be frequently examined by the abbot, to guard against the temptation to hide personal possessions. And that this vice of private ownership may be cut off by the root, let everything necessary be given by the abbot; namely, cowl, tunic, stockings, shoes, girdle, knife[1], pen, needle, towel, and writing tablet; so that the monks won’t worry that they lack what they need. 

     There are a couple of terms in this chapter that need to be explained.  The cowl (cucullus in Latin) was originally a cap or a hood that peasants wore outdoors.  It covered the head, neck and shoulders.  Over the centuries, it has evolved into something that looks like a big black raincoat with wide sleeves, and its function is primarily ceremonial—though it is warm.  In most monasteries, only those who have made it to Solemn Vows are allowed to wear the cowl, so you can tell who the most established members are because they’re the ones who dress like Batman. 
      The scapular is more interesting still.  Saint Benedict may well have invented the word because it can’t be found in any writing before his time.  The scapular hangs from the shoulders (scapulae in Latin) and looks like an apron.  If you come from a pious Catholic family, you may well be familiar with the brown scapular, which the Carmelites popularized in the 1300s.  If the hood and cowl are symbols of the monk’s commitment to prayer (as Saint John Cassian said), then the scapular represents his commitment to work.

      Trousers are another thing altogether.  Times have changed, and what once served as underwear (trousers and tunics) now serve as standard clothing for anyone.  Moreover, cloth in general is cheap, and standards of hygiene have evolved, so we rarely share clothing at all.  Still, the spirit of the law applies: the monk owns nothing, not even the clothes on his back.  So whatever he isn’t using on a regular basis should be returned or thrown away.  In my monastery, there’s a collection of stuff in a closet upstairs that we call “the dead man’s pile.”  We call it that because, when a monk dies, all his stuff goes into that pile.  But pretty much anything you don’t need ends up there eventually—old habits, desk lamps, gloves, sandals, alarm clocks, wrist watches…and, yes, the occasional pair of trousers. 
     And yet, even with all these safeguards against personal ownership, a monk can still slip into materialism:  he can become obsessed with the cut and quality of his habit, the beauty of monastic custom, the quality of his vestments, and the trivialities of liturgical practice.[2]  Alternatively, he can grow careless and disheveled, calling his negligence “detachment” and his sloppiness “humility” when they’re really just different forms of self-absorption.
     Both errors are manifestations of what we in the monastic life call “singularity”—the temptation to set yourself apart—in a selfish way—from everyone else.  But joining a monastery (like joining any military force, or for that matter, any group at all) means giving up a measure of your personal identity in order to take on the identity of the larger group.  To put it biblical terms we “put on Christ” (Gal 3:27).  Thus, as one of our monks liked to say, “If you don’t look good, the Church don’t look good.”  A Christian should look the way he or she wants the Church to look: not shallow, lewd, or faddish; but noble, beautiful, dignified, and smart.

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[1] Notice the bit about the knife?  I love that!

[2] Not that such concerns don’t have their place, mind you.  As a hobby, perhaps, or even a scholarly pursuit.  But always one must keep in mind the Lord’s own precept: the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27).

CHAPTER 54: Whether a Monk Should Accept Gifts

Unless the abbot gives his explicit permission, a monk should never receive letters, tokens, or gifts of any kind, either from parents or any other person.  If his family sends him something, let the monk not presume to accept it before it has been approved by the abbot.

            A monk should love the world, but should not be attached to it.  He should be grateful for God’s gifts, but not cling to them.  We call this “detachment,” and it is a necessary virtue for the monk precisely because he gives up everything to be with Jesus.  But detachment isn’t just a concern for monks.  All Christians should live with the understanding that the beauty of the material world is God’s gift, and enjoy it as such—but not be too stressed out when it seems to slip away.

             Not too long ago, I lost my keys.  Truth be told, I lose my keys pretty often.  I leave them hanging from keyholes, wedged between sofa cushions, sitting in drawers and abandoned in coat pockets…  I once found my keys on the butter shelf in the refrigerator.  This time was different, though, because I’d been in the kitchen when I lost them, and I distinctly remembered taking them out of my left pocket to open the pantry.  One monk had passed through during the time I was there.  He had spoken to me briefly while I was opening the door and lingered a while in the pantry with me.  “Don’t lose you’re your keys,” he’d said to me with a wink before he left, and a few moments later, I realized they were gone.  Now, this particular monk has a fondness for practical jokes, so I had a strong suspicion they could be found on his person.

