From Praying with Saint Benedict, my reflection: 

At the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, following the Rule, no conversation takes place at the meals. At the midday meal on my first visit, after two chanted prayers, monks and guests sat to hear the first reading, a short passage from Exodus. Then, as the meal was served, the designated reader for the week began the second reading from a devotional book with chapters on compassion, forgiveness, anger, and humility. On other visits, the reader has read from biographies of modern saints. At the end of the meal, the reader read a short passage from the lives of the early fathers. Lunch ended with a chanted thanksgiving and a sung prayer to St. Benedict. 

The second principle is humility; the reader asks for prayer to shield him from “the spirit of vanity” and waits to take his meal with the kitchen workers and servers after others have left. A third theme addresses mutual obedience: the brothers being sensitive enough to one another’s needs as they eat and drink, so that no one needs to ask for anything. Mealtime, it seems, is a perfect time to practice holy silence, humility, and service. 

The Gospel reading on Sunday for the second Sunday of Lent was taken from John 3, where Jesus tells Nicodemus, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” When Nicodemus doesn’t understand, Jesus elaborates: “What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’”^[1]

Moments in our life when we have transcendent encounters with God can give us a “born from above” experience. My first was as a young boy having an honest, soul-wrenching conversation with Jesus in my bed one night. I immediately was enveloped with an incredible sense of God’s presence and love. Other encounters with God followed throughout my life, some powerful enough to shake up my life a bit and put me on a different spiritual path. 

Benedict looked at Lent as a chance for a little spiritual house cleaning and an opportunity for personal growth. In chapter 49 of his Rule, he maintained that our lives ought always to have the character of a Lenten observance: that is, devoted to prayer, restraint in what we eat and drink, avoiding other vices, and “compunction of heart” (or the moral scruples that prevent you from doing something bad and acknowledging it if you have). 

Realizing that few of his monks had the discipline and self-restraint for doing that as consistently as they should, Lent was a time for the brethren to “keep their lives most pure and at the same time wash away . . . all the negligences of other times.” 

Lent was also a time for study. At the beginning of Lent, the abbot gave a book to each monk that they were instructed to “read straight through from the beginning.” In an age of wide-spread illiteracy, reading was a practice that Benedict embraced, and studying the scriptures was something he required of all his monks. 

Most of all, according to Benedict, every act given to God during Lent should be offered “with joy of the Holy Spirit.” No long faces or martyr-like behavior during this holy season.

What should we give up during Lent? Michael Casey writes about compensatory attachments. When God is overlooked in one’s life, people often attempt to build their character around alternatives such as power, possessions, pleasure, or privilege [1]. Laura Swan states that the primary goal for the spiritual journey is detachment from these things, which leads to interior freedom. She writes, “Our goal is a life of abundant simplicity.” [2]

Prayer 

Gracious God, thank you for the joy of your Holy Spirit and the grace that inspires me to resist harmful attachments and embrace those things that are good for me and bring joy to others. Amen.

The Valentine we celebrate on February 14th actually may be two of these Valentines, one being a real person who died around 270 C.E. and who Pope Gelasius I, in 496 C.E., referred to as a martyr, his acts as “being known only to God.” The other possibility is that Valentine was a priest, beheaded near Rome by the emperor Claudius II for helping Christian couples wed (thus allowing the young groom to escape conscription into the Roman army). 

In his Rule, Benedict states, “The first step of humility…is that we keep the reverence of God always before our eyes” (RSB 7). Michael Casey points out that those who have truly encountered God are filled with a sense of wonder at the mystery and, simultaneously, confounded by a sense of their own insignificance. 

He continues, “This sense of littleness is what opens us up to be filled with the gifts of God, a God who looks with favor on the humility of God’s servants. Humility is not primarily a social virtue, the opposite of arrogance.  It is the necessary consequence that follows an encounter with the loving holiness of God.  After that it doesn’t matter much what status others assign to us.”^[1]

Benedict’s chapter on humility is the longest and—Esther DeWaal argues—the most crucial of the chapters in the Rule. [2] And I think her claim makes sense. It is humility that enables us to submit to those in authority, listen with “the ear of the heart,” offer hospitality, take our turn in the kitchen, become a servant leader, restrain our speech, tend the sick and the elderly, pray. 

Today we remember the powerful leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the enormous role he played in moving ahead the cause of racial justice. According to researchers at Harvard Business School, King exemplified not just one, but two types of vital organizational leadership.^[1] First, he articulated a clear vision, set goals and established high expectations. Second, he was an example of servant leadership. He did not ask his followers to do anything he was not willing to do, including putting his life on the line for the cause. 

In the 6^th century, Benedict was ahead of his time in regard to understanding effective leadership. He delegated authority widely—to his prior, his deans, the cellarer, and the porter—and he listened—not just to his leadership team, but to the whole community. In chapter 3 of the Rule he states: “Whenever any important business has to be done in the monastery, let the Abbot call together the whole community and state the matter to be acted upon. Then, having heard the brethren’s advice, let him turn the matter over in his own mind and do what he shall judge to be most expedient . . .”.  It is not just from the wise older men that he solicits advice, but from the young monks as well. “The reason we have said that all should be called for counsel is that the Lord often reveals to the younger what is best.”

Twenty-first-century books on leadership would not be too much different in their advice to readers. Among the eight essential leadership skills identified by Lauren Landry [2] is receiving and implementing feedback. In a survey by the American Management Association, more than a third of senior managers, executives, and employees said they “hardly ever” know what’s going on in their organizations. Asking for feedback from your team, says Landry, can not only help you grow as a leader, but build trust among your colleagues. 

Many authors have pointed out that Benedict’s first bit of instruction in the Rule is to listen: “Listen carefully, my child, to my instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from one who loves you; welcome it and faithfully put it into practice” (RSB, Prologue).^[1] As happens throughout the Rule, it appears that Benedict’s inspiration here is scripture: “Listen, children, to a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight” (Prov. 4:1).

Jesus did not give him a predictable explanation or one that was easy to immediately understand. They had a long conversation in which Jesus said to him, “No one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.” The Greek word for ‘again’ also contained a root that meant “from above.” In other words, eternal life—a life of the Spirit—begins with transformation, being born from above. Evidence of Nicodemus’s transformation came from his later defense of Jesus during his trial in the Sanhedrin and then claiming Jesus’s body for burial in the family tomb. 

From Praying with Saint Benedict:

Years ago, I attended a men’s weekend retreat in Arizona. On the first night of the retreat, after the evening service, we were instructed to keep silence for the rest of the evening as we went to our dorm and prepared for bed. We followed those instructions and used gesture to communicate when we needed to as we made up our bunks, completed our evening ablutions, and undressed for bed. I remember how refreshing it seemed at the time not to have to make conversation with these men who were, as yet, strangers to me and to let the profound lessons and new insights from our evening service resonate within my head. I slept very well. 

In the afternoon, I sometimes sit by the river, reveling in the silence. Literally all I can hear is the breeze, a cricket rhythmically chirping nearby, and the sound of a chatty magpie somewhere off in the distance. Simplicity and silence have great value, removing the distractions in life, making room for other things in one’s consciousness and spirit. 

From the hymn:

Let all mortal flesh keep silence, And with fear and trembling stand; ponder nothing earthly-minded, for with blessing in his hand
Christ, our God, to earth descending,
comes our homage to command.

                        Gerard Moultrie (1864)