A lecture at the Nordic Catholic Church Gran Convention October 26th 2024
Dear most reverend Fathers, very and right reverend Fathers, dear sisters and brethren in Christ. First of all, I would like to thank you from my heart for the invitation and the honour of being the first of the Hungarian mission to speak at the annual conference of our Church. Thank you for the opportunity, hospitality and interest! This is a great honour for me personally.
Let’s start with some simple thoughts from Saint Benedict’s Rule, according Terrence Kardong’s summary.
A monk does not love his own will nor takes delight in satisfying his desires. A monk cannot have private property. A monk only does that which is allowed by the rule of the monastery. A monk remains silent unless asked a question. A monk speaks gently without laughter, seriously with modesty, briefly and reasonably without raising his voice. A monk is always humble inwardly and outwardly, in his heart and actions.[1] „When such people misbehave, they should be deprived of food or pressured with sharp blows to correct them.” (RB 30.3) and: “Strike your son with the rod and you will free his soul from death” (Prov.23:14) [RB 2.28][2]
Is there anyone here who wants to be a monk? As I look around, I see that if someone wanted to be a monk until now, it is certain that he doesn’t want to be. In the last year a kind lady was inquiring about our monastic order, the Order of Port–Royal. I told her to read the Rule. She red it and then said that it was horrible and impossible for her to live like this. You may not believe me, but imagine that our Abbot Michael Meier OPR had never hit me before! I can not understand why, because the Rule is clear but he doesn’t hurt me or any other brethren.
I think in most people’s minds, monasticism is so strict, unloving, ascetic, self-torturing and self-abusing, as the Rule describes in many places. But the Benedictine Rule is perhaps the most popular, well known and respected life rule of the Christian monastic tradition on the world. If I wanted to define it in one sentence, then I would say the Rule is Saint Benedict’s dream about how people can realize together the Holy Scriptures in their lives.
My time frame is very tight to talk about St. Benedict as a person or the formation of the Rule, or to comprehensively analyze its structure. In this short lecture, through 6 chapters I will keep only two aspects in my focus. First: to understand the basic operational system of the Rule and it’s spirit; second: what can we adopt from the 1500–years–old Rule into our church and individual life today?
1. The Benedictine system of the Rule
At first sight the Regula Benedicti – the Rule of Saint Benedict is a strict and normative guide for cloistered monks written in the early sixth century. It is a concise work comprising a prologue, seventy–two short chapters, and an epilogue, which combine theoretical reflections on the goals of the monastic vocation with practical insights about the day–to–day workings of a small religious house, based on the first–hand experience of its author.[3]
To the modern reader some of the chapters are incredibly harsh. My response is simple: Benedict was writing at a different time. Scholars agree that Rule reflects the quality of life and lifestyle of an average person at the time. This life, compared to that of a „father of the desert” seems much too lax and uncomplicated, yet it is more in keeping with the potential of the normal human being.[4] It takes into consideration man’s strengths and weaknesses and works a suitable plan around them. I will give you a personal example.
For a long time, I did not understand how the monks were able to get up at midnight and pray the typically longest prayer, the vigil. A few years ago I tried it, but I confess you that I gave up on the third day because my body couldn’t stand staying overnight. I later learned that before the invention of electricity, people’s sleeping habits were very different from that they are today. They went to bed at sunset, got up after a few hours of sleep, continued their usual activities for a few hours, then went to bed again, slept for a few hours and got up again with the sunrise. No one knows it now, but before the invention of electric lighting, people slept twice a night[5] and considered the intermediate time their most valuable and intimate time. So there is nothing special even in the fact that the monks got up at night to pray, because everyone got up in the middle of the night.
The same is the situation with eating meat, clothing and other strict circumstances. Compared to the life of the average person, the monastery even had the advantage of providing orderly, affordable and permanent supplies to the monks, and the monasteries built on the mountain provided protection. In contrast with a simple peasant, a monk had life insurance. What we might view as cruel and psychologically unhealthy, Christians of the sixth century viewed as spiritual and necessary for growth in holiness.
2. Obedience and humility
„Ora et labora et lege”– „pray, work and read”, this is the well-known motto of the Benedictine Order. But this is not the most important. The longest chapter of the Rule is the chapter 7, which is about obedience. This is the centre and crucial key–term of the whole Benedictine and monastic system. Without the understanding and internalisation of the obedience no one can understand the monasticism.
The Rule says: „willing to renounce self–will” (RB 0.3) and „do not wish to live by their own lights, obeying their own desires and wants” (RB 5.12) but „obey the abbot’s orders in all things” (RB 4.60).
