Benedictine spirituality is well known for its delight in balance. The famous dictum, “Ora et labora,” captures in three words the search for balance between prayer and work. The traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, when adapted for oblates, become sufficiency, stability, and obedience. This balances the ideals of the religious life with the realities of daily life outside of the monastery. There really doesn’t seem to be any part of life that is too small, too mundane, to lie beyond the reach of St. Benedict’s striving to aid his followers in finding balance in their lives.

This morning I read chapter 39, “The Quantity of Food,” in his Rule. One passage, in particular, spoke to me. St. Benedict writes, “For there is nothing as out of place in a Christian life as gluttony. As Our Lord says: ‘See that your hearts not be loaded down with drunkenness’” (RB 39:8-9). Brother Terrence G. Kardong comments on this passage, noting that “Benedict reveals himself as somewhat of a puritan” in elevating gluttony/drunkenness to the extremes of sin incompatible with the Christian life (Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary, p. 325.). While that seems technically true, it feels a little harsh to me, especially when viewing gluttony in the bigger context of the goal of finding balance in life.

The virgule joining gluttony and drunkenness points to the fact that these two English words stand as translations of the Latin crapula. So when St. Benedict warns against eating too much, of getting food and the body’s needs out-of-balance, he ties this, as a spiritual issue, to the passage from Luke 21:34, where Christ “warns against whatever might cause lack of vigilance” (Kardong, p. 325). This says to me that the ