Italy in the late fifth century was in many ways a difficult place. The Roman imperial government had collapsed recently and had been replaced by a Gothic kingdom. The new rulers were Arian Christians, who denied the full divinity of Christ and were deeply distrusted by the Catholic population. Whatever stability existed was often disrupted by Byzantine armies trying to reconquer the peninsula for a Roman empire now ruled from distant Constantinople. Into this world of violence and disorder, a young aristocrat who would become known to history as Saint Benedict of Nursia was born (ca. 480). We are told that after a brief sojourn in Rome to pursue higher studies as a young man, he was disgusted by the way of life there and left to live with a hermit in the countryside for a time. Eventually he pursued a life of prayer and solitude in a cave in Subiaco, and then moved on to found many different monasteries, most famously Monte Cassino. Pope Gregory the Great wrote his life, where he discusses many miracles associated with Benedict. He died in 547.

Sometime in the later years of his life, Benedict produced his Rule for monks. Monasticism had been flourishing since the later third century, and Benedict was in many ways the heir to this tradition. He was influenced by the Desert Fathers of Egypt, the Greek Basil the Great, and the Latin John Cassian, among others, and he also drew from a long text called the Rule of the Master. But Benedict’s Rule is very much his own work of genius, distilling and combining Eastern Christian wisdom and a Roman talent for structure and organization. Compared to earlier monastic writings, it stresses balance and moderation in matters of asceticism. And while he acknowledges that one could eventually become a hermit, this is only the case if one proves himself for many years living communally under the authority of a spiritual father known as an abbot. During the 1500 years of its existence, his Rule has become the leading guide in Western Christianity for men and women living in Benedictine communities, including many offshoots, such as the Cistercians and Trappists. Why has it proven to be so successful and influential?

Compared to previous monastic legislation, the Rule provides a moderate path focusing on the spiritual development of monks in a community environment. All property is shared, and all are taken care of based upon their needs. It provides a framework to establish order and guidance under a spiritual father to support and strengthen the individual’s development in Christian holiness on the path to eternal life. The Rule opens with a hortatory prologue, in which Benedict sets forth the main principles of the religious life. Drawing on military metaphors familiar to his Roman audience, he stresses the renunciation of one’s own will, and arming oneself “with the strong and noble weapons of obedience under the banner of the true king Christ the Lord.” Benedict famously sets out to establish a “school for the Lord’s service” in which “the way to salvation” shall be taught, so that by persevering in the monastery till death his disciples may “through patience share in the passion of Christ that [they] may deserve also to share in his kingdom.” He then sets out moral and other teachings over seventy-three chapters, such as the famous twelve steps of humility; how the liturgy should be organized; the central importance of hospitality; and the administrative structure of the abbey, including the election of the abbot and the consultative nature of the abbot’s leadership.

All things belonging to the monastery are sacred vessels, with the tools of the fields and kitchen to be no less cherished and cared for than the vessels used for the Eucharist.

The Rule organizes the day into regular periods of communal and private prayer, spiritual reading, and manual labor. The heart of the day is the cycle of liturgical prayer, which mainly consists of recitation of the Psalms and other scriptural readings, and is organized around various hours, going from the predawn prayers until compline, the last liturgy before retiring for sleep. These liturgical hours frame other times that are set aside for various types of manual labor and spiritual reading (lectio divina), the slow, prayerful reflection on scripture followed by contemplation.

The structure of the monastic day represents a profound attitude toward all human activity. Every action was intended to be approached in a manner that quite simply glorified God. The three vows required of a monk, namely ongoing conversion of life, obedience to the Rule and abbot, and finally stability – that is, a commitment to persevere in the community until death – were the means to achieve this posture of receptivity to God’s grace at every moment in the lifelong journey of holiness. All of life was meant to be an offering, so “that God might be glorified in all things.” The activities that made up the day were meant to mutually nourish each other, and ultimately they were not separate silos. For example, the Divine Office, the formal time of liturgical prayer, was referred to as “the work of God.” Spiritual reading was referred to as “divine reading.” And manual labor, always preceded by a quiet prayer, was to be offered up to God. Considered in this way, we see that Benedict intended for all of life to be a prayer. Equally, the Benedictine motto ora et labora, “pray and work,” is not ultimately referring to separate activities, but rather the integration of the two in all activities.

