Working in Communion: Benedict and what we make room for in church
Audubon, John James; Bowen, John T., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
We remember Benedict of Nursia today, on July 11. Below is an imaging of him, at work writing his rule for life in community, flanked by a raven. Above is an Audubon painting of a raven on a shellbark hickory branch. A nut tree! Wouldn’t a hickory nut cake be delicious!
Some legends suggest he and the ravens were in a certain kind of friendship and working relationship, sharing bread and looking out for one another. Somewhere I encountered the suggestion that maybe Benedict and his sister Scholastica were trained falconers, and knew about working with large birds.
Benedict is one of the fathers and mothers of the communal, monastic expressions of living out Christian faith. One might say that he sees our lives and prayer and working as needing to be lived in the company and communion of others. This helps us to grow in love, to keep close to the earth, and pay attention to the work and prayer within which we depend upon others.
In some upcoming blog posts, I’ll explore a bit more a distinction Benedict makes between four kinds of monks: ‘coenobitic’ or communal, ‘gyrovagues’ (isn’t that a great word!), ‘sarabites’ and anchorites/hermits. Benedict is very much a promoter of the communal way of living out prayer. I think there is more to be said for these others than Benedict allows, but more about that later. For people who tend to wandering and comfort with hermit-ing, Benedict’s emphasis on life in community is a whole-making counterpoint.
In fact, the three basic vows practiced in benedictine monasticism make room for the reality and need for personal change, but within an assumption of doing so with a commitment to being in a place and and working things out with other people. You may be thinking ‘poverty, chastity, etc’. But Benedict’s way of prayer is marked by the commitment to Obedience (really listening to others whose life is part of yours, including God), Stability of Place (not leaving or giving up in a place too easily), and Conversion of Life (repenting, learning, responding faithfully to change around and within you.) More on these soon too.
Another emphasis in Benedict’s way I find great delight and recognition in is the twin place of learning and working with one’s hands. It is a strong need of the body, soul and spirit to learn what is delightful and useful and interesting for the soul. God draws near in these. It is a strong need to get your hands in the dirt, play an instrument, cook, sew, garden, and so many things that connect you to your body, its needs and wisdom, to the needs and wisdom of humans and other creatures, and to the earth from which we come, and to which we return.
For the really bookish out there, you can read chapter 48 of the Rule of Benedict to learn more about daily manual labor and reading. And Here is a story about working on the land and the care of farm tools from Gregory the Great’s Life of Benedict:
At another time, a certain Goth, poor of spirit, that gave over the world, was received by the man of God; whom on a day he commanded to take a bill, and to cleanse a certain plot of ground from briers, for the making of a garden, which ground was by the side of a lake. The Goth as he was there laboring, by chance the head of the bill slipped off, and fell into the water, which was so deep, that there was no hope ever to get it again. The poor Goth, in great fear, ran to Maurus and told him what he had lost, confessing his own fault and negligence: Maurus forthwith went to the servant of God [that being Benedict-EGC], giving him to understand thereof, who came immediately to the lake: and took the handle out of the Goth's hand, and put it into the water, and the iron head by and by ascended from the bottom and entered again into the handle of the bill, which he delivered to the Goth, saying: "Behold here is thy bill again, work on, and be sad no more."
I pray that you make room for prayer, and learning, and working with your hands, and sharing life with others today.
Marienbad Relief of St Benedict, ManfredK, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons