MONASTIC TOPICS IN GENERAL
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THE INTERPRETATION OF A MONASTIC RULE
[1]
THE GENERAL CHAPTER of 1967, during
its twenty-sixth session, affirmed that the Rule of St Benedict
remains the basis of our Cistercian legislation
[1]
. The same General Chapter also approved a certain
number of experiments or adaptations, some of which constitute
a departure from a literal observance of the Rule. This raises
the question of fidelity to the Rule, a question which concerns
every facet of our monastic life. All its dimensions must be studied.
The attitudes which individuals
or groups take with regard to this problem often stem from more
fundamental, oftentimes quite vague propensities. These attitudes
concern the relationship of the Rule to Scripture, to the monastic
tradition as a whole, and to contemporary man. And the fundamental
problem in every case is one of hermeneutics.
It is this problem of the hermeneutics,
or of the interpretation of the Rule that I wish to deal with
in this paper. I do not pretend to offer a solution. I simply
wish to state the problem in terms as exact as possible, and indicate
what might lead to a solution. Nor am I forgetting that solutions
to this sort of problem ought first to be worked out in real life,
before they can be conceptualized in a satisfactory manner.
Preliminary Notions: the Task of Hermeneutics The empirical method has gradually
taken over in all the sciences, theology included. As Fr Bernard.
Lonergan sj explained at the Theology Congress at Toronto in August
1967, theology has become empirical in the sense that Scripture
and tradition no longer offer it premises from which it may draw
conclusions, but rather data to interpret
[2]
. Consequently, the most crucial and fundamental
problems which present themselves to man today, in every domain
of learning, are problems of interpretation, that is, problems
of hermeneutics. That is why, in what concerns the sacred sciences,
the methods of hermeneutics which have been established for biblical
exegesis are being rethought more and more, with a view to using
them for the study of tradition. We can distinguish two forms of
interpretation with regard to documents considered as part of
tradition: historic and dynamic
[3]
. Historical interpretation consists in discovering
the precise meaning of a text in itself, what the author really
wanted to say. The instruments used in this sort of interpretation
are textual, historical, and literary criticism. This kind of
interpretation, while remaining on the historical level, can become
systematic if, over and above the use of these methods of criticism,
superior norms of interpretation are introduced which bring to
light the doctrinal, philosophical and theological presuppositions
underlying the text. But it is also possible to surpass
this level of historical interpretation and arrive at an interpretation
which is dynamic. That is to say, one may use the interpreted
text as a starting point for arriving at a deeper understanding
of the reality which the text expresses. This method is extremely
important for interpreting texts of the Church's magisterium,
especially conciliar documents. The magisterium. texts deal with
realities which can not be reduced to formulas, and which are
infinitely greater than any conceptual expression that one might
give them. Even dogmatic definitions, infallible and irrevocable
as they may be, never express perfectly and completely the reality
to which they refer. Further, although the living magisterium
is the immediate norm for faith, the ultimate and fundamental
norm is Holy Scripture. Therefore, even if the task of the magisterium
is to interpret Scripture, any given text of tradition or of the
Fathers of the Church can only he interpreted correctly if it
is viewed in the light of Scripture and the whole of the tradition
of the Church: these two constitute its integral context. Everything which I have explained
here about interpretation of texts holds good for the facts of
Church History, for tradition manifests itself through these facts
also. Now if we apply these methodological
principles to an interpretation of the Rule, we find ourselves
in the following position. In order to understand the Rule, we
should first work out an interpretation which is critical and
historical; that is to say, by using methods of textual, literary
and historical criticism we should be able to determine the exact
meaning of each part of the Rule, of each of its phrases. In other
words, we should be able to discover what the author of the Rule
really wanted to say. At this stage of research, it still is not
a question of providing a commentary on the Rule. This is rather
a scientific explanation on which any ulterior commentary would
need to be based. Excellent works have already been produced in
this line of critical and historical interpretation of the Rule.
