I am still thinking of St. Benedict these days and his rule of life for religious. The basis of religious life is humility. Without humility you cannot seek His face. Life will be all about you. I remember one woman near the end of her life as she looked up from the stove where she was routinely frying two eggs, saying to me: “I wish I could stop thinking of myself.” And, I thought, “She is totally open to someone else, maybe even God himself.” A first step in religious awareness.
When I can be empty of myself, there will be room enough in my heart for Our Lord, and maybe even room for you. So, Benedict makes humility
the founding virtue of the spiritual life in common. In my community we put it this way: “You must die to self and rise with Christ.” Or, “We die to self and rise with Christ because we have loved the brethren.”
I’m still trying to remind myself of humility every day. In my seeking of Our Lord I pray for the grace of forgetting myself and experiencing life in the presence of Our Lord. It’s a matter of focus. If I am going to live up to my vows, I am going to have to keep Our Lord at the center of my life. I think that this is what love means.
Benedict leads his monks through twelve steps to this virtue. I am not sure which rung of the ladder it is –maybe it’s the first– but Benedict says that God’s will must be my will. It is complete surrender to the Father’s will. This is not a secret known only to monks. When we pray the only prayer Jesus taught us to pray, the first thing we pray after hallowing his presence is “Thy will be done.”
Many of these twelve steps are simple and practical. For example: Don’t talk unless necessary. I think you and I would have to agree that when we talk it is usually in some way about ourselves. Instead, we should communicate by listening. The psychologist Carl Rogers called it “active listening,” the kind of listening where we confirm what we thought we heard a person say: “I think I hear you saying….” Another step in the ladder is avoiding levity. That simply means giddiness and continually goofing around trivializes your life and those around you. However, Benedict wasn’t so serious that he didn’t see the humor in life. Remember this story? His twin sister and he visited outside the monastery. When Benedict felt it was time to go, St. Scholastica wanted him to stay a bit longer. He insisted that he was ready to leave when his sister inclined her head in prayer and suddenly a great storm with angry winds and pelting rain made it impossible for him to leave. His sister said something like, “Listen to me next time.” Benedict with good cheer understood the sign and stayed the night.
“Keep your head down” is another, I think, the last step. There are a dozen sermons here including themes like “Don’t look for trouble,” “Avoid demeaning people by your haughtiness,” “Looking around, distracts you from looking inward.”
Religious community living can make you crazy or foolish. It can also toughen you up for humble service as you seek to live what God wills for you.