Rule of St. Benedict, Chapters 62-73

BOOK CLUB 1 | WEEK 6: Order, Obedience, and Justice

As a reminder, you can access the text of St. Benedict’s Rule here. If you’d like to visit the Book Club table of contents, you can do so here.

Photo by Victoria Poveda on Unsplash

It’s here, folks! This is the last section of St. Benedict’s Rule of Life, and our last discussion post on the text. Before we dive into the content, however, I have a quick question for you. When I originally laid out the schedule for this series, my plan was to host a Zoom call some time next week, followed by a final “What Did We Learn?” summary of that conversation; however, now that the time has arrived, I want to touch base with you all and see if this would be a valuable experience for you. The plan would be to hop on for about an hour one evening next week, discuss what chapters were most influential or impactful, share any changes we’ve made to our family culture or routines, and spend some time strategizing about how we want to move forward.

Please do take a moment to vote in the poll: I promise that I will not be offended no matter what you choose; I simply want to prioritize my own energy and efforts on things that this community will value.

Now that the housekeeping matter is aside, let’s jump into the text for this week. We’ve covered quite a bit of ground over the last month or so, and this week’s reading does a nice job of summarizing everything we’ve learned up to this point. Where there is truly new material, we’ll do a thorough walk-through; however, where Benedict is repeating or reiterating a point we’ve already discussed, I’ll say a few words and point you to the longer discussion.

Chapter 62: Concerning the priests of the monastery

I want to spend a moment - and perhaps only a moment, for now - on Chapter 62, which discusses priests and their role within the monastery. While at first glance this chapter has little to do with family life, I think that we can read here an exhortation to be intentional in how we offer our children remote preparation for their vocation.¹ If we truly believe that the family is a seedbed of vocations, as St. John Paul II called it, then we ought to take our role as remote formators quite seriously. Whether our children are called to marriage, to the religious life, or to the priesthood, their experience of love, community, and the faith begins in the home and in childhood. As our children grow and begin to discern their vocations, we can provide them with spiritual support, connections with wise directors who can help them, and whatever advice may be ours to give. However, if we are not intentional about cultivating an attitude of humility, openness, and obedience, then even the clearest call from God will be more difficult for them to receive.

Chapter 66: Concerning the porter of the monastery

This chapter adds a further point about hospitality, which we discussed in depth in Week 5. Once again, Benedict is exhorting us to have all that we need readily available to be able to welcome guests when the Lord places them in our path.

Chapters 63, 65, 68, 69, 71: Authority, Order, and Responsibility

These chapters heavily touch on some of the topics we covered in Week 1, as well as some that we covered in a non-Book Club post in mid-July. That being said, there are a few points here that bear reiterating, or that haven’t come up before, so let’s spend a few minutes sitting with what Benedict is offering us here.

We once again see Benedict giving strict instruction to the monks regarding the ways in which they are to relate to one another, which is primarily through the lens of holiness and length of time living under the Rule, rather than age or birth status. In our family lives, this dynamic might manifest in the relationship between parents and children, relationships between siblings, and relationships with members of the extended family. In all cases, we ought to impart a sense of solidarity and mutual responsibility for one another, without accidentally cultivating a sense of “patronage” where such a dynamic would be inappropriate or simply untrue. For example, an eldest child helping to care for a younger child would be proper to the family when it comes to skills or activities that the younger child has not yet mastered; however, an eldest child usurping the role of the mother would not be appropriate.² In addition, we ought to model apology and repair after a conflict, so that our children have a virtuous model and ideal for how to seek restoration in their relationships, both with one another and with the wider community.

When Benedict discusses the folly and scandal of the provost who attempts to take the role of the Abbot - or, at least, allows himself to believe that he is not subject to the Abbot - we can see an exhortation to parents to maintain a rightly-ordered dynamic in our marriages. (Again, for more on this topic, see this post.)

Ultimately, as is so often the case when authority is discussed, we see that the primary task is to cultivate the virtue of humility and a sense of responsibility for one another, rather than a power dynamic against which rebellious personalities will almost inevitably revolt. The more we know ourselves, the more we can be on guard against our vices and submit ourselves more joyfully and more completely to the will of God as it is made known to us from moment to moment.