This work should be followed up. But the results of this historical
interpretation cannot aid us in a direct manner to determine the
orientation which monastic renewal should take. They have to be
completed by a dynamic interpretation. What is this dynamic interpretation
of the Rule? I hope that this will become clearer as we continue
with our study. But for the moment, let me say that such an interpretation
will consist of a reevaluation of the Rule as a whole, and of
each of its elements in the light of Holy Scripture and the whole
of tradition. Before speaking specifically of
our own attitude toward the Rule, we have to ascertain its relationship
with Scripture and tradition - that is to say, the tradition of
the Church in general as well as monastic tradition. The plan
of this study then appears as follows:
The Rule and the Gospel The Rule and Tradition The Rule and Monastic History The Rule and Ourselves.
The Rule and the Gospel The Gospel, the fundamental and
irreplaceable norm of the Christian life, remains the first Rule
for the monk. Hence it is necessary to point out the relationship
between the Rule and Scripture. And this, of course, should be
done by starting with a notion of Holy Scripture which is theologically
exact. Thanks to developments in the field
of the theology of history, we are now accustomed to viewing revelation
as something dynamic rather than static. Revelation is the personal
entrance of God into human history, and the Christian life is
man's response to this personal and completely gratuitous intervention
by God. It is this intervention which is the supreme norm of every
type of Christian life. Holy Scripture is precisely the objectification
in writing-by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but in human
language-of the divine fact of revelation. Because it is coextensive
with the factual reality, this first written objectification has
a primary normative value for the whole life of the People of
God in the ages following the Incarnation of Christ. It is enough to read and meditate
on the Rule of St Benedict to appreciate its completely evangelical
character. It paints a beautiful picture of the Gospel-life lived
in its fullness. Does this mean that it is a "digest of the
Gospel" as is sometimes said? Actually, such an expression
is extremely ambiguous. People who use it all too easily lead
one to believe that the Rule gathers everything together from
the Gospel which would be useful for monks, so that they need
not bother going directly to Scripture. It would be wrong to say
that. The Rule is not meant to replace the Gospel, but to lead
the monk to it and help him to understand what the Gospel requires
of him. The Rule is an interpretation of
the evangelical doctrine on the perfect Christian life. As such,
it helps us to understand the Gospel message. But it should be
reinterpreted continually, in the light of Scripture and the tradition
of the Church. So we must also situate the Rule in its relationship
to tradition.
The Rule and Tradition Tradition is an extremely important human
phenomenon. The philosophers who have studied it have been careful
to distinguish it from history, and to show its relationship
to history. While history is the "becoming" which preserves
the past, tradition is precisely that which is durable; it stands
firm during all the mutations of this "becoming."
[4]
From the ontological point of view, tradition
is that which makes it possible for being to be permanent;
[5]
from the point of view of hermeneutics, it
is the element which makes knowledge of the past possible
[6]
. Actually, I cannot interpret and understand
(verstehen) a text or a fact of the past unless I have
a certain anterior knowledge (Vorverstandnis) of the ontological
reality of which this fact is the incarnation, or of which this
text is the objectification. This pre-intellection is made possible by a type of vital communication
with this reality, and this vital communication is assured by
tradition. Now, from the strictly theological
point of view, tradition is the objective permanence of revelation,
in the historical "becoming" of the Church. Tradition
and historicity (which means mutation) are correlative realities.
