MONASTIC TOPICS IN GENERAL
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CREATIVINESS AND FIDELITY TO TRADITION The decisions of our last General Chapter, together with the various projects
which are under way for the restructuring of our monastic Office
are creating a certain uneasiness of conscience for a good number
of monks and nuns. They are asking whether all
these changes are not in opposition' to the fidelity which we
owe to the Rule of St Benedict. It sometimes happens that the promotors of liturgical
renewal try to; prove, in ways which are too facile
or too clumsy, that the reforms in view have their roots in 'tradition'.
It also sometimes happens that serious historians, while claiming
that they are malting their assertions only from the standpoint
of the historian, try to warn liturgists that such and such a
modification in the Office would not be in conformity with the
Rule of St Benedict. It is clear that we are confronted here with a whole set of problems which
merit reflection. What is the meaning of monastic tradition for
us from the theological point of view ?
What is the role of the historian and of historical research in
our monastic renewal ? What does being
faithful to our founders mean ? * * * To begin with, we need to remember that the question of fidelity to the
'founders' is not by any means the same for a monastic order such
as ours as it is for modern congregations. The latter were founded
at a definite time by men with a special charism, in order to
meet specific needs in the Church, and it is this that constitutes
their particular mission and the reason for their existence. But
when we are dealing with the monastic orders we cannot speak -of
'founders' in the same sense. It is therefore important
to be clear of whom we are speaking, when we talk about our 'founders'.
Our founders were, no doubt, our Fathers of Citeaux. But St Benedict
was also our founder. So, too, were the
great spiritual masters of monasticism, both in the East and the
West. But it was Christ and the Apostles who were most especially
our founders. To be faithful to Citeaux means, first of all, to accept the principle
of reform and renewal. To be faithful to St Benedict signifies
willingness to enter into the great cenobitical
current o€ which the Regula Benedicti
was the crystallization in the West in the sixth century.
Over and above Citeaux, we owe fidelity to the Fathers of the
Desert, that is, to the various currents of primitive monastic
tradition. But, above all else, we owe fidelity to the Gospel
and to the example of Christian life given us by the first Christian
community of Jerusalem. Respect for this hierarchy of values is
the first requirement of enlightened fidelity to tradition. Monasticism, in each
of the several forms in which it has been realised
in history, is an event in the history of salvation, a moment
of dialogue between God and his People. This dialogue consists
indissolubly in a call from God and the response which the Church
makes, through certain of her members, to this call from her Bridegroom.
It is the inspiration of the Spirit and, at the same time, the
response that the Spirit stirs up in the souls of those whom he
has led out into the desert in order to speak to their hearts.
Each moment of the history of monasticism, in so far as it is
an ecclesial reality, is a living interpretation, a realisation,
and, consequently, a proclamation, of the teaching of the Gospel
concerning the perfect life, as understood and lived under the
impulsion of the Spirit of Christ. As such, it is an element of
the tradition of the Church. The primary and completely
irreplaceable Rule of the monk-and all the great monastic legislators
are there to proclaim the fact will always be Holy Scripture,
to which nothing can be added, and from which nothing can be subtracted.
But in his reading of Scripture, in his constantly renewed effort
to understand and to fulfil the Gospel
message of poverty, chastity and obedience, the monk can never
afford to neglect the existential interpretation given to this
message by monastic tradition, and especially by the life of the
monks of the first generation, in whom the original charism is
more easily recognisable, since it is still only lightly covered by institutions. The thing that interests
the historian of monasticism is, therefore, to get behind the
raw facts of history in order to rediscover and understand the
reality enshrined in these facts. In order to discover the meaning
of this history, he needs to penetrate beyond the particularities
of time and place, and to make contact with the eternal. When
he studies and describes the observances, liturgical or otherwise,
of the early monks, he is only starting out on the first steps
of his enquiry. For observances are only elements
of a 'complete act' which we cannot possibly understand unless
we study it as a whole. At the base and starting point
of this historical fact, and serving as its permanent substratum,
there lies a determinate spiritual attitude, a particular concept
of life according to the Gospel and of the relationships existing
between the various elements which make it up. It is this religious
attitude that it is important for the historian to discover. The work of the historian
must, therefore, be a work of interpretation. For to understand
a fact is to discover its proper significance by replacing it
in the context o€ which it is the expression. To understand the
spirituality o£ the early monks and their attitude towards liturgy-even
simply as a historian, and much more so as a theologian-it is
necessary to explain texts and observances which involve an overall
mentality and use a language often very different from our own.
This means that we must, whether we like it or not, explain to
ourselves what we are reading ; we must
translate and interpret. Father de Lubac, in his admirable introduction to Histoire
et Esprit, reminds us of the need for doing this.
