Benedictine Reflections: Stability

I am a Benedictine Oblate of the community of St Benedict's Priory, Salisbury. As far as I know, I am the last person to be made a full Oblate of Elmore Abbey from which the monks moved immediately before they came to Salisbury and which, in turn, was the successor to Nashdom Abbey. Dom Francis is the last surviving monk of Nashdom and is very much his old self.

I have not visited my community since my daughter was born: being in charge of the children full-time does have its disadvantages but these are far outweighed by the privilege of looking after little ones on a daily basis. My house is now my monastic cell.

It is, of course, hard work to do. Many would say, "oh this is woman's work!" but this shows a great misunderstanding of what it is to be a parent and what the difference is between men and women. The more we perpetuate these stereotypes, the more we open ourselves to the delusion that, by conforming to the stereotype of the opposite sex, men can become women and women men, or even that sex does not exist. That is a contradiction to the doctrine of God as Creator. It is He that has made us and not we ourselves. This is not woman's work, it is MY work given to me by God for the perpetuation of His glory and for the love of the two brilliant little people whom I love and for whose very existence I bear some responsibility.

However, I have to bring myself to the memory of the fact that I am a Benedictine, albeit an Oblate. I have not taken vows, nor are the promises that I have made as an Oblate as binding as those made by novices to the monastery. However, I am a Benedictine and I seek to hold fast to the underlying principles on which St Benedict founded the school of monastic life. It is on these that I would like to reflect in a few blog posts.

My situation calls for stability regardless of my standing in the Benedictine community. I am a parent and this means that I simply cannot up and leave my children and my wife. I have made promises and this means that I have a Christian duty to keep them. This makes sense: if I were to become unstable, my children would suffer. Stability is at the heart of the Religious Life.

What does Our Lord say about stability? We can start in St Matthew's Gospel:

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew , and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. 

And everyone that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand: And the rain descended , and the floods came, and the winds blew , and beat upon that house; and it fell : and great was the fall of it. (St Matthew vii.24-25)

In so saying, Our Lord calls us to be stable in keeping His teaching. We can only build a stable house if we build on a foundation that doesn't shift beneath us. If we build our lives on things that can shift, then those lives will fall apart very quickly. We cannot chop and change as we wish, but rather seek and commit in order to achieve our ends. If things get tough, then we have to offer it up and endure that hardship, because, as St Paul says,

...we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans v.3-5)

Essentially, he says, "when the going get tough, the tough get going". If we want to be tough, then we have to get tough.

Parenthood is hard work and much depends on it as any parent knows. And any parent knows that they are not perfect by a long chalk. There are times when we make such great errors of judgement that can mean the wall opposite being covered in crayon to one's slippers being filled with sick. That's not the little one's fault - it's my failure! The times that we fail are depressing however, as St Francis de Sales would say, we need to offer up our hardships to God so that we learn not to make excuses but rather accept and find God in the situation.

The Benedictine commitment to stability is in essence to embrace the obstacles that frustrate us and carry on. We are to venerate the Cross that we bear not by lip-service, but by offering up all our frustrations on high and to welcome them as lessons in living by God. If we keep dropping things just because they get too hard or cumbersome or because they become inconvenient or because something else becomes more convenient. If we are to change or to give something up, it must be because God wants us to and this will become obvious if our walk with Him is based on stable foundations.

The Lord says:

And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. (St Matthew x.38)

And

No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (St Luke ix.62)

These are words for every Christian, but especially for the Benedictine for whom the praying community and the social community are one and the same thing. In promising to grow in stability, the monk is committing himself to his community and the nun hers not to the exclusion of others, but rather to strengthen that community on behalf of others so that all who enter the monastery might find a place that is solid in its foundation in which all may learn to build their house upon the rock. This can't be done if one doesn't practise stability especially when things get tough.

It is also for the secular Christian, i.e. those who live outside the monastery life. The life of the individual Christian is to show how to be a rock to the world. The world will want us to chop and change, to drop difficult things, to flit from one idea to the next without committing to the development of Christian virtue within the soul. Commitment is a dirty word in the world because it shows a strength which goes beyond the world's influence. We can easily find an excuse to drop one commitment and wilfully disregard the excuse that will keep us in that commitment. We can easily persuade ourselves that, actually, God doesn't really want us to do this, He wants us to do that, and then, five minutes later, He wants us to do that. God wants us to commit to the Cross and that way lies labour, disregard for what one wants, pain and suffering. However, at the end of that commitment, we hear the Lord's words, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord." Stability is the only way we can build up trust for others and develop trust in God during the hard times.

Finally, we ought always remember the words of St Benedict himself:

And first of all,
whatever good work you begin to do,
beg of Him with most earnest prayer to perfect it,
that He who has now deigned to count us among His children
may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds.
For we must always so serve Him
with the good things He has given us,
that He will never as an angry Father disinherit His children,
nor ever as a dread Lord, provoked by our evil actions,
deliver us to everlasting punishment
as wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory. (The Prologue to the Rule)

And what should we pray? How about:

Prevent us, O Lord, in all our doings

with thy most gracious favour,

and further us with thy continual help:

that in all our works begun, continued,

and ended in thee

we may glorify thy holy name,

and finally by thy mercy obtain everlasting life,

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.