The whole work of interpretation consists in discovering the revealed
truth which is veiled by various historical and contingent forms
of objectification. As with every other element in the
tradition of the Church, the Rule of St Benedict is the objectification
of a transcendent and permanent reality (the evangelical doctrine
on the perfect Christian life) in contingent and changing historical
forms. The
interpretation of
the Rule will consist, first of all, in distinguishing what in
it is tradition and what is historicity. This can be accomplished
if the method of dynamic interpretation about which we were just
speaking is applied. Before going further, we ought to
clarify one point. So far, we have been considering the Rule as
a spiritual document which transmits to us the message of the
Gospel on the perfect Christian life. From this point of view,
it is one of the elements in the tradition of the Church, and
has as much importance for Christians in general and for theologians
as it has for monks and nuns. But it interprets this Gospel message
in a specific manner. It bears witness to a certain type of spiritual
attitude which characterizes those persons whom history calls
monks and nuns. Thus it transmits the monastic
tradition. Monasticism is, in fact, an historical
reality. And so within the confines of this reality we must once
again distinguish between tradition and historicity. Christian
monasticism is characterized above all by a spiritual attitude
before God, before men, and before the reality of the world. It
is this spiritual attitude, abiding despite the ebb and flow of
evolving monastic observances throughout history, which properly
speaking constitutes the monastic tradition. If we are to distinguish in the
Rule of St Benedict what is monastic tradition and what are its
historical and contingent modalities of objectification (and that
is the task of dynamic interpretation), we will first have to
determine at what moment the Rule entered the ebb and flow of
monastic history as an historical fact. Then we will have to see
how monks interpreted St Benedict's Rule in the centuries which
followed.
The Rule in Monastic History
a)
The Rule
as an Historical Fact The Rule of St Benedict which for
many centuries has dominated practically all of western monasticism
is, without doubt, a document of great value and one which expresses
the "monastic tradition" in a very excellent way. Should
we conclude from this, as some people are perhaps a little too
quick to do, that it is a "synthesis" of the whole monastic
tradition? This would certainly be an exaggeration and quite incorrect.
First of all, monastic history did not end with St Benedict, nor
did St Benedict draw up his Rule in the manner of a theoretician.
With him, there was no question of studying the whole tradition
which had gone before so that he could select and retain what
was best in it. The Rule of St Benedict is situated at a certain
moment in the historical evolution of monasticism. The ancient East had known two great
monastic traditions: the cenobitic and the anchoretic. Within
each of these traditions, different currents could be distinguished
[7]
. The cenobitic tradition came into being just
about everywhere at about the same time, especially in the Judeo-Christian
Churches. It had its origin in those groups of ascetics who had
been living within the local Churches from the early days of Christianity.
We find this cenobitic tradition, expressed with varying differences,
amongst the Sons of the Covenant in Persia and Syria, in Pachomian
monasticism in the Thebaid and in Basilian monasticism in Cappadocia.
Alongside of this cenobitic tradition, the anchoretic tradition
gradually developed. It seems that the influence of the Egyptian
anchorites was largely responsible for the spread of this type
of fife. It is the semianchoretic tradition of Lower Egypt which
St Benedict knew, receiving it through Cassian and the Master.
So Benedict was situated in a very definite current in the evolution
of the great monastic tradition, and to a great extent, he knew
nothing of the other currents. In his day, he could not possibly
have known them all. The fact that he stresses or fails to stress
certain particular elements of monastic tradition could mean that
he had made a choice after a long personal deliberation, but it
could also be simply the result of accidental historical factors. Benedict did not receive the monastic
tradition in a fully developed form. Rather, he received it wrapped
in a contingent form of objectification. No element of the Rule
can be properly evaluated unless it is examined and weighed in
the light of the whole monastic tradition. A healthy and honest
interpretation ought to be able to recognize both the strength
and weakness of the Rule of St Benedict as well as the strength
and weakness of the monastic current in which the Rule is situated.
b)
Interpretation
of the Rule in History Thus far we have seen that the Rule
is, first of all, one of the bearers of Church tradition. It is
a witness to the Gospel teaching about the perfect Christian fife.
Further, it is a link in the chain of monastic tradition, handing
down to us this "spiritual attitude"of openness to the
Spirit, of total abandonment to God, and of poverty-which is the
essence of the monastic life. This spiritual attitude does not
exist in an abstract state. It has to be expressed in an incarnate
form, and the Rule incarnates it in customs, observances and in
the setting of a daily life which is arranged with great detail.
From this point of view, the Rule is also a juridical code which
prescribes the organization of a monastic community in a specific
historical context, for the purpose of assuring the development
of this spiritual attitude. During the course of monastic history
since St Benedict we can distinguish two trends of attitude toward
the Rule. One sees it primarily as a spiritual document
which gives witness to the fundamental values of the monastic
life and which ought to inspire the monks of the generations
to come in their living of the monastic life. The other trend
sees it rather as a juridical code which describes right
down to the last detail what the monastic or Benedictine life
ought to be. This same sort of dialectic had
already marked Eastern monasticism to a certain extent. It does
not seem that the first groups of ascetics which existed within
the local Christian communities knew of any other rules than the
canonical ones which applied to all Christians. However, as the
communities became more organized and their structures became
more complicated, the organization of the common life on the practical
level became the object of a number of prescriptions. In Cappadocia
problems came up when the "fraternities" of St Basil
became more organized, and in his attempts to solve them, he went
straight to the Gospel. His answers to these practical questions
were put together as a sort of "collection," and thus
arose his "Rules" which have nothing at all about them
which ressembles a systematically elaborated juridical code. To respond to the various material
and spiritual needs of his monasteries, and also to assure the
smooth running of the common life, St Pachomius was obliged to
draw up a certain number of prescriptions for his monks which
also were assembled as "collections," even during his
lifetime. But Pachomius took care to concentrate the ascetical
efforts of his monks on "the prescriptions of the Gospel,"
and to orient their attention towards the fundamental spiritual
reality of fraternal communion. After his death, his two successors,
Horsiesius and Theodore, in their attempts to maintain unity in
the Congregation, put much too much emphasis on fidelity to the
precepts which Pachomius had drawn up for the monks, The juridical
element replaced the charismatic, and this was the cause of a
rapid decline in the Pachomian congregation. Generally speaking, in the East
all the ancient rules are considered as a treasure common to the
whole of monasticism. They are spiritual documents which one finds
in all the monasteries. By their contact with these various rules,
the young monks develop "a monk's heart." They do not
look to them for directives about the organization of their monasteries
on the level of practical detail. Doing that is rather the role
of the typicon which, ideally at least, should be proper
to each monastery. Even Cassian, great theorizer about
the monastic life though he was, does not seem to have written
a Rule. He simply presented to the Western monks, by means of
his Institutions and Conferences, the customs and spiritual teachings
of the Eastern monks. But more elaborate rules were drawn up in
the West. One of them, the Rule of the Master which was probably
put together by a Roman cleric, served as base for the Rule of
St Benedict. The author of this Rule. the Benedictus vir of Monte
Cassino, presented to his monks the traditional monastic teaching
and he did it with rather unusual wisdom and great discretion.
At the same time, he drew up a picture of how they should live
this traditional teaching in the concrete circumstances of life
in an Italian monastery during the sixth century. For the next few centuries, the
attitude in the West toward monastic rules was similar to that
which existed in the East. Little by little, the Rule of St Benedict
found its way into almost all the monasteries in the West. This,
however, does not mean that the other rules were discarded. Rather,
in any given monastery, the monks might have been using several
rules simultaneously for their spiritual orientation. No one even
thought about conforming the details of daily monastic life to
the prescriptions of one or another of these rules
[8]
. Charlemagne, who wished to rule
the Church as well as serve it, imposed the Rule of St Benedict
on all the monasteries of his realm. It would seem that, in the
circumstances in which monasticism found itself at that time,
the only way of reestablishing a certain "rectitude of life"
(precisely that honestas morum about which St Benedict
speaks in Chapter Seventy-three of the Rule) was to impose a uniform
Rule on the monasteries. Benedict of Aniane, supported by Louis
the Pious, put himself to this task with great energy. A Capitulare
monasticum-which constituted actually an adaptation
of the Rule of St Benedict-was established at Aix-la-Chapelle
in 817, and the emperor designated inspectors who were responsible
for putting the new decrees into effect. One abbey, Inde, was
even set up as a "model" monastery. This organization
was an ephemeral thing and did not last far beyond Benedict of
Aniane's lifetime. During the ninth century, monasticism again
fell into a period of decadence. It became evident that a mere
reform of institutions, even one based on an excellent Rule, would
never be enough if the Spirit was lacking. But the Spirit was going to inspire
a great spiritual renewal about a century after the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle:
the reform of Cluny. Working within the juridical framework established
by Benedict of Aniane, this reform was to be a return to the fundamental
monastic observances: silence, work, stability, prayer. It is
true that Cluny developed a liturgical cult which was exaggerated,
but the criticisms directed at Cluny on this score are often exaggerated,
too. The monasteries of the Cluny Federation were real centers
of prayer and union with God existing in the midst of a world
marked more than ever by violence, immorality, and injustice.
