The Benedictine Handbook

Anthony Marett-Crosby, Anthony Marett-Crosby

• Publisher: Canterbury Press Norwich
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781848253520
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

This comprehensive manual is aimed especially at oblates and associates of Benedictine communities, those who regularly spend retreats or quiet days in Benedictine centres and all those who want to order their life to be more in tune with Benedictine spirituality. The book contains: the text of the Rule of St Benedict; an introduction to the essentials of Benedictine spirituality; a simple daily office and other Benedictine prayers; a "who's who" introducing us to 100 Benedictine saints and followers; a guide to living the Rule in the world and community and a tour of the Benedictine family worldwide.Many notable authors have contributed to this volume which is designed to last a lifetime. They include Esther de Waal, Columba Stewart, Kathleen Norris and Patrick Barry.

 

Part One

Saint Benedict’s Rule

 

A Short Introduction

It may seem extravagant today to suggest that not only monks and nuns but also ordinary laymen and lay women of the twenty-first century can learn something invaluable about themselves and about how to live their lives on this earth by reading what St Benedict wrote in the sixth century and by taking it to heart. Yet in considering that strange proposition we might start by looking at the actual use of the Rule throughout the ages, and reflecting that it has been alive and active through all the centuries that have elapsed since it was written. During all that time it has provided spiritual inspiration to countless monks and nuns in their desire to dedicate their whole being to God. During all that time it has also stretched out beyond the walls of the monasteries. It has given spiritual inspiration and encouragement to many of the laity who have been associated as oblates with Benedictine abbeys throughout the world. And now in this present age it has gone even further than that.

Since the Second Vatican Council the Rule has acquired a new lease of life among the laity. There have been young lay movements in the Church that have adopted St Benedict’s Rule to provide them with structure and guidance in their way of life. There have been lay groups at parochial and national level who have found in it much of the spiritual inspiration that they seek in their desire to lead lay lives in more faithful service of Christ and of their fellow men and women. There have been groups in other Churches, Anglican, Episcopalian, Protestant, who have recognized in the Rule a seminal document from the days before the schisms and sad divisions of Christianity and find in it a source of spirituality untainted by the rancour of division. There are Buddhists in open, peaceful dialogue with Christianity who have found in the Rule of St Benedict echoes, affirmations and analogies which correspond with something in their own search for self-understanding, for community, for harmony and for ultimate meaning in their journey of life. All this evidence of a new life for the Rule among the laity is no dream but solid fact of what has actually already happened. It raises the deep and interesting question about what it is in the Rule that can span the centuries in this way and still provide spiritual inspiration for the future.

The Rule was written by St Benedict for his monks to guide them in their search for God through their life of dedication. Whatever the sources and influences that went into its creation, it has a simplicity and directness of appeal which is still powerful. It is without pretension and is written in the rough, common Latin of the time, which is far from the polished sonority of classical Latin but which has a deeply attractive rhythm of its own. St Benedict had an ear for the music of words. He also had an insight into the hearts of human beings in their search for self-knowledge and truth and meaning in life. There are parts of the Rule which are simply regulations, so necessary to make community life harmonious and possible. There are parts which are disciplinary, which are there – in Benedict’s own words – because they are ‘demanded reasonably for the correction of vice and the preservation of love’.¹ Yet, even when he is dealing with the control of real wickedness, it is never stern regulations that matter to him but the ultimate supremacy of prayer and love. Thus he recommends that, when all other means have failed to correct wrongdoing, the abbot should turn to something ‘which is still more powerful’ than any disciplinary measures, ‘namely the personal prayer of the superior and of all the community that the Lord, who can do all things, may himself bring healing to the delinquent’.²

The real heart of the Rule, however, and the power which has kept it alive and relevant to Christian life today is not the regulations and practical directions for community living, valuable though they are. The heart of the Rule is in the chapters of spiritual guidance which are so full of the timeless wisdom of scripture. Outstanding among these are the Prologue, Chapter 4 on guidelines for Christian living, Chapter 7 on humility, the chapters of guidance for the abbot in the exercise of authority and Chapter 72, which in a few short sentences summarizes the whole spirit of the Rule. In these chapters and in many other passages which could be quoted, St Benedict writes as though speaking in intimate dialogue with a young aspirant who is seeking his advice. His manner, and his very words, are couched in this vein so that he seems even to be offering himself more as a spiritual companion than as a masterful leader in the journey of life. He achieves this through reflections of great depth on our relationships with our creator, our redeemer, on our use of the world we live in, on our interaction with each other, on our considered assessment of ourselves and our place in the universe, on freedom from vice and egomania, on our search for a peace and a fulfilment which is free from arrogance, greed, anger and all that disturbs the inner tranquility of ‘that love of God which in its fullness casts out all fear’.³

There is one other point to be made and it is perhaps the most important of all. St Benedict does not speak on his own authority. He is personally formed on the word of God in scripture and his language is shot through with scriptural phrases and concepts. Even when he is not actually quoting scripture there is usually a scriptural echo in his words. The whole power of the Rule, then, comes from the word of scripture and that is what makes its message timeless, participating, as it does, in the richness of the word of scripture which is ever old and ever new.

A Note on the Text

In the Latin text of the Rule the sentences in each chapter have been numbered. This may sometimes be a help to scholarly study. This translation, however, is intended to be read holistically as an experience of sacred reading which is close to prayer or meditation. References can nevertheless be made to it by chapter and paragraph. Where references to the text have been made in this book they have followed that pattern.

Patrick Barry OSB

Notes

1. See Prologue, last paragraph.

2. See Chapter 28.

3. See Chapter 7, last paragraph.

Saint Benedict’s Rule

A New Translation for Today

Patrick Barry OSB

CONTENTS

Prologue to the Rule

1 Four approaches to monastic life

2 Gifts needed by an abbot or abbess

3 Calling the community together for consultation

4 Guidelines for Christian and monastic good practice

5 Monastic obedience

6 Cherishing silence in the monastery

7 The value of humility

8 The Divine Office at night

9 The number of psalms at the night office

10 The night office in summertime

11 Vigils or night office on Sunday

12 The celebration of solemn Lauds

13 Lauds on ordinary days

14 The celebration of Vigils on feasts of saints

15 When the Alleluia should be said

16 The hours of the work of God during the day

17 The number of psalms to be sung at the hours

18 The order for reciting the psalms

19 Our approach to prayer

20 The ideal of true reverence in prayer

21 The deans of the monastery

22 Sleeping arrangements for the community

23 Faults which deserve excommunication

24 Different degrees of severity in punishment

25 Punishment for more serious faults

26 Unlawful association with the excommunicated

27 The superior’s care for the excommunicated

28 The treatment of those who relapse

29 The readmission of any who leave the monastery

30 The correction of young children

31 The qualities required by the cellarer

32 The tools and property of the monastery

33 Personal possessions in the monastery

34 Fair provision for the needs of all

35 Weekly servers in the kitchen and at table

36 The care of the sick in the monastery

37 Care for the elderly and the young

38 The weekly reader

39 The amount of food to be made available

40 The proper amount of drink to be provided

41 The times for community meals

42 The great silence after Compline

43 Late-comers for the work of God or in the refectory

44 The reconciliation of those excommunicated

45 Mistakes in the oratory

46 Faults committed elsewhere

47 Signalling the times for the work of God

48 Daily manual labour

49 How Lent should be observed in the monastery

50 Those whose work takes them away from the monastery

51 Those on local errands or work

52 The oratory of the monastery

53 The reception of guests

54 The reception of letters and gifts in the monastery

55 Clothing and footwear for the community

56 The table for the superior and community guests

57 Members of the community with creative gifts

58 The reception of candidates for the community

59 Children offered by nobles or by the poor

60 The admission of priests into the monastery

61 Monastic pilgrims from far away

62 The priests of the monastery

63 Community order

64 The election of an abbot or abbess

65 The prior or prioress of the monastery

66 The porter or portress of the monastery

67 Those who are sent on a journey

68 The response to orders that seem impossible

69 No one should act as advocate for another

70 The offence of striking another

71 Mutual obedience in the monastery

72 The good spirit which should inspire monastic life

73 This Rule is only a beginning

Notes

Prologue to The Rule

LISTEN, CHILD OF GOD, TO THE GUIDANCE OF YOUR teacher. Attend to the message you hear and make sure that it pierces to your heart, so that you may accept with willing freedom and fulfil by the way you live the directions that come from your loving Father. It is not easy to accept and persevere in obedience, but it is the way to return to Christ, when you have strayed through the laxity and carelessness of disobedience. My words are addressed to you especially, whoever you may be, whatever your circumstances, who turn from the pursuit of your own self-will and ask to enlist under Christ, who is Lord of all, by following him through taking to yourself that strong and blessed armour of obedience which he made his own on coming into our world.

This, then, is the beginning of my advice: make prayer the first step in anything worthwhile that you attempt. Persevere and do not weaken in that prayer. Pray with confidence, because God, in his love and forgiveness, has counted us as his own sons and daughters. Surely we should not by our evil acts heartlessly reject that love. At every moment of our lives, as we use the good things he has given us, we can respond to his love only by seeking to obey his will for us. If we should refuse, what wonder to find ourselves disinherited! What wonder if he, confronted and repelled by the evil in us, should abandon us like malicious and rebellious subjects to the never-ending pain of separation since we refused to follow Him to glory.

However late, then, it may seem...