Renunciation of one’s own will and freedom is a sign of closer following of Jesus Christ: „I came down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me.” (Jn 6:38) Jesus called his disciples to follow him as closely as if he had instructed them to follow in his footsteps when they followed him. „Everyone who claims to be in Christ must live and move as He lived and moved,” teaches St. Bernard of Clairvaux.[6]
In the Rule of St. Benedict, the expression for obedience is observantia, formed from the Latin verb root observare, of which we find several important occurrences. We can find several variants of meaning in the Rule: observantia means attention, respect, obedience; observatio means observation, care, conscientiousness, obedience. In monastic literature, the verb form is more common, and in the 14–15 centuries, from the appearance of the observant orders, it mostly means discipline. Whereas in Benedict’s monastery the abbot stands in the place of Christ, that role in the local church is held by the Bishop and priest.[7]
The other key–term of the Rule is humility (humilitas). „Brothers, the Holy Scripture cries out to us, saying: Whoever is self promoting will be humbled, and whoever is humble will be promoted.” [RB 7.1]
In ancient times, humility was considered a contemptible behaviour that servants and slaves owed to their masters. By calling his followers to a dishonourable, servile spirit, Jesus forged a positive value out of this deficit; in fact he carried out an emphatic reversal of values. According to the teaching of Jesus, humility is not a virtue of the lowly, but of the powerful, and indeed of the Son of God, who voluntarily renounced his divinity and submitted himself to death on the cross.[8]
Christianity, and monastic spirituality in particular, is nourished by this humiliation of God,[9] which theologians usually associate with the Greek word kenosis from St. Paul’s Christ Hymn in the letter to the Philippians: „He emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.” (Phil 2:7–8).
The verb kenoo (κενόω) is almost always translated as emptying, but this is inaccurate, because the expression should be read in the sense of making empty, nullifying value, degrading. To the extent that Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, shared in the glory of the Father (Jn 1:14), he distanced himself from this in his kenosis, he renounced it: „the empty state means the renunciation of all the benefits that come with glory”.[10] This Christian virtue is functional when it is mutual, when everyone in the community constantly tries to put the interests of others before their own: „serve one another in love” (Gal 5:12).
So the humility of Christ is the archetype to be realized for the monk, and the ingloriousness of Jesus is a life program. Of course, humility is not a sacrifice from some ascetic motive, but the transformation into life of that divine dynamic in which God Himself identified with the smallest, the most despised. The connection of humility and obedience, and the ethics of slavery lived in Christ (Gal 1,10) brings with it the radical acceptance and love of one’s neighbour and brother, the acceptance that no one is better than the other and that everyone is in need of God’s grace. „They must compete with one another in obedience.” [RB 72.6]
I hope that from this brief explanation you can understand how closely obedience and humility are connected in the Rule, and how they lead to love, that is, to being able to put the good of others before our own will.
In Chapter 7, St. Benedict depicted a complete spiritual system which derives from these cardinal virtues. He wrote about a ladder that the monk can climb to reach the perfect love of God. The two side rails of the ladder are the body and the soul [RB 7.9], and the ladder has 12 steps. These 12 steps are: 1.) God’s love above all; 2.) renunciation of self-will; 3.) total obedience; 4.) quiet, good soul; 5.) repentance; 6.) satisfaction with the least; 7.) humiliation; 8.) following orders perfectly; 9.) taciturnity; 10.) prohibition of laughter; 11.) restraint and self-control; 12.) control over the body.
Benedict explained each one based on biblical quotations, but did not think of these steps as sequential, rather, the steps are cumulative; the monk who has advanced to the fifth step is still practicing humility according to the first four steps. Benedict is offering a fully formed theology of spirituality under the theme of humility.[11]
Perhaps you can see now that the Rule is not a word–by–word writing, and the Christian perfection (Mt 5:48) is not a fundamentalist work and is not meant literally. It is a symbolic and spiritually articulated allegoric guidance – like the parables of Jesus – which every monk need personally understand and apply to his own life in an individual way. The most important monastic topics: obedience, humility, the daily agenda, work and prayer creates order around and within the person.[12]
3. Stability
The Council of Chalcedon, in 451 stipulated that the monks must remain in the monastery in which they were accepted. The 2nd Council of Nikea, in 787 confirmed and forbade monks to leave their mother monastery. But it doesn’t have a just physical meaning.