And they remained centers of intense prayer for a very long time. Obviously, the Rule of St Benedict
was the basis of the Cluniac reform, for it was the basis of all
western monasticism at that time. But it was interpreted with
discretion and wisdom by the Abbot of Cluny who was the superior
of all the monks of the "Congregation." Cluny's centralization
had drawbacks, of course, as any kind of centralization does.
It also had advantages. Besides freeing the individual monasteries
from feudal domination, it permitted the first abbots of Cluny
(who were great spiritual masters and nearly all of whom were
abbots for a very long time) to exercise a direct spiritual influence
on thousands of monks, and thus to maintain a very high degree
of spiritual life in several hundred monasteries (more than a
thousand, when Hugh died in 1109). The wave of reform which manifested
itself in monasticism toward the middle of the eleventh century
cannot be taken as an indication that Cluny was in a state of
decadence. On the contrary, it bears witness to the success of
the Cluniac reform and to the vitality of a type of monasticism
which had attained a sufficient degree of maturity to give rise
within itself to a new need for something better, for a reform
which would be more profound and more radical. just about everywhere,
and at the same time, there appeared a strong desire and movement
toward a monastic life which would be poorer, more simple and
more solitary than the life in the huge Cluniac monasteries, although
these abbeys had played an admirable role during their period
of history. From this current which, as a whole, wanted to be
faithful to the Rule of St Benedict (that is to be authentically
monastic), there arose the foundations of Camaldoli, Vallombrosa,
Grandmont, Fontevrault, Chartreuse, Molesme, Cîteaux. They all
drew their life from the same movement of the Spirit. They did
not look for a new interpretation of the Rule of St Benedict.
They simply wanted to live, in an authentic way, each one according
to his own manner and with great spontaneity, what everyone recognized
as the life intended by St Benedict: a life that was simple and
poor, a life of solitude. The original attitude of the founders
of Cîteaux was marked by this spontaneity and this simplicity.
Soon, however, the needs of self-justification brought on by their
polemics with the Benedictine monks obliged them to explain why
they had abandoned the traditional customs which for so long had
been taken to be an official interpretation of the Rule in the
West. They had opted for a stricter observance of the Rule, a
literal observance even. It is important to make a clear distinction
between the charism and initial spiritual aspirations of the founders
of Cîteaux, and their self-justifying rationalizations. As long as the first founders were
alive, and even during the next generation, the vitality of the
initial charism was strong enough to counterbalance any excessive
rigidity or strictness occasioned by the principle of literal
observance of all the prescriptions of the Rule to the exclusion
of all the monastic customs which had developed after the Rule
was written. St Bernard, even though he inclined to absolute principles
such as those he puts forth in the De praecepto et dispensatione,
also knew how to exercise common sense, reasoning and charity
on the practical level. Unfortunately, it is more difficult to
transmit the charism of discretion than it is to transmit absolute
principles. The growth of Cîteaux was rapid
and prolific. We have a right to be proud of it. But the historian
who is going to be honest cannot conceal the fact that this Golden
Age was very brief (much shorter than that of Cluny, for example).
