RB Reflection: 12 May 2008

Chapter 2: What Kind of Person the Abbess Ought to Be

Therefore, when anyone receives the name of Abbess,
she ought to govern her disciples with a twofold teaching.
That is to say,
she should show them all that is good and holy
by her deeds even more than by her words,
expounding the Lord's commandments in words
to the intelligent among her disciples,
but demonstrating the divine precepts by her actions
for those of harder hearts and ruder minds.
And whatever she has taught her disciples
to be contrary to God's law,
let her indicate by her example that it is not to be done,
lest, while preaching to others, she herself be found reprobate (1 Cor. 9:27),
and lest God one day say to her in her sin,
"Why do you declare My statutes
and profess My covenant with your lips,
whereas you hate discipline
and have cast My words behind you" (Ps. 49:16-17)?
And again,
"You were looking at the speck in your brother's eye,
and did not see the beam in your own" (Matt. 7:3).

The interesting thing about today's reading from the rule is the "lead by example" style teaching. Yes, words are good, they help to clarify some things, but they must be the definition of what others see you do. The old adage "do as I say, not as I do," comes to mind. We simply are not allowed to hold up the bible, or the rule, and quote at length from it with power and might, only to be found two hours later breaking the very rule we were so proudly preaching.

When you think of the wider world of Christianity this particular passage seems almost a condemnation. For instance, the southern, Pentecostal preacher who with so weeping confessed "I have sinned, I have sinned." Yes he had, in a hotel room with a whore. This came after he had made a point of condemning just about every soul that was not his type of Christian. If we went by what he did, the clearly we should all go out and find a prostitute.

Abbots/Abbesses are not to behave in such a fashion. That does not mean that somewhere in history and abbot or an abbess has behaved in exactly that fashion. But for our purposes, and Fr. Elias specifically, I have no fear of trusting his teaching. His style of life is certainly known to all of us.

What is here for the Lay Cistercian to learn? That just because we study the rule, and the Bible, and are able to spout both on command, none of us must live in such a way that contradicts both the rule and the Bible. We are not a perfect people, or a perfect organization, "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Rom. 3:23). The secret is to make sure what we speak with out mouths we live in our lives. That is much harder to do than we first thought.