RB Reflection: 31 August 2008

Chapter 73. The Rule Only a Beginning of Perfection

The reason we have written this rule is that, by observing it in monasteries, we can show that we have some degree of virtue and the beginnings of monastic life. But for anyone hastening on to the perfection of monastic life, there are the teachings of the holy Fathers, the observance of which will lead him to the very heights of perfection. what page, what passage of the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments is not the truest of guides for human life? What book of the holy catholic Fathers does not resoundingly summon us along the true way to reach the Creator? then, besides the Conferences of the Fathers, their Institutes and their Lives, there is also the rule of our holy father Basil. For observant and obedient monks, all these are nothing less than tools for the cultivation of virtues; but as for us, they make us blush for shame at being so slothful, so unobservant, so negligent. Are you hastening toward your heavenly home? Then with Christ's help, keep this little that we we have written for beginners. After that, you can set out for the loftier summits of the teaching and virtues we mentioned above, and under God's protection you will reach them. Amen.

"But as for us, they make us blush for shame at being so slothful, so unobservant, so negligent." Either Benedict was, as they say, "protesting too much," or he really thought his rule was fairly shoddy work. He compared himself and his rule to the desert Fathers and to Cassian, and personally, I think they comparison is unfair. The desert Fathers barely had the entire Bible, Cassian was just reporting what he'd seen in Egypt -- Benedict was doing his best to make a way of life for the very real monks who lived with him under very real circumstances. In other words, in a world where everyone was feeling their way along to the road to righteousness, Benedict did a great job of making a rule even we today may live with.

How many of us would live as the Father's and Mother's of the desert? Zero. How many of us would put up with the brutality that is evident in some of Cassian's reports of the eastern monastics? Zero. In both instances we find excess. In Benedict we find very little of excess, and a great deal of moderation. In Benedict we find a way of life that we can live today, in monasteries and outside of monasteries. You can't say that for the desert Father's and Mother's. We read them for their insights, but we do not live by their methods.

So in this last chapter of the rule, let us, the LCG, be thankful to St. Benedict for his "little rule for beginners."