Very soon we see that a number of practices directly opposed to
the original intentions of the founders were introduced. The Cistercian
monasteries became just as rich as those of Cluny. After having
rejected the Customs of Cluny as so many unjustifiable additions
to the Rule, the Cistercians found that their Customs were more
numerous and complex than those of Cluny! They so forgot about
the simplicity of their predecessors and the sharp criticisms
of St Bernard, that the Cistercian Abbots, a few centuries later,
sought to obtain, and in fact did obtain, the pontifical insignia.
The lay brothers were often exploited, and the monks, counting
on them for their material subsistence, often fell into an idleness
which was not at all akin to mystical otium. What were the causes of this rapid
diminution of the primitive ideal? The principal reason usually
given is that the growth, both in the number of monks and of monasteries,
was too rapid. But we must look for a deeper reason, and 1 am
inclined to believe that it is rather the legalism which resulted
from pushing the principle of literal fidelity to the Rule too
far. The fundamental obligations of the monastic life: poverty,
solitude, prayer, make demands on the monk which are almost unlimited.
When the monk applies himself to listening for the promptings
of the Holy Spirit, he is led by him into an ever-deepening understanding
of these demands, and also to a more authentic monastic life on
the practical level. But when he establishes himself in a static
position by a literal observance of a text that has been written
once and for all, he is no longer sensitive to the dynamic action
of the Holy Spirit. He no longer obeys the law which is "written
in his heart", but is satisfied with conforming his actions
to some exterior law. And God knows how fertile the human imagination
is when it comes to devising a harmony between the text of a rule
and certain things which are most opposed to its spiritual dynamism. This legalism was a great hindrance
to the flowering of charisms. The great Cistercian authors such
as William of St Thierry, Guerric of Igny, Amadeus of Lausanne,
Aelred of Rievaulx, Isaac of Stella and Adam of Perseigne, practically
all belonged to the same generation. Most of them had received
their formation before they came to a Cistercian monastery. Even
though their spiritual works are very often of great value, only
a relatively small number of these works have a character which
is specifically monastic. The Charter of Charity, which had
as its goal the union of monasteries in the bond of charity, had
seen uniformity of observances as a means of maintaining this
union of charity. But as the order spread throughout Europe, the
General Chapters were continually harassed by this question of
observances. They continually had to be giving reminders about
them, or modifying them, or mitigating them. The Rule itself is
very rarely mentioned in the Acts of the General Chapters. By the fifteenth century, the Order
had become a vast organism without sufficient life-breath to permit
a reform which would have revived the whole. At that moment God
raised up certain charismatic men who reformed their own monasteries,
and around their own monasteries grouped other houses of monks.
This was how several of the Congregations began. The duration
of their prosperity depended on whether they clung to and kept
alive the original charism of the founder, or whether they simply
went about observing the rules he had established. This was the
criterion that determined whether they lasted for a longer or
shorter time. A charism, of course, because of
its very nature can not be "institutionalized." But
all the same, adequate institutions are needed to maintain life
in the dynamism which has been set in motion. This passage from
charism to institution is always an extremely delicate matter.
Unfortunately it is often a passage to legalism. That is clearly
what happened in the case of the Pachomian congregation, under
Horsiesius and Theodore. I feel that at Cîteaux, also, a too-literal
attachment to the customs established by the founders led-after
a marvelous but brief period of developmentto a certain drying-up
of Cistercian spirituality. This phenomenon is common enough.
