Part Six:
Community: Bringing Us Altogether to
Everlasting Life
Then the novice prostrates herself/himself at the feet of each
member to ask her/his prayers, and from that very day s/he is to be counted as one of the community.
- RB 58:23
“Let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ,
and my Christ bring us all together to everlasting life.”
- RB 72:11-12
“This then, is the good zeal which members must foster with
fervent love: They should each try to be the first to show respect to the other (Rom. 12:10), supporting with the greatest patience
one another’s weaknesses of body or behavior...”
- RB 72:2-4
Trying to find “community” in the Rule of Benedict is like
asking
fish to find water. There is no
special chapter on community, no clear explanation of the role of community in
the life of the monastic. And yet
for Benedict community is the means by which we come to know God. The Benedictine way is not a solitary journey.
We cannot progress in the spiritual journey as long as we think we can
“go it alone.”
In fact Benedict has nothing but scorn for those who attempt to lead a
spiritual life without the support and discipline of a community.
“…there are the monastics called gyrovagues, who spend their entire
lives drifting from region to region, staying as guests for three or for days in
different monasteries. Always on the move, they never settle down, and are slaves to
their own wills and gross appetites.” (RB 1:10-11)
In a culture that has done
so much to glorify the myth of “rugged individualism,” it may be at hard at
first to understand Benedict’s insistence on community and his condemnation of
what we would see as wandering spiritual seekers.
However, like most provisions in the Rule, the central role of community
is based on a solid understanding of the limits and needs of human nature.
The Benedictine way is a spirituality for the long haul. Most of us sincerely want to deepen our relationship with
God; we want to progress in the spiritual journey.
But most of us also need help along the way. Without people to support and challenge us, we can easily
become lax in our discipline. We
begin to encounter dryness, difficulties and obstacles.
Benedictine spirituality is for people who know that they need the help,
support and discipline of a community. Benedict
does not envision the monastic way of life as a way for people who want to seek
God only as long as it is easy. The
Benedictine way is a guide which acknowledges the spiritual journey which is not
always easy or smooth but together we can do it.
Questions for Reflection:
- Have you ever tried to
“go it alone” in your spiritual journey?
What was the result?
- In what ways do you need
help from others in getting to know God more deeply?
- Do you have a community?
How do they encourage and challenge you in your spiritual life?
Wearing Down the Edges: The Process of Community
So how does community help us to seek God?
Left to our own devices most of us can be remarkably blind to the areas
where we need to grow. There is
little room for this kind of blindness when we have the discipline of community.
The abbot of one Trappist monastery remarked that “we walk around naked
here.” He obviously did not mean
this literally! But living with
people day after day, whether in a monastic community or a family, means that we
are quickly stripped of all of our illusions about ourselves and others.
We see our own weakness and limitations as well as our strengths and
gifts. In community we quickly learn that no one is completely a
saint or a sinner. We are equally
broken, equally whole and equally loved by God.
In community we are known just as we are, not simply in terms of the
persona or personality we want to project.
We can no longer pretend that we are different than we really are.
The places where we need to grow are usually very obvious to the people
we live with and eventually we come to see them, too.
Benedict knew that when we “support with the greatest patience one
another’s weaknesses of body or behavior...” we will be changed.
Community means learning to be patient with people whose habits,
idiosyncrasies and personalities irritate us.
In community we have to live and work with people not of our choosing.
Community means a daily rubbing against one another, day in and day out
in all our frailties and weaknesses.
The key to community’s being an instrument of our transformation is
that we can’t just decide to leave one day.
We don’t stay in community only as long as it is easy or makes us feel
good. For Benedict community meant
a lifetime commitment to the same group of people, the nice ones and the mean
ones, the gentle ones and the angry ones, without distinction and without end.
The monastics of Benedict’s community and of any monastic community
today make a lifetime commitment to stay with this group of people.
It is a commitment to stay through the hard times and the good times, no
matter how the community may or may not change.
One of the specific vows that every Benedictine makes is that of
“stability,” to stay with this group of people in this particular community
for the rest of his/her life.
If we know we can’t just leave when certain people get on our nerves or
because the group is changing in a way we don’t like, we learn that we will
have to change. A commitment to
community, whether a monastic community, a family, a parish or church means that
I can only change myself. The
person next to me may or may not become less angry, but I have to learn to try
and understand that anger and not react to it personally.
The community may or may not learn to move faster in making decisions and
changes, but I can learn to see their reluctance and gently provide a new way of
seeing things. The people who
irritate me may or may not change but I can learn that my irritation may be a
reaction to some
part of myself that needs to be changed.
The process of being part of any kind of community is like water wearing
against a rock. Slowly, gradually,
even imperceptibly we are changed. Our
edges are smoothed away and ultimately we will be transformed if we are willing
to stay with the process.
Questions for Reflection:
- How have the communities
in your life challenged and changed you?
- Have you ever left a
community because it seemed too hard to stay or because they wouldn’t change
enough?
|
Benedictine
Sisters, Monastery of St. Gertrude, Cottonwood, Idaho
