I have edited the text for the use of St. Anthony of the
Desert, our own Chapter of St. Scholastica Monastery in Fort Smith, Arkansas.
Our Chapter meets on the Second Sunday of each month at St. Matthew’s Cathedral
in Dallas, Texas, 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. to sing the Offices and share in a cold
collation. All are welcome.
Chapter VII Of Humility
Introduction and the First Step of
Humility
Brothers and Sisters,
the Holy Scripture cries to us saying: “Every one that exalts himself will be
humbled; and he that humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 14:11)[i].
Since Scripture says this; it shows us that every exaltation is a kind of
pride. The Prophet declares that he guards himself against this, saying: “O
LORD, my heart is not lifted up, my eyes are not raised too high; I do not
occupy myself with things too great and too marvelous for me.” (Ps 131:1).
What then? “If I was not humbly minded, but were exalted instead; then you
would have treated me like a weaned child upon my mother’s lap.” (Ps 131:2).
It is important to understand that Oblates are
not Monks or Nuns. Monastics live in an environment where those within the monastery,
by virtue of their vows, have committed themselves to fulfill the precepts of
the Rule of St. Benedict, in the context of their community. The Benedictine
Sisters of Perpetual Adoration website gives the following description of the
vows taken by Monks and Nuns.
Our Benedictine vows come from the Rule of Saint
Benedict which was written centuries before poverty, chastity and obedience
became the standard vows.
Saint Benedict's vows (or promises as he called
them) are stability, ‘conversatio’ and obedience. Stability is a commitment of
lifelong fidelity to God and our Congregation. ‘Conversatio’ is a commitment to
embrace all of monastic life as a path to holiness and conversion. This
includes poverty or simplicity of life and chastity. Obedience is a vow of
listening, responsive love to the voice of God as it comes to us through
prayer, the Rule of Saint Benedict, Scripture, our prioress and our sisters.[ii]
Oblates live in very different circumstances,
and those around the Oblates are most often not committed to the same set of
values to which the Oblates aspire. Nevertheless Oblates strive to take
seriously the call to stability, conversatio,
and obedience insofar as their station in life permits. At the center of
Benedictine life is the understanding of humility; but that humility is
dynamically opposite to the aspirations of the world around them.
On the surface that may sound very academic,
but it’s not. It is often a painful reality. Oblates frequently struggle with
the need for personal balance in settings that can be very conflictual, in the
family, in the various places of employment, and even within the parish church.
The call to humility may sound as odd as Latin in the ears of the children of
the world; but listen to what the Rule of St. Benedict has to say to the Oblates
who live in less than ideal circumstances?
Therefore,
brothers and sisters, if we wish to reach the greatest height of humility, if
we desire to attain speedily that heavenly exaltation to which we climb in the
present life by our actions, we must erect the ladder which appeared to Jacob
in his dream, on which the angels were ascending
and descending (Gen
28:12).
Without a doubt, we understand this ascending and descending to be nothing other
than we descend by pride and ascend by humility.
The erected ladder is our life in this
present world, by which, if the heart is humble, the Lord lifts us up to heaven.
Our body and our soul are the two sides of this ladder; and into these two sides
of our Divine Vocation, as Monks or Oblates, has inserted the various steps of
humility or discipline which we must climb. If you would learn peace, learn
humility. If you embrace self-exaltation
you embrace the disharmony that governs the world.
The starting place is learning Godly fear [or
awe]. The Book of
Proverbs tells us that, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; fools
despise wisdom and instruction.”[iii] The very
idea that God is to be feared is antithetical to the children of the world, and
especially to the children of the world within the Church. According to C. S. Lewis, “What would really
satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, 'What
does it matter so long as they are contented'? What we want, in fact, is not so much a Father
in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven—a senile benevolence who, as they say,
'liked to see young people enjoying themselves', and whose plan for the
universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of the day, 'a good
time was had by all'.”[iv] Those who
hold God in awe understand that God’s Holiness is immutable in its perfection.
Therefore, “Let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for
our God is a consuming fire”.[v]
The
first step of humility is that a man always ought to have
the fear of God before his eyes ( Ps
35:1),
never forgetting it, and always remembering all that God has commanded. He [each brother or sister] should keep in mind
that those who despise God will burn in hell for their sins, and that life
everlasting is prepared for those who hold God in awe. And while he guards
himself always against sin and vices of thought, word, deed, and self-will, let
him also make haste to cut off the lusts of the flesh. Let him recall that God
always sees him from Heaven, and that the eye of God looks on all his works,
and that the angels report his works to God every hour.
This has a direct implication on the calling of the Oblate as well as
the Monastic. To assume that the
Monastic has less temptation than an Oblate is to gravely underestimate the
temptations that beset the Monastic. Temptation
is a universal experience. Paul tells
us, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is
faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the
temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to
endure it.”[vi] Monastic and Oblate alike suffer temptations.
This section of The Rule offers three antidotes, and one of those is an
understanding of accountability; heaven is not a mythical place, and neither is
hell. Secondly, although we are dependent on grace we need to take action and
guard our minds against sin and vice, and make haste to cut off, instead of
entertain the lusts of the flesh. Many contemporary Christians fail to take
this latter point seriously thinking that grace falls on the passive, rather
than on the obedient. The Collect for the First Sunday in Advent makes both our
obedience and our participation clear, “Almighty God, give us grace that we may
cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the
time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in
great humility.”[vii]
The prophet tells us
the same thing saying “The searcher of hearts and minds is God” (Ps 7:9).
And again: “The Lord knows the thoughts of men” (Ps
94:11) And also he says: “You discern
my thoughts from afar.” (Ps 139:2). And: “The thoughts of man shall praise You” (Ps 76:10
Vulgate). Therefore, in
order that he may always be on his guard against evil thoughts, let the humble
brother always say in his heart: “I was blameless before him, and I kept myself
from guilt.” (Ps 18:23)
The
Lord knows every thought that crosses our mind, as well as every word that is
on our lips. The full text is helpful, “O LORD, you have searched me and known
me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from
afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my
ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O LORD, you know it
altogether.[viii]
Third,
remember that we are never really alone. The shocking truth is that not only
does God see us at all times, but according to St. Benedict even the angels,
always present with us, report our works to God every hour.
Therefore we are
forbidden to do our own will, because Scripture tells us: “turn away from your base
desires” (Sir
18:30). Therefore we ask God that His will may be done in us (Mt 6:10).
And we are rightly taught not to do our own will, when we heed the warning of
Scripture, “There are ways that seem right to men, but the end plunges them
into the depths of hell” (Prov 16:25).
Remember that Obedience is one of the two fundamental
Benedictine vows. St. Benedict tells us that if we would fight against
temptation, we will have to learn obedience, saying, “Therefore we are forbidden
to do our own will.” In Chapter V of the Rule, St. Benedict lays down the
principle, “The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience,”[ix]
He does not leave this as an abstract principle, “they must carry out the
superior’s order as promptly as if the command came from God himself.”[x]
Let
me remind you of the teachings of St. Paul who wrote in an era when persecution
was immanent, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For
there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been
instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God
has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”[xi]
Rampant
in the American ethos is the notion that each individual, Bible in hand, has
the right, no! the Duty to criticize religious leaders. That is very far from
the mind of St. Benedict. St. Vincent of Lerins wrote, “We take the greatest
care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all.”[xii]
As Benedictines we are not called to be critics, but to be obedient, and that
obedience is the foundation of humility and the source of our stability.
And
we also fear what is said to the negligent, “They are corrupted and have become
abominable in their pleasure" (Ps 14:1).
As for desires of the flesh, let us believe that God is thus ever present to
us, since the Prophet says to the Lord: “Every desire of mine is before You” (Ps
37:9). We must, therefore, guard against every evil
desire, because death lurks close by the gate of pleasure. For this reason
Scripture commands us, saying: "Pursue not your lusts" (Sir
18:30).
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,
may be an Ang Lee martial arts film, but it also has a spiritual application;
death lurks close by the gate of pleasure. It is not that God is against
pleasure, after all He created pleasure for His own good pleasure as well as
ours,[xiii]
but it is absolutely clear that God is against those illicit “pleasures” which
will damage the soul, the inner person. That after all is the point of the Ten
Commandments and of Jesus understanding of the Law in Matthew, Chapter Five. If
you play with fire, you will be burned.
In
the conclusion of the first step of humility St. Benedict returns to an earlier
theme:
The
eyes of the Lord observe the good and the bad (Prov 15:3),
and the Lord always looks down from heaven on the children of men to see
whether there are any who understand or seek after God (Ps 14:1).
Our actions are also reported to the Lord day and night by the angels who are
appointed to watch over us daily. Therefore we must always be on our guard. As
the Prophet says in the Psalm, so that God may not see that we have "turned
aside to evil and become unprofitable" (Ps 14:1). Take note that
He has spared us in the present time because He is loving and waits for us to
be changed for the better, and also in order that He might not say to us in the
future: "These things you have done and I was silent" (Ps 50:21).
Remember that the first step is always the
first step, and if you don’t climb the first step you won’t reach the second
step. In his conclusion of the first step St. Benedict returns to the theme of
the Watching God and His angels. We are not alone, we never are. God is always
watching. What we do is reported day and night to God by His angels. That is
the basic reason why we ought to be on guard, and it obviously has to do with
holding God in awe. In order to understand the final verse in the first step of
humility it helps to look at it in context. It has to do with our treatment,
not only of those in authority, but also our treatment of each other, “You sit
and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother's son. These things
you have done, and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like
yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.”[xiv]
Humility is not an abstract quality that exists in a vacuum, but something that
is always worked out in community.
[i] Care has been taken to verify all Scripture citations so that they may
be found easily, and in some cases the text has been modified to conform to the
English Standard or Revised Standard Versions for clarity.
[ii]
The Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration:
http://www.benedictinesisters.org/content.php?pageid=5&secid=2&subsecid=5
[iii] Proverbs
1:7
[iv]
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
[v] Hebrews
12:28-29
[vi] 1
Corinthians 10:13
[vii]
The Book of Common Prayer, p. 211
[viii]
Psalm 139:1-4
[ix]
RB, Ch. V, verse 1
[x]
Ibid
[xi] Romans
13:1-2
[xii]
St. Vincent of Lerins, The Vincentian Canon, “Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest
care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all. That
is truly and properly 'Catholic,' as is shown by the very force and meaning of
the word, which comprehends everything almost universally. We shall hold to
this rule if we follow universality [i.e. oecumenicity], antiquity, and
consent. We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be
true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity if we in
no wise depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors
and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the
definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors
alike.
[xiii]
Luke 12:32 "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure
to give you the kingdom.
[xiv] Psalm
50:20-21