We can find it outside of monasticism, outside of Christianity
even, in Islam for example. And it appears with a strange sort
of similarity. With regard to Islam, Jacques Jomier has written:
"At Medina, during the lifetime of Mohammed, Islam was a
veritable theocracy. At any moment, new oracles might announce
new orders from above to the people. It was God, the faithful
believed, who guided his people, shepherded by their leader. After
the death of Mohammed it is difficult to speak of pure and simple
theocracy. The Koran became the supreme law, and numerous points
which had been passed over in silence were gradually made the
object of legislation. Thus a whole body of legislation came into
being. At the time the Arabic empire broke up, Islam had become,
according to the expression of Louis Gardet, a'Nomocracy'."
[9]
The following remark by the same
author with reference to Islam, might be applied to more than
one phase of monastic history: "As a religion of law, Islam
permits the majority of her faithful to settle down with a good
conscience once they have accomplished all the prescribed observances.
This results in a state of satisfaction and serenity, except in
the case of certain mystics who thirst for the absolute."
[10]
Conclusion: the Rule and Ourselves The fundamental obligation of contemporary
monasticism, and that of each individual monk, is to hearken to
the life-giving Spirit, in an attitude of openness and docility.
The Spirit speaks in a million ways, and one of the special channels
through which he reaches us is, of course, the Rule. But to discover
the message of the Spirit in the Rule, we must know how to interpret
it. In order to do this, we must consider it from three different
points of view. As a document of the great Church
tradition, the Rule transmits to us the evangelical doctrine
on the perfect Christian life. From this point of view, it has
just as much value for the Christian in general as it has for
the monk himself It is one of many documents in which and by which
the Church has objectified, during the course of the ages, its
understanding of the Gospel. Obviously, it is not meant to replace
the Gospel-a misunderstanding which might result from clumsy usage
of the expression: "The Rule: digest of the Gospel."
Rather, its goal is to help us better understand the requirements
of the Gospel. As a document of the monastic
tradition, the Rule teaches monks of all eras and all persuasions
the fundamental spiritual attitude which makes the monk. The first
obligation of the monk with respect to the Rule is, therefore,
to meditate on it unceasingly, to let himself be penetrated with
it, and to let it create in him the spiritual attitude which will
make him a real monk. And it is through his personal and vital
experience, much more than through abstract formulas, that he
will arrive at expressing what this state of soul is-this attitude
toward God, toward man, toward created things, which characterizes
the monk. One might describe this attitude in general terms this
way: the monk is a man who has abandoned, as far as is humanly
possible, everything which men are wont to consider helpful for
organizing their life on this earth. He has put himself in an
impossible situation; that is to say, in a situation where he
must count on God for everything, where he can no longer count
on anyone or anything but him. That is the significance of his
solitude, his poverty, and his celibacy. The Rule presents this spiritual
attitude to him, not in an abstract form, but incarnated in customs
and practices, in a type of daily life intimately linked to a
specific historical context. Thus it takes the form of a juridical
code. As a document of Church tradition,
the Rule of St Benedict has an unquestionable value for all Christians
and its interpretation is subject to the same rules as any other
document of the Church. As a witness of the monastic tradition,
it has a value for all monks, but particularly for those who belong
to the great cenobitic tradition which the Rule has handed down
to our day. As a juridical code describing the concrete realization
of this spiritual attitude in a detailed way and in a setting
of daily life, the Rule had an immediate value as norm only for
the monks for whom it was first written, those living in the time
of St Benedict, although even from this secondary point of view
it continues to give inspiration to monks through the centuries. The task of the monastic orders,
and the task of each individual monk, then, is to try earnestly
to arrive at a comprehension ever new and ever deeper of what
the Gospel requires of man, and to continue the renewal of their
spiritual orientation and the dynamism which characterizes monastic
life. Under the guidance of the Spirit they must unceasingly seek
for the most authentic and true concrete realization of this spiritual
attitude, in forms of life adapted to our living contemporary
context. Take an example: evangelical poverty. The Rule, drawn
up in a sociological context completely different from ours, cannot
teach us how we should practice poverty today. But it should create
in our hearts a spirit of poverty. And if we are really poor in
spirit, we will certainly practice a poverty which is authentic.