It is an operation which 'is not performed without risk
; but this risk must be run' (P. 10-11). The consequence of this
is that the standpoint from which such a study is undertaken will,
in the long run, have to be that of the theologian. This will
not be the result of an arbitrary choice, but because of the nature
of the object to be studied. The interpretation of history depends
on the type of ends from which the historian sets out to understand
facts. But since monasticism is as we have described it above,
the principle of interpretation and explanation adopted in the
study of its history cannot be other than theological. This does
not in any way imply that we are abandoning the field proper to
history for that of theology, nor that we are being unfaithful
to the methods proper to historical science. The historian who wants to be more than a mere
narrator, who wants to explain the facts, ought, at least in a
second stage, to place himself at a standpoint different from
that of a simple observer. In order to explain facts, and already
in a certain measure to select them and expose them to view, he
must make use of a principle of discernment which, as such, belongs
to another sphere and is not the object o€ observation, although
it has, no doubt, a certain measure of insertion in the facts. * * * In other words, whether one approaches history as an amateur (which is
dangerous) or as a specialist (which is compromising), the adoption
of a good historical method, important though it is, is not enough.
An adequate subjective attitude is just as indispensable. In the first place,
it is necessary to renounce a standpoint that is too one-sidedly
finalist and would tend to make us study early monasticism with
the sole object of detecting elements which might have some relationship
to the present, or might be useful for justifying the taking up
of this or that position in the contemporary movement for monastic
renewal. In his work De la connaissance
historique, H.I. Marrou stigmatises those 'comedians
of propaganda' who 'see in the knowledge of the past a collection
of picturesque anecdotes, parallels and precedents which it may
be useful to invoke'. 'That,' he continues, 'is to debase history
to the naive concept which the rhetoricians of antiquity had of
it : a collection of examples
at the service of orators hard up for ideas. The facility
of the exercise empties it of all claim
to seriousness' (p. 15). The past will not yield up its message
unless we envisage it for itself and in its entirety. Furthermore, any deep
understanding of the meaning of history is opposed to the kind
of archaism to which the partisans of an ill-understood return
to the sources all too easily fall a prey. Certainly,
the structures of the past are often worthy of admiration.
But they are never perfect. While admiring them, we must recognise
their deficiencies, though without judging them according to the
criteria of the present day. To want to return to the forms of
the past, as if the history o€ monasticism consisted inevitably
in a continual weakening of primitive fervour
and in a gradual loss of the spirit o€ the 'founders', would not
only be a pessimistic attitude denying the irreversible movement
of history, but also an attitude o£ defeatism in the face of our
own responsibilities. The past belongs to the men of old, the
present is ours, the future is in the
hands of God... and in our hands, too. We should be falling
into an analogous archaistic attitude, although under a slightly
different disguise, if we were to try and make the early monks
solve our present problems by asking ourselves what 'our Fathers'
would have done in our circumstances. Such questions do not admit
of an answer. Our fathers in the monastic life, in the Bast
as well as in the West, were men of their own time and place in
every fibre of their being. They faced
problems which were proper to them and to their times, and they
tackled these courageously and wisely with the means which their
rimes placed at their disposal. Pachomius, Benedict and Bernard
in the twentieth century would no longer be Pachomius, Benedict
and Bernard. But can we throw a little
more light on the attitude which we ought to take up with regard
to the monks of the past ? In recent
years, the ingenious suggestion has been made that we should
consider them as separated brethren---separated in time,
that is-and should therefore engage in dialogue with them.
This is a good approach, but within certain conditions. As a matter
of fact, the idea that history ought to be a dialogue with the
past is commonly accepted by modern historians. But that does not simply mean that we
have to enter into dialogue with the results of scientific research.
It means that this research itself has to be a dialogue with the
fact of the past taken in its entirety. The condition for a realistic and fruitful dialogue with the past is that
it should be existential. Our response to the message of the monks
of old must be a renewal of our own monastic life. This, in the
last analysis, is the meaning of our study of history. This study
can never reach conclusions which have the value of universal
principles. It simply allows us (and this is already a tremendous
thing) to hear the call of God through a human response to that
call, bound to a certain time and place. As for our own response
to that call, this can only be entirely personal.
No study of history, however scientific it may be, can
work out a definition
of monasticism. All it can do is to describe and interpret
the monastic phenomenon, and to put the men of today into contact with the
call that God is addressing to them through this monastic tradition. In the same way, a scientific
study can describe for us what the Benedictine Office in St Benedict's
time was, and determine what elements of earlier liturgical tradition
Benedict considered it useful to retain, to reject, or to modify.
But such a historical study can never suffice to determine whether
adaptations made today are faithful or unfaithful to the Rule
of St Benedict and to tradition. Fidelity is an interpersonal
reality. We are faithful, not to something, but to someone. For
us, this Someone is the Spirit ; the
Spirit who has led the monks of every age out into the desert,
who has guided them in all their searching and in all their reforms.
He is still present in the Church of today. Fundamentally,
the thing that counts is not the recitation of the same number
of psalms and offices at the same hours as in the time of St Benedict,
but to be faithful to the will of the Spirit for the present day.
The ways of the Spirit
are many. Through the answer which the monks of the fourth or
sixth or twelfth century made to .his call, the monks of today
hear a call that is personal and actual. Their fidelity to this
call must create its own answer. Or rather, it is the Spirit himself
that will create it in them, if they will open up their hearts
to him. That is why the answer is bound to be unpredictable. To neglect the weight of tradition,
or to barricade oneself comfortably behind longstanding habits
are two ways of retreating in face of the demands of fidelity.
All true fidelity is creative. Mistassini Armand VEILLEUX ocso Translated by a nun of St Romuald. |
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