Solemnity of St. Benedict
11 July 2009

 

First Christmas, Easter, Pentecost; then a rush of saints. That, in a very broad brush way, is the pattern of each liturgical year. 6 months from Advent to Pentecost, 6 from Pentecost to the next Advent. First, the work of Christ for us, then the work of Christ in us. First the sowing of redemption: Jesus the seed; then the harvest of redemption: the Church and her saints. First, the lifting-up of the crucified and risen One as the Saviour, the Centre, of the world; then the drawing of the world, in the wake of saints, to that Centre and Salvation. First, everything leading to the fire of Pentecost; then everything kindled by it.

And so we see why we solemnise St. Benedict now: after Easter and Pentecost, among many other saints. We see where he belongs in the pattern. Taking Pentecost as our cue, we can see him in the light of the Spirit. St. Benedict had the spirit of all the just, said St. Gregory; he had the spirit of Christ, that is the Holy Spirit. He was a Spirit-bearing man. Meaning what?

On Pentecost day, after the wind and tongues of fire, St. Peter stood up and spoke. And he began by quoting the prophet Joel: “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy... I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy” (Acts 2: 17,18). The first gift of Pentecost is prophecy. Prophecy meaning here the ability to speak and act creatively for God in history, the ability to do God’s work in time. St. Benedict had this gift, exceptionally. His famous Rule is the sign of it. That Rule was his prophetic word, his prophetic action, his creative contribution to history. Full of the energy of God’s word, it fell into the soil of time, the disturbed soil of the 6th c. For a while, it seems to have disappeared, as seeds do. But then it began to grow, to flower, to bear fruit. “By this my Father is glorified, Jesus had said, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be my disciples” (Jn 15:8). So it was. The Rule was a seed, the fruit was monasteries. The Rule was written in the 6th c., Benedictine monasteries have belonged to every century since - a continuing living gift. During the 7th to 9th cc., monasteries drawing on St. Benedict’s Rule begin to appear north of the Alps. The great medieval flowering followed. In the 16th c. with the discovery of the New World, Benedictine monasteries were founded in Latin America; in the 19th c. more especially in North America; in the latter half of the 20th c., in Africa and Asia. Overall just in the last 10 years, despite a decline in numbers of monks and nuns, there have been some 100 new foundations of monasteries following the Rule of St. Benedict - most remarkably in Kazakstan, with plans for one in Cuba and hopes for continental China.

It is monasteries we are thanking God for today: the living presence on every continent of monasteries of men and women following the Rule of St. Benedict. The Spirit of Pentecost, the spirit of prophecy, rested on St. Benedict. Under that Spirit, he wrote a Rule. And from that Rule spring Benedictine monasteries. And through these monasteries, the lifegiving Holy Spirit, sent at Pentecost, is ever drawing souls close to the Easter Jesus, the Son of the Father. For “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba, Father!’” (Gal 4:6).

It is monasteries we are thanking the Father for today: the gift of God through St. Benedict. Let’s go on a little, contemplating this gift, encouraging one another to gratitude. First of all, a monastery is a gift to its own members. It is, in a phrase of the Psalms, “the place of [their] pilgrimage.” It’s the house of God they’re privileged to live in. It’s their home. It’s their spiritual mother. It is the place where they experience the spiritual motherhood of the whole Church. It is where that life-giving motherhood is at work, forming them in the womb of this life to bring them forth to everlasting life. Today’s readings are a guide here. A monastery is where, following Proverbs, the monk or nun can gradually learn wisdom, “understand what the fear of the Lord is, and discover the knowledge of God... understand what virtue is, justice and fair dealing, all paths that lead to happiness” (Prov 2:5, 9). It is where he or she can become personally, inwardly aligned to the wisdom, the purposes, of God. It’s where, following St. Paul, he or she can know what it is to be “called together as parts of one body”: to “bear with one another; forgive each other”, to “put on love”, to let Christ’s peace reign, to encourage each other, to pray together, to be grateful (cf. Col 3:12-17). It’s the place where, following the Gospel, we learn to serve. “For who is the greater: the one at table or the one who serves? The one at table, surely? Yet here am I among you as one who serves” (Lk 22:27).

If a monastery is first a gift to its monks, it’s also one to the Church and the world. Rare is the Benedictine community that isn’t surrounded - and actually kept afloat, supported, sustained, saved from any illusion of self-sufficiency - by friends and benefactors, oblates and guests. And that is a sign. “In this place I will give peace” (Hag 2:9). It’s a sign that however weak and limited communities are they are a gift to the Church, and a gift to the world of the Church. Certainly, every Christian resource, the Church’s whole potential, is needed today. But monasteries too, and monasteries not least. They are a gift of God beyond themselves. They’re a presence of Christ. They’re the Church in her motherliness. They’re the Spirit at prayer.

So today, in this time after Pentecost, this season of saints, let us thank God for this gift. Let us ask for the grace of cherishing monasteries, holding them dear. Let us do what we can to build them up. Perhaps in that way something of the spirit of prophecy will rest on us as well.

In the 530s the Emperor Justinian built in Constantinople the great church of Holy Wisdom, Hagia Sophia, finished in 5 years, 10 months, 4 days. It is one of the marvels of Christian architecture. It created a space, ruled by Christ, where in worship God and man could meet. But nine centuries later it became a mosque and now it’s a museum. The very same years, St. Benedict was writing his Rule. It too is a kind of architecture. It too creates a Christ-filled space, dedicated to wisdom, where, in worship, God and man can meet. But this space is no museum. It’s alive. It’s here, it’s in a thousand places through the world. It is, even more, in thousands upon thousands of hearts, shaped by St. Benedict’s Rule. God and man are meeting.

“Let us bless the Lord. Thanks be to God.”

Abbot Hugh, O. S. B.

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