If, on the other hand, we are just concerned with observing the
Rule's precepts telling us what we should do with our earthly
goods, we may easily justify, in the name of fidelity to the Rule,
all sorts of situations which, in our contemporary context, are
frowned upon by the consensus Ecclesiae as being contrary
to evangelical poverty. Another example: prayer. The exigencies
of the Gospel with regard to prayer are, quite clearly, the same
for all Christians. The Rule simply reminds us of them. But it
is normal that the monk, who lives in the presence of God and
for him alone, should consecrate a greater part of his time to
prayer, and especially if he is a cenobite to a public expression
of his prayer in union with his brethren. The Rule teaches him
how to establish an organic unity between private and communal
prayer. It also teaches him how to integrate times of communal
prayer into the general framework of community life. This is the
fundamental cenobitic attitude which the Rule teaches us, and
we will never be able fully to sound its depths. In addition to all this, St Benedict
describes the structure which these times of communal prayer should
have, and he does this by means of a detailed juridical code.
What he prescribed was based on the Roman liturgical customs of
his day, and, obviously, he took into consideration the spiritual
needs of his monks, their cultural level, and the rhythm of daily
life in the Italian countryside during the sixth century. We can
see that fidelity to the Rule of St Benedict cannot consist in
slavishly copying these structures which are so closely bound
to an historical context of the past. It consists, rather, in
taking its spirit so that we can, in our turn, express
our common experience of the Mystery of Christ through our worship,
taking into consideration the theological mentality and the liturgical
tradition of our twentieth-century Church. It will mean also taking
into consideration our own particular spiritual needs as influenced
by our sociological and psychological context, and thus arrive
at the rhythm of life of an authentic contemporary monasticism. The task of reinterpretation of
the Rule and of monastic renewal which has the contours I have
just described cannot be the work of theorists. It ought to spring
from the spiritual experience of the monastic orders and communities
themselves. And to pursue such a work what we need above all is
persons of spiritual greatness, charismatic men and women who
know how to breathe a new dynamism into the monastic orders. Structural
reforms are often necessary, sometimes to favor the flowering
of charisms, sometimes for preserving the fruits of these charism.
But the monastic history shows us that a juridical reform remains
fruitless unless it receives its lifebreath from the Holy Spirit.
Armand
Veilleux ocso Abbey of Mistassini, Village-des-Pères, P.Q., Canada
[1] published in : The Cistercian Spirit. A Symposium in Memory of Thomas Merton, edited by M. Basil Pennington, Spencer 1970, pp. 48-65.
[1]
Minutes of the Sessions of the Sixtieth General
Chapter: Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance (Dubuque, Iowa: Regional Conference,
U.S.A., 1967), p. 102.
[2]
. B. Lonergan, "Theology in
its new context" in Theology of Renewal, Vol. I
(Montreal, 1968), pp. 37f.
[3]
Here
I have used as my basis M. Löhrer, "Überlegungen zur Interpretation
lehramtlicher Aussagen als Frage des ökumenischen Gesprächs"
in Gott in Welt (Freiburg-Basel-Vienna, 1964), pp. 499-523.
[4]
Cf.
G. Krüger, Freiheit und Weltverantwortung (Freiburg,
1958).
[5]
Cf.
M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (Berlin, 1926).
[6]
Cf.
H. G. Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode (Tübingen, 196o).
[7]
I explained this in detail in my
article "The Abbatial Office in Cenobitic Life" in
Monastic Studies, no. 6 (1968), pp. 3-45.
[8]
. See J. Hourlier, "La Règle de St Benoît,
source du droit monastique" in Etudes d'histoire du
Droit Canonique (Paris. Aubier, 1967), pp. 157-168.
[9]
. J. Jomier, Introduction a I'Islam actuel
(Paris, 1964), pp. 29f.
[10] Ibid., p. 194. |
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