Benedictine Wisdom

St. Benedict of Nursia, unlike most saints, has two different feast days celebrated by Benedictines around the world. March 21 is the feast of the death of St. Benedict, and July 11 is the feast of St. Benedict, patron of Europe. For most of the Western Church, the only date celebrated is July 11. However, for some Benedictine monasteries, including Portsmouth Abbey, the larger celebration is on March 21, although it is transferred to March 22 this year by the fifth Sunday of Lent. The death of St. Benedict is narrated by St. Gregory the Great at the end of the second book of his Dialogues, in which he recounts the life and miracles of St. Benedict in a hagiographical form.

According to St. Gregory, St. Benedict knows the date of his death, and starts preparing the monks under his care, telling them what sign will accompany his death. Six days before he dies, he has his grave opened, and falls sick. As he dies, he has his disciples carry him into the oratory, receives communion, lifts up his arms supported by his disciples, and prays. As he prays like this, he dies. Two of his monks who are not present have identical visions that same day of a path, lit by innumerable lamps, leading from St. Benedict’s cell going towards the east, the liturgical direction of heaven. He is then buried in the grave prepared for him, where the body of his sister, St. Scholastica, was already at rest. By virtue of this story, on the St. Benedict medal, written in Latin around the figure of St. Benedict, are the words “Eius in obitu nostro praesentia muniamur,” which translate as “may we be strengthened by his presence at our death.”

A Jubilee medal by the monk Desiderius Lenz, of the Beuron Art School, made for the 1400th anniversary of the birth of St. Benedict in 1880 (Source: Wikipedia)

This story contains a number of interesting scriptural allusions, but I will just comment on one of them to help us understand St. Benedict’s place for Benedictines, and the importance of this particular feast. As St. Benedict expires, his arms are held up in prayer by his disciples. This is similar to a story about Moses narrated in the book of Exodus. Just after Moses leads the people of Israel out of Egypt, but before they arrive at Mt Sinai, they are attacked by the Amalekites. Moses tells Joshua to choose fighting men, and he stands on top of a hill above the battle, holding up his hands in prayer. Whenever Moses’ hands are held up, the Israelites have the upper hand, and whenever his hands fall, the Amalekites have the upper hand. Eventually Moses gets tired, so Aaron, his brother and Hur, a member of the tribe of Judah, hold up his arms, resulting in victory for Joshua and the Israelites.

Saint Benedict, hand-carved oak (monastery collection)

The place St. Benedict holds for Benedictines is analogous to the place Moses held for the ancient Israelites. Both Moses and Benedict are lawgivers. Moses makes a covenant with God on behalf of the Israelites and goes up Mount Sinai to receive the Law: the conditions that Israel must live by in order to remain faithful to God, the conditions of their covenant. This includes the Ten Commandments, although there is also a number of laws related to how the Israelites are to worship God - what kinds of sacrifices they should offer, how and when they should offer them, and how the Tabernacle and Ark of the Covenant are to be built. Forty years later, when the people are about to enter the Promised Land - and Moses is about to die - he gives another set of laws (the word Deuteronomy means second law) that serve as the fundamental rule for how they will live as a people in the land of Israel.

St. Benedict, stained glass in the church slype

The Rule of St. Benedict, the only work we have attributed to St. Benedict, and the only other ancient source through which we can learn about him besides St. Gregory’s Dialogues, serves similar purposes. Like the Mosaic Law, it defines the conditions required to fulfill the life of ora et labora, work and prayer, that the monk vows to undertake. Part of this are the fundamental spiritual values that a monk will use: most notably the 12-step ladder of humility given in chapter 7 of the Rule, along with a long list of 72 tools for good works given in Chapter Four. These serve the purpose of commandments for a holy, cenobitic monastic life. Like the Mosaic Law, there is a long section devoted to how the monk is to worship God, giving exact times and liturgical content for what St. Benedict calls the opus Dei, the work of God, which we know as the Liturgy of the Hours or the Divine Office. Also like the Mosaic law, there are a lot of practical laws that explain how authority and the day-to-day life of the monk work within the monastery.

The laws given by Moses and St. Benedict were designed to serve as guides along the path towards perfection and sanctity for the ancient Israelites and cenobitic monks, respectively. For a good, cenobitic monk, the Rule can serve as an inspiration and a lamp by which the monk can follow St. Benedict’s path east towards eternal life. Nevertheless, it isn’t complete on its own. St. Benedict’s arms are held up by two of his disciples. His prayer is supported by the monks who will continue his mode of living, and who hope to follow him in his death. Without these disciples who come after him, who support his arms for prayer and teach his way of life to the next generation, there is still a St. Benedict, but no such thing as Benedictinism. The tradition that originates in the text of the Rule gives life to a rich order that takes on a variety of forms: the strongly liturgical life of the Cluniac monks; the scholarly life of the Maurists; the rural life of the early Cistercians.

Crucifixion scene in Abbey cemetery, by E. Charlton Fortune

Even this tradition, however, is not self-sustaining, and itself rests, like Moses’ arms, on the Church and the world. Aaron, the first high Priest and the brother of Moses, and Hur, a member of the tribe of Judah, from which King David would come, stand with Moses apart from the battle, and help to hold up his arms. Without these external supports, the battle against the Amalekites would have been lost. Similarly, the Benedictine life, in continuity with the traditions established by St. Benedict and laid out in the Rule of St. Benedict, cannot exist without the external support of the Church and the world, without the sacraments and goods provided to it from outside the monastery. This relationship necessarily puts obligations on the monastery: external works taken up for the good of the Church and the world that require the monks to be outside of the cloister, as well as external events that can force monasteries to change the way they operate, developing organically into the rich variety of Benedictine life that exists in the world today.

Whatever form this constantly evolving tradition takes, each individual monastic life itself awaits and hopes for the same end as St. Benedict: a peaceful death and burial in the monastery, supported in prayer by the monastic community, and accompanied on a journey from the monastic cell eastwards to heaven and eternal life, along the path lit by the innumerable lamps of the Benedictine saints who have followed St. Benedict.