The medieval hagiographical tradition throughout the centuries, though also emphasizing dramatic ascetic feats and martyrdom, has given a central place to the importance of the humblest actions in our spiritual lives. This was also the case in Pope Gregory the Great’s sixth-century narrative of the life of Benedict. As in all medieval hagiographical literature, miracles performed by God through the intercession of the saint form an important part of the story. According to Gregory, the very first miracle Benedict performed was to repair a tray that his nurse accidentally broke. He writes:

The poor woman burst into tears; she had just borrowed this tray and now it was ruined. Benedict, who had always been a devout and thoughtful boy, felt sorry for his nurse when he saw her weeping. Quietly picking up both the pieces, he knelt down by himself and prayed earnestly to God, even to the point of tears. No sooner had he finished his prayer than he noticed that the two pieces were joined together again, without even a mark to show where the tray had been broken. Hurrying back at once, he cheerfully reassured his nurse and handed her the tray in perfect condition.1

According to Gregory, Benedict would go on to prophesy before kings, heal the sick, and even raise the dead, but I am not sure if those great works of the Spirit are any more beautiful than this prayerful and heartfelt desire to reach out and help a fellow human being in emotional distress. His life and his Rule are full of concern for the little things, such as caring for the sick and extending hospitality to all. Many examples could be given, but Benedict’s description of the duties of the cellarer, the official in charge of the goods of the monastery, is typical:

He must show every care and concern for the sick, children, guests, and the poor, knowing for certain that he will be held accountable for all of them on the day of judgment. He will regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels of the altar, aware that nothing is to be neglected. He should not be prone to greed, nor be wasteful and extravagant with the goods of the monastery, but should do everything with moderation and according to the abbot’s orders. Above all, let him be humble. If goods are not available to meet a request, he will offer a kind word in reply, for it is written: “A kind word is better than the best gift.”2

This is a profound expression of the Benedictine spirit! Essentially all things belonging to the monastery are sacred vessels, with the tools of the fields and kitchen to be no less cherished and cared for than the vessels used for the Eucharist. All work is sacred. And there is nothing wasteful or extravagant. The cellarer must be moderate, attentive, and obedient to the bigger picture; humble, but most of all kind. In later centuries, intellectual work and teaching, copying manuscripts, musical composition, and art and architecture took their place alongside farming, crafts, and other forms of manual labor for many – if not most – Benedictines. It is incredible how, in their own quiet and unexpected way, these “byproducts” of Benedict’s vision of ora et labora helped create a new medieval Christian civilization, as John Henry Newman eloquently observed:

Saint Benedict found the world, physical and social, in ruins, and his mission was to restore it in the way not of science, but of nature, not as if setting about to do it, not professing to do it by any set time, or by any rare specific, or by any series of strokes, but so quietly, patiently, gradually, that often till the work was done, it was not known to be doing. It was a restoration rather than a visitation, correction, or conversion. The new work which he helped to create was a growth rather than a structure. Silent men were observed about the country, or discovered in the forest, digging, clearing, and building; and other silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloister, tiring their eyes and keeping their attention on the stretch, while they painfully copied and recopied the manuscripts which they had saved. There was no one who contended or cried out, or drew attention to what was going on, but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermitage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, a seminary, a school of learning and a city.3

These developments grew organically out of life in the monastery, which focused upon the daily round of liturgy and spiritual reading, and Benedict in his genius saw this as the source and nourishment of all genuine Christian activity. But this also had to manifest itself constantly in good actions, some of them large and dramatic, but most seemingly mundane and ordinary. One fruit of this was an intense feeling and obligation of hospitality toward travelers and refugees of all sorts. Italy in the sixth century witnessed a depressing and relentless stream of war, famine, and desolation. In such a context, Benedict continued to insist, each visitor should be treated as if he or she were Christ, upon the necessity of unconditional love of neighbor, respect for the most minute aspects of human dignity, and a love and veneration for all of creation. This aspect of self-offering, or oblation, is needed now more than ever before, in addition to the perpetual calling of all the saints, both known and unknown, whether in monasteries or not.

Footnotes

1. Life and Miracles of St. Benedict: Book Two of the Dialogues, trans. by Odo Zimmermann OSB and Benedict Avery OSB (Liturgical Press, 1949), 3.
2. RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English, trans. by Timothy Fry OSB (Liturgical Press, 1981), 229.
3. John Henry Newman, “The Mission of St Benedict” (1858).