The stability is a manifestation of Christ’s peace. Restlessness usually comes from wanting to be different from who we currently are, or wanting to be somewhere else, or wanting to be at a different time. It leads to true spiritual peace if we take up our spiritual cross every day (Lk 9:23), and we accept that life is full of difficulties, sadness, and adversity.[13] No matter how much you try to avoid illness, losses, and traumas, it is impossible, because they are a part of every person’s life. Even if we do not see the meaning of suffering, we can entrust ourselves to God’s Providence, which fills our souls with hope.
I quote from a famous Hungarian spiritual Jesuit priest: „The feeling of peace of mind is not the same as psychological calm, it is much deeper. In strong emotional excitement, a person can lose his peace of mind, although not at other times.”[14]
»Stability is at the heart of Benedictine community. Through mutual obedience, a family is created that is the infrastructure of Benedictine community. Community, as a word, has Latin roots meaning, „to eat bread together.” (…) Stability is, in fact, the last indicator of community strength.[15]
As Quentin Skrabec wrote: „There is a direct equation between individual obedience and loyalty with organizational stability. It is a bond and an organizational consent. Stability flows from mutual obedience and co-dependency.”[16] If we are curious about the secret of the Rule’s success, we can now clearly see that mutual obedience and humility create unity and stability. This is what made the Benedictines always so effective.
4. Community
„The Benedictine team allows for individuality but is focused on the community. (…) It is humility that gives the individual a perspective of self and a role to build community. Individual ideas are fostered, but ultimately the good of the community is the rule by individual choice.”[17] It’s like a good team sport, where individual statistics are noted and praised, but self–sacrifice for the good of the team is held in high esteem.
Furthermore, self–sacrifice for the team ultimately results in a spirit that actually maximizes individual performance. It is this spirit that is the hallmark of high performance organizations.
A daily chapter meeting is used at the monastery to voice issues. Ultimately, the chapter is obedient to the abbot, but the abbot is bound by the Rule to take all into decisions. It is this mutual obedience that ensures harmony and fosters teamwork. Benedictine teamwork does not require „training” but the creation of a communal spirit.[18]
At this point I would like to remind you of the principle of Old Catholic conciliarism. The simple but equal, fraternal community decisions in the church, can make more effective and cohesive the whole church.
Skrabec in his book about the Rule explains in details. Harmony is never mentioned in the Rule, yet it is the very essence of Benedictine community. It is the ultimate result of the Rule’s obsession with obedience. The English translation of the word obedience implies „adherence in a severe manner. (…) Harmony cannot coexist with negativity. Benedict focused on negativity at a personal level. Any leader who has tried to change knows the crippling power of negativity to bind organizations. [19]
5. How can we use Saint Benedict’s Rule in our Church and life?
- The operation should be fraternal and not hierarchical, everyone should obey each other with the obedience of love and the leaders should always ask everyone’s opinion, communication should always be easy and free. This is not democratic, but something much better, a fraternal system, so-called „sociocracy”. I need to mark that the Cistercian General Chapter, where the abbots meet and through the same level communication they make assure corporate integrity is very close to the organizational principles of the standard – ISO 9000.
- Stability is the cornerstone of a Benedictine organization. Stability is achieved through social ties and meeting physiological needs.
- Remember the root of community is „breaking bread.” The development of real friendships should be supported beyond traditional neighbourly love, and beyond the usual church events – such as this conference – it would be nice to have barbecues, hikes, and to drink some beers together. A two–to–three–day off–site meeting to set goals, objectives, and renew mission is a good technique to build community.
- Zero tolerance towards negativity. If this fails, „excommunication” is needed for the good of the organization. Remember the Rule of St. Benedict called for kindness, guidance, and even support of the excommunicated. Internal intrigue and individual politicking destroys the community, and for the good of the majority, we must get rid of the intriguers.
- The leadership in Rule is like a teacher or a good father. As Saint Paul said in his letter to Timothy: „convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching” (Tim 4:2). Over and over again, the Rule uses teachers and parents as analogies for the Abbot.
»William Penn says: “They have a right to criticize but a heart to help.”«[20] „The Rule itself is cybernetic, meaning that it steers the whole community as a system.”[21]
6. The Rule today
„The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common.” (Acts 4:32) – says the Acts of the Apostles. The one heart and mind in my interpretation means unity, understand well: catholicity.
The Christian life lived by the first generation of believers in Jerusalem was Christian spirituality itself. Daily Christian life and monastic life have become completely separated throughout history. But a process has begun in the 17–18 Century, which Roman Catholic theologians are already seriously studying. There is a monastic crisis within Catholicism since the past 300 years. You can see the numbers on the screen.
From 1815 to 1850 the European Franciscans dropped from 133,000 to 39,000; from 1780 to 1844 the French Dominican monasteries dropped from 2000 to 20, the Dominican friars from 30,000 to 5000. In Poland from 1770 to 1914 the male monasteries dropped from 990 to 188.[22] Let see the global data. From 1974 to 2021 the nuns in the world dropped from over 980,000 to 608,954.[23] The religious brothers in the same period dropped from 70,500 to 49,774.[24]
The number of nuns and monks has halved in the last 50 years and is a fraction of what it was 300 years ago. The Rule and the classic monastic way of life were based on the feudal property system, donations of farmlands and villages. Through this, stable and secure agricultural incomes ensured the monks’ livelihood. The early reason of crisis was not spiritual, but economic. With the end of feudalism, the basic conditions of the traditional life of acquisition slowly disappeared. Today, when in democracies the state and the church function are completely separated – I know, Norway is an exception – it is no longer possible to speak of a classic monastic life.
Today’s religious orders are no longer the large–scale feudal and farming economic organisms they used to be in the Middle Ages due to donations and their economic efficiency. For example, at the beginning of the 17th century a Benedictine Abbey possessed around fifty-two villages, five parts of villages, and one town (totalling ca 5,700 hectares).[25]
Thus, the Rule became a spiritual guide from a set of points that accurately and factually described the everyday life. There are no longer majorities in the monasteries, they don’t have huge lands, but they have become spiritual centres. The Rule became a spiritual guidance.
This current change continues.[26] Researchers prove that in addition to external conditions the neo–scholastic theology and the ascetic dualism that supported the cloister mentality became increasingly implausible, which influenced the attractiveness of religious life.[27]
Prominent scholars perceived that the classical monastic orders and the monastic way of life are constantly withering, but more and more new types of communities are being formed, so called NMCs: New Monastic Communities.[28] After decades, it seems that these fraternities do not represent a different kind of spirituality, but represent the transformation of the entire Western monasticism.
May I raise two questions: what does in fact Christian and the monastic spirituality mean? Is there today any remarkable difference between them?
The word „spirituality” refers to the deepest values and meanings, by which people seek to live, which means what the person of the Holy Spirit is doing in the life of the individual believer. In the earliest times Christian spirituality and what we might now call „monastic spirituality” were one and the same. There was one form of the spiritual life, and it was obligatory for all baptized followers of Jesus Christ.[29] Honestly all Christians are monks and of course all monks are Christians.[30]
To be a „monk” was to live into the fullness of the Christian life as laid out in the Scriptures and as it has developed in history. It was to take one’s spiritual formation seriously, hoping, in the end, to be in „sweet communion” with God.[31] Hence I can tell you that the essence of monastic life is an interior reality: an act of the will, or the desire to commit oneself to God entirely.[32]
In this context the religious institution of our Church, the Ecumenical Cistercian Order of Port–Royal is a progressive transitional monastic phenomenon. It represents the tradition, at the same time the monks are easily accessible for people, they are not separated in enclosure, they work in the world, they demonstrate understanding, service and approach to ordinary people, and they combine contemplative and active life, in which work is as important as prayer (ora et labora). Therefore, the OPR is an exemplary thermometer of the monastic changes of the past centuries. It accurately indicates that the boundaries between the average person and the monk are gradually disappearing, and the stone-build monastery and the Rule of St. Benedict are becoming more and more an inner monastery and a way of life.
History teaches us again and again that major reform programs fail, paper becomes a waste, revolutions are betrayed and slip away from the planners, but on the other hand, an individual’s personal choice can have unexpected and undesirable long term consequences and effects.[33]
Let me quote the Trappist abbot Marie–Gerard Dubois a bit longer: »I think that we could consider the whole of monastic tradition of the fourth through the sixth centuries as a „founding period”. The experience of the first monks can be called „primordial” in the strong meaning of the term, that of an original experience which serves as the model of all the experiences which follow, because these latter re–live the former. But please understand me: The only real and authentic primordial experience is the Paschal experience of Christ, and it is this experience that the Church re–lives (…); monastic life, however, is a particular way of re–living this gospel–experience.[34]
Now you can see that the Rule is not a special ancient text that only special people understand and can only be used by exceptional calling. Regula is a tool which helps you get closer to God, to a personal relationship with him, through Christ. A Cistercian monk, Brother Nivard wrote two instructive sentences into the Trappist theological periodic in 1964.
„The restorers of the monastic Orders in France and elsewhere generally started over again from zero, – such is the case for nearly all the Benedictine congregations. They did not keep any of the ancient customs, whether liturgical or monastic, except those which they were able to understand in the context of the spirit of their times.”[35]
We are only able to understand and use as much of the teaching of Jesus or of the Rule of Saint Benedict as the Holy Spirit of God allows with his wisdom, and as much as we can understand and use according to our own age and personal abilities.
Tradition only lives if we actualize it in our own lives, if it appears in our decisions and life situations. Therefore, the Rule of Saint Benedict is open to everyone. The Rule is not confined within the walls of the monastery, but belongs to everyone. Make your decisions according to your heart and system of the Rule today. Because if the whole community seeks God with one heart, then God is present at the centre of the community itself.[36]
Father Aelred Szeles OPR
Priest of the Nordic Catholic Missions in Budapest and Gyömrő
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Chittiser, Joan D, The Monastic Heart. (New York: Convergent Books, 2021).
Dubois, Dom Marie–Gerard OCSO, ’Interpretation of the Rule of Saint Benedict and Textual Criticism’, Liturgy, Vol. 14., No. 2., (1980), 75–91.
Dammertz, Viktor, ’Benediktiner Kultur 750-1050’, Benedictine Kultur 750-1050, Mediaevalia Lovaniensia Series I / Studia XI, (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1983), XI–XIII.
Exploring the Future of Christian Monasticism. (ed. Greg Peters), (Basel: MDPI, 2019).
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Peters, Greg, The Monkhood of All Believers, The Monastic Foundation of Christian Spirituality. (Grand Rapids: Baker Publishing Group, 2018).
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Skrabec, Quentin R., St. Benedict’s Rule for Business Success. (West Lafayette, Purdue University Press, 2003).
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Notes
[1] Peters, Story of Monasticism, 71.
[2] Kardong, Benedict’s Rule, 50. [I cite St. Benedict’s Rule’s portions in this lecture in Terrence G, Kardong’s translation – the author].
[3] Bruce, „The Benedictines” in The Oxford Handbook of Christian Monasticism, 219-220.
[4] Thompson, The Life and Rule of Saitn Benedict, (Thesis), 30.
[5] Steger – Brunt, Night-time and Sleep in Asia and the West, 16.
[6] James, The Letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux, 491.
[7] Peters, op. cit., 85.
[8] Theissen, Az első keresztyének vallása, 107.
[9] Bácskai, ’Az alázat, mint bibliai paradigma’, Teológia, 3.
[10] Kocsis, ’A Filippieknek írt levél Krisztus-himnusza’, Teológia, 48.
[11] Peters, ibid.
[12] Skrabec, St. Benedict’s Rule for Business Success, 57.
[13] Péntek, Meditáció és devóció, 124.
[14] Jálics, Tanuljunk imádkozni, 46.
[15] Skrabec, op. cit., 61.
[16] Skrabec, op. cit., 62.
[17] Skrabec, op. cit., 63.
[18] Skrabec, op. cit., 64.
[19] Skrabec, ibid., 57.
[20] Skrabec, op. cit., 70.
[21] Skrabec, op. cit., 73.
[22] Palmisano – Jewdokimow, „New Monasticism: An Answer to the Contemporary Challenges of Challanges of Catholic Monasticism?” in Exploring the Future of Christian Monasticism, 67–68.
[23] Jewdokimow, A Monastery in a Sociological Perspective: Seeking for a New Approach, 72.
[24] https://catholicreview.org/vatican-statistics-show-decline-in-clergy-religious-women-worldwide/
[25] Jewdokimow, op. cit., 156.
[26] In Hungary between 1993–2015 the number of the woman religious orders decreesed with –60%, the religious priests dropped with –39%! These datas are the worriest in the area. Source: Jewdokimow, M., op. cit., 87–88.
[27] Liniger – Vandewiele, The Decline of Religious Life in the Twentieth Century, 19.
[28] Palmisano – Jewdokimow, op. cit., 69.
[29] Peters, op. cit., 164.
[30] Peters, op. cit., 166.
[31] Peters, op. cit., 177.
[32] Bayer, „Living toto corde: Monastic Vows and the Knowledge of God” in Expolring the Future of Christian Monasticism, 12.
[33] Dammertz, Benediktiner Kultur 750-1050, XI.
[34] Dubois, ’Interpretation of the Rule of Saint Benedict and Textual Criticism’, Liturgy, 14., 86.
[35] Nivard, M., ’On the Specific Character of our Cistercian Liturgy’, Liturgy, 2.
[36] Chittiser op. cit., 33.