            I can’t say I was amused.  My life is messy enough without having other people come in and mess it up for me.  So I marched off to find him.  He was in the calefactory reading.  “Where are my keys?” I said, a fist planted on each hip.

            “Excuse me?” he answered, smiling over his book.

            “Where did you put my keys?”

            The smile broadened, and he shook his head.  I could tell from the look on his face that he knew exactly where my keys were.  At the same time, I also realized that yelling at him would accomplish nothing.  So I sighed and shook my head and sat down in a chair across from him.  “Please, Brother, if you know where my keys are, just tell me.”

            “Brother,” he said, “they’re hanging out of your left pocket.”

            I looked down, and there they were, caught on a thread, swinging from my hip.

            Little disciplines like asking permission from the abbot help to remind the monk that no material possession—not even a set of keys—is worth disturbing your peace of mind.  You may not have an abbot or a superior to go to, but in general, there’s always someone standing between you and what you want.  Try to think of that person as a gift—a reminder from God—to focus on what’s really important.

CHAPTER 53: How Guests Are to be Welcomed

All guests should be received as Christ, because He will say: "I was a stranger and you took Me in" (Mt 25:35). And let due honor be shown to every one of them, and especially to fellow Christians and travelers. When, therefore, a guest is announced, the Superior and the brethren should welcome him with every mark of charity. Let the greatest care be taken, especially in the reception of the poor and travelers, because Christ is especially present in them.

     After sixteen years of teaching, there are two things I’ve learned about my students:  they can be very, very funny; and they can be very, very annoying.  I had one student in my seventh grade English class who stands out in my memory as excelling all the others in both these qualities.  His name was Chad, and he considered it his special vocation to question me in such a way as to lead me as far as possible from any relevant topic of class discussion.  (Creative genius is a lot like nature, I think.  99% of what it produces is just useless.  But that remaining 1% is worth waiting for, so I tended to give Chad at least one shot every day.)
     This particular afternoon, Chad raised his hand in the middle of a class discussion on the literary merits of Edmund Spenser and said:  “If Jesus loves us so much, why doesn’t he just come down and show himself to us?”  This, of course, struck me as profoundly irrelevant to the topic at hand, but at the same time, I needed material for my next homily, so I decided to run with it.
     “Jesus does show himself to us,” I told him, “every time we receive the Eucharist.”

    “Right. Right.”  He said, “but what I’m asking is: Why doesn’t he personally, physically come down and visit with us?”
     “He does,” I answered.  “In the Eucharist, he personally, physically comes down and visits with us.”
     “That’s not what I mean,” he said, “I want to know why Jesus doesn’t make personal, face-to-face appearances to people like you and me.”
     “Well he does that too,” I said.  “You just have to be patient.”
     Chad wasn’t going to be put off that easily.  “So you’re telling me,” he said, “that you have personally, physically, met Jesus Christ face-to-face.  You’ve seen him.  You’ve personally seen God.” 
      I looked him in the eye and I said, “Yes, Chad, I have.”
     “Fine!” he said, “Then what does he look like?”
    There was a nervous silence in the classroom as he and the other students waited for my answer.  And for a moment or two, I was a little afraid I was going to have to back down.  But the answer came to me.  “Chad,” I said, “I have met Jesus.  Face to face. And you know what?  He looks a lot like you.
    “You see, Mother Teresa used to say that we should serve Christ in ‘the distressing disguise of the poor.’  And this used to bother me a little because I thought Mother Teresa loved the poor; but clearly she found them just as icky as I do.  By her own admission, she found their presence disturbing.  But what she could see (and I couldn’t) is that whenever you find someone distressing or annoying or off-putting in any way, that’s a sure-fire way of knowing that the person you’re dealing with is Jesus.  You want to know what Jesus looks like?  Think of the one person in the world who annoys you the most.  And there you have it.  That’s what Jesus looks like.”
     It is true that guests often arrive at inconvenient times.  It is also true that they can sometimes be demanding or rude.  But hospitality is a special vocation for the Christian, and he must resolve to be heroically patient and charitable, drawing superhuman power from the sacraments and from his prayer.  Thus, in the faces of those who distress us the most, we are given power to discern the very face of God.

A few of my students.  You can probably guess which one is Chad.