March 2004 Christian Spirituality      Continued from previous issue By George A Lane SJ

BENEDICTINE SPIRITUALITY We shift our attention now from the East to the West, and we want to describe the Benedictine ideal of spirituality. We will find it conditioned by a simpler, less sophisticated culture in the West, a more biblical notion of God, and the grace and personality peculiar to St Benedict. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism, was born in Nursia in Umbria around the year 480, and he lived until 547. Early in his youth Benedict went to Rome to study, but after a while he left the city because he could not live the Christian life as he wanted to in the midst of the corruption there. Rome at this time was the scene of babarian invasions, social breakdown, disorder and confusion. So Benedict left the city and became a hermit; he lived alone for three years on Mt. Subiaco. After this three year eremitic period, Benedict went to a place called Vicovaro where a number of other monks gathered around him. Benedict tried to get his companions to lead a more fervent monastic life. What form this took is unsure, but his companions did not like his ideas, and they tried to poison him. This incident terminated Benedict's first cenobitic experience. Needless to say, Benedict was well acquainted with the disorderly varieties of the monastic life which were then prevalent both in the East and West. Benedict eventually went to another place on Mt Subiaco and began to set up new communities. He established twelve different monasteries there, and finally he went to Monte Cassino around the year 528. There he founded the famous monastery and wrote the Holy Rule in the last years of his life. In the beginning of his Rule, Benedict specifies that he is not describing a way of life for anchorites, gyrovagues, stylites or any other type of free-lance monk who was on the scene at this time. He makes a definite break from all the peculiarities that had crept into Eastern and Western monasticism. What was the original form of the Benedictine life and its spiritual ideal? Aiden Cardinal Gasquet in his commentary on the Holy Rule says, "Benedict regarded monastic life . . . as a systematized form of life on the lines of the Gospel counsels of perfection, to be lived for its own sake and as a full expression of the Church's true and perfect life - the perfect liturgical life and that of perfecting the individual soul." We note especially the personal sanctification, the Gospel counsels of perfection, and liturgical life in community. The spiritual ideal described here is the perfecting of the individual soul through the perfect living of the Christian life in community. Life in community is essential for Benedict. The apostolate of the monk is entirely indirect. "The monk who loves God perfectly is fulfilling every obligation which in Christian charity he owes to his neighbour."

- To Be Continued -