Chapters 64, 68, 70: Marriage, Parenting, and Family Culture

These chapters, in my mind, bear on our marriages and parenting in a particular way. Benedict’s words on the election of an Abbot really struck me as I was rereading them tonight: not, obviously, because our children will be voting on which of them will serve as mother or father, but because we are the template against which our children will measure men and women for, arguably, the rest of their lives. Whether they grow up with reverence and respect and gratitude, or with pain and scorn and disillusionment, we play a deeply important - and often overlooked or underestimated - role in their conception of ideal masculinity and femininity. Do we take this role seriously? Do we constantly examine our lives for the ways in which we need to improve, in order to be for our children the best possible image of God and the Blessed Mother that we can be? Obviously, we will fall short. We will sin against our children and wound them and there will be things about us that they swear they will never tolerate in a spouse. But, we can also hope and pray that the Lord will grant us the grace to step up to our calling, to form our children well, and to give them a glimpse - a tiny glimpse - of the joy awaiting the saints in Heaven.

On a practical note, Benedict offers us a few tips as we approach the day-to-day reality of our parenting:

• Tend toward mercy rather than harsh justice in our decision-making, when the two seem to be in conflict

• Strive to weed out faults in ourselves and our family members before they begin to take root, and work tirelessly to prune those faults out when they inevitably grow in spite of our best efforts

• Be intentional about cultivating peace of mind as an individual, a spouse, and a parent (just sit with the quote below for a minute)

Let him not be full of commotion nor anxious, let him not be over-bearing nor obstinate, jealous nor too suspicious, because such an one is never at rest.

• Cultivate an awareness of the limitations of ourselves and our family members so that we do not overtax them and cause discouragement or scandal³

• Pray for one another, especially during times (whether in the daily course of things or during special and longer circumstances) when the family is separated by distance, even if this “commemoration” is a simple, “and bless Daddy at work, and bring him home safe this evening”.

• Do not allow ourselves to get distracted by idle (especially “outside” or irrelevant) gossip - this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t talk about our lives with one another, but that we shouldn’t allow our peace or focus to be disturbed by things outside our concern and control

• Work diligently to maintain our composure, especially with our children, which is a profoundly challenging but deeply important task (and a fruitful one, if we allow it to be so!)

• Don’t take it on yourself to punish children arbitrarily or out of anger, and don’t tolerate children punishing one another, as they lack the authority to do so

While there is much more that could be said on each of these topics, for the time being, I will simply refer you back to St. Benedict, whose words speak much louder and more eloquently than mine could. Many of these topics will be discussed at length later this fall or in the spring, where we will have the time and space to do them more justice.

Chapters 72-72: The Spirit of the Law and the Life of Faith

Finally, as we reach the end of the Rule, Benedict sends us forth with an examination and an exhortation, reminding us that everything we’ve discussed over the last six weeks still barely scratches the surface of the spiritual life. Rather than feeling discontent or despondent, we ought to rejoice in this fact and face our daily lives with renewed zeal. Where we previously have allowed ourselves to be driven by bad habits, unhealthy influences, and attitudes of pride and selfishness, Benedict exhorts us to uproot those things and replace them with virtue, with mutual self-gift and service, and with people and things that draw us deeper into Christ:

Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from vices and leads to God and to life eternal. By most fervent love therefore let monks exercise this zeal, that is, let them see to it that in honour they prefer one another.

If we can cultivate the attitudes, habits, and desires laid out in the Rule, we will be making a good start in our pursuit of holiness. Both for the monks in the sixth century and for us as Christian in the twenty-first, a Rule of Life is only a beginning; it is not a guarantee of a rich and full spiritual life.

Now we have written out this rule in order that by observing it in our monasteries we may show ourselves to have, to some degree, integrity of life, or the beginning at least of conversion.

Once we have allowed ourselves to become accustomed to the boundaries spelled out in our personal or family Rule, we can move on to the next steps. With our Rule, we till the soil and plant the seeds, but without constant attention - water, sunlight, fertile soil, and a thriving ecosystem - we will not bear the fruit we are called to bear. Thus, as the years go on, we must continue to engage in frequent prayer, to form our consciences, to seek out beneficial reading material and spiritual direction, and to surround ourselves with other individuals and families who are striving for holiness.

May the Lord continue to shower you and your families with grace as you seek after Him.

Questions for Consideration and Discussion

1. If you have children, do you suspect that any of them may have a vocation to the priesthood, or a temperament well-suited to the religious life?

2. How do you cultivate a sense of order and authority in your family, particularly between parents and children, or within the children as a subset of the family?

3. Which of Benedict’s “practical tips” speaks to you the most?

4. What is one area where you need to uproot “an evil zeal of bitterness” and replace it with a “good zeal” and “most fervent love”? What is one step you can take to better prepare the garden of your soul for an abundant harvest?

1. For a more thorough discussion of this topic, I will point you to Familiaris consortio, 66.

2. As an aside, we have some dear friends who have six or seven children, and when their mother was out of the country visiting family, their second child (but the eldest daughter) reportedly told her younger siblings, “I’m the mama now.” James and I say this to one another regularly haha.

3. We’ll discuss this in greater detail in a few weeks.