Abbey Awe | God Moves Thru Unlikely Saints Again (& Again)

 

St. Benedict of Nursia Block Print by Kreg Yingst

Let them first pray together

that so they may associate

in peace.

+ The Rule of St. Benedict

Look at the face of above. Not necessarily one that would be highlighted very often or looked to for joy and refreshment today. He seems a little too sober. A little too somber. And yet, God worked wonders of refreshment and innovation through this humble person who taught that, "The first degree of humility is prompt obedience."

This post is intended to provide a brief history of how God moved through St. Benedict and others who followed Jesus via discipleship along the lines of The Rule of St. Benedict not once, but twice in the past 2,000 years to bring renewal and healing to Jesus' Church during times when God's people were becoming corrupted by power, apathy, laziness, and greed.

As I've shared before, I have continued to be encouraged and awakened with awe and adoration by my times at Benedictine Abbeys, some of my favorite "thin spaces" these past 5+ years. During this year's spring retreat at St. Mary's Monastery, a community of Roman Catholic Benedictine monks living a contemplative monastic life in Petersham, Massachusetts, I read to participants from Congregational, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Anglican, Baptist, and Reformed backgrounds the stories below from Michael Frost's wonderful book, Mission is the Shape of Water: Learning from the Past to Inform Our Role in the World Today. We were encouraged together then and I hope you will be encouraged with us now as you consider how:

It is the paradox of history 

that each generation

is converted by the saint

who contradicts it most.

+ G. K. Chesterton

The Flame Ignites Again in 500 A.D.

After all the effectiveness of the Celtic mission, Europe could (still) fall back into darkness. The "spreading flame" F.F. Bruce spoke of had dwindled to a barely flickering light ...

(But then) The Benedictines emerged from the ministry of St. Benedict. He was the son of a Roman nobleman from Nursia in the Italian province of Perugia and was sent to study in Rome, possibly around 500. However, Benedict found the city a hotbed of licentiousness, drunkenness, and violence. A devout man of deep spirituality, he was disgusted by the breakdown of civil society and retreated to a cave beside the lake near the ruins of Nero's palace above Subiaco. There is no evidence he intended to establish a monastic order. He was effectively a hermit, living in his cave for three years, provided with food and robes by Romanus, a monk of one of the nearby monasteries.

These were frightening and confusing 

times for Christians. 

The papacy behaved more 

like a small state than Jesus' Church, 

offering little spiritual guidance to the people. 

Christians felt as though the world was ending. 

When news spread of a saintly, flame-bearing

hermit living in a cave about forty miles

east of Rome, people began making

pilgrimages to the site to learn from

and be blessed by Benedict.

Eventually, Benedict was persuaded

to become an abbot

of a more traditional monastery,

each with twelve monks ...

It seemed as though Benedict

was the only light in the midst

of the dark chaos caused by

the final fall of Rome.

Later still, Benedict traveled south, followed by a few disciples, to a pagan district about halfway between Rome and Naples. There, on a steep hill above Cassino, he preached the Gospel and saw many people converted. Eventually, this would become the site of the Benedictine motherhouse at Monte Cassino, where he would formalize the rhythm of life for his monastic communities: the Rule of St. Benedict.

The Rule specifies rhythms, principles, and practices of a Benedictine monastery. It contains a list of seventy-two spiritual tools, based on various biblical and traditional sources:

+ The Lord's Two Great Commandments
+ Ten Commandments

+ Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy

+ Golden Rule
+ Cardinal (Deadly) Sins

+ Theological Virtues

as well as other guiding principles, such as humility, suffering for the Kingdom, and loving one's enemy. It also outlines the day-to-day life of the community, including the Divine Office, prayer times, sleep times, meals and clothing.

Life in southern Italy

was so chaotic, so licentious, so immoral

that a rule like this was seen as a falme

that provided light, warmth, and guidance

in the midst of the darkness of the times.

St. Bernard of Clairvaux Block Print by Kreg Yingst

Cistercians Rekindle the Flame in 1100 A.D.

The Benedictines would burst into flame again, taking back Western Europe and bringing revival and restoration to society. By the turn of the first millennium, corruption had found its way into Benedictine monasteries and was well advanced. In 1098, a Benedictine abbot, Robert of Molesme, could stand it no longer. His monastery in Burgundy had fallen into spiritual decline, with most monks abandoning the Benedictine Rule. Robert, along with about twenty supporters, left his monastery and moved to a plot of marshland just south of Dijon called Cîteaux, intending to establish a truly Benedictine community. Cîteaux means "reed" in Old French. Robert chose to use the Latin version of this term, cistercium, naming his new community the Cistercians.

Embracing a form of asceticism, these bearers of the flame sought to be purified and strengthened for a lifelong labor of prayer. They refused to accept any feudal revenues, believing them to be sullied by the church's collusion with the state ... they soon came to distinguish themselves from the monks of unreformed Benedictine communities by wearing white tunics instead of black. A white Benedictine or Cistercian was considered the holiest of all monks.

By 1111, the new abbot of the Cistercians, Stephen Harding (an extraordinary man in his own right), embarked on an expansion program to start Cistercian monasteries across Europe. That year, Harding commissioned a group of monks, led by Bernard de Fontaine — a nobleman who had taken holy orders at the age of twenty-two, just four years earlier — to start a new monastery in Clairvaux. A supremely eloquent and strong-willed mystic, Bernard of Clairvaux was to become the most admired churchman of his age. 

As with Benedict before him,

the flame of Bernard's passion

drew young people —  

particularly those who were seeking

a better way than the Church

was offering them at the time ...

Daughter houses and monasteries

were founded across France, 

into England and beyond.

The Cistercians under Bernard

took seriously Benedict's words

in the forty-eighth chapter of the Rule,

which states,

"For then are they monks in truth,

if they live by the work of their hands."

The work of their hands? Monks were meant to be known for being devoted to prayer and study, not work. Nonetheless, taking Benedict at his word, the Cistercians introduced manual labor for monks as a principal feature of their common life and the primary means of their financial support (since they refused to accept any filthy lucre from the state). They came to embody the Benedictine motto, ora et labora — "pray and work." For the Clairvaux community, the working part wasn't simply about funding the monastery; they worked in their fields for God! 

You might not think it, 

but this simple idea —

that a monk should express

piety through work —

would change European society

forever.

 For a zealous monk, prayer is an offering to the divine; the primary expression of devotion to God. Monks were taught to pray before dawn until after sunset. But now, the Cistercians added work as a true mark of godly devotion. And if they were to embrace manual labor as a way to express their love for God, they would inevitably work as devoutly as they prayed. And if work was part of religious vocation, then — also inevitably — they'd work extremely hard and for long hours.

The idea of manual labor as an act of consecration turned the Cistercians into lean, hardworking men. They worked as tirelessly as they prayed. A monk's life consisted of about three hours in church at the Divine Office; five hours devoted to manual labor; and two or three hours given over to biblical study. The exact number of hours changed according to the seasons of the year, both natural and liturgical, but the three-part rhythm of worship-work-study was maintained throughout the year.

The Cistercians reclaimed 

unwanted or marginal land 

and worked it constantly, 

turning fallow, useless dirt paddocks 

into productive fields.

In the process, they created a large, disciplined, unpaid labor force. And, as a monastic order, they were free from the tariffs and taxes imposed by feudal lords, so their business enterprises — whether wheat, wool, or beer — were remarkably profitable. They didn't pay conventional wages to their monks (workers), and they weren't taxed by the state. Nearly every cent they made was profit; and this in turn helped finance the founding of even more monasteries. With the proceeds from their agricultural ventures, and a steady stream of young men now signing up to the order, Bernard rolled out Cistercian monasteries across Europe. No other religious body had grown so large so quickly. By the time of his death in 1153, Bernard had directly founded sixty-eight monasteries and overseen the establishment of another 270 monasteries from Sweden to Portugal and from Scotland to the eastern Mediterranean.

The monks, often drawn from the educated families of Europe, began experimenting with new and innovative farming techniques, hydraulic engineering, and metallurgy. They developed the use of large waterwheels for power and an elaborate water circulation system for central heating. They instigated new approaches to transportation, fermentation, and harvesting crops. These techniques were adopted by other farmers in central Italy, southern France, Spain, and the Netherlands. As a result, all of Europe experienced a massive economic boom in the twelfth century. Some of these techniques are still in practice today.

Five hundred years after Benedict's death, 

and three hundred after 

the decline of his order,

the Cistercians had not only revitalize

Benedictine monastic life

but had also altered the world

as many Europeans experienced it.

They truly lit a flame

that spread into the far reaches

of the Western world,

bringing dramatic change to society.

+ pgs. 45-49, Chapter 3: Flame Bearing in

Mission Is the Shape of Water

Our Church Speaks St. Benedict of Nursia by Ben Lansing

Bonus:

Why is St. Benedict often pictured

with a raven?

Saint Benedict is often depicted with a raven because of a story in The Life and Miracles of St. Benedict by Pope Gregory the Great. The story is about how Benedict, while living as a hermit in the wilderness, would feed a raven that lived in the forest near his monastery. One day, when Benedict was about to eat poisoned bread given to him by an envious priest, the raven swooped down and snatched it away. Benedict then called on the raven to take the bread somewhere safe so that no one would be harmed.

Abbey + Saint + Revival Posts:  

+ Awakening to New Wonder in Vigils

+ Finding God in a Thin Place

+ Facing Death w/ "Of Gods & Men"  

+ Saintly Swagger in Story of God   

+ Revival: Unfettered in Small Things

+ Presence & Prayer for Renewal  

+ In Our Time: Not Far from God

Next Posts: 

 Blessed with Joy During Terce Psalms

Flame Bearing & St. Xavier

With presence and peace in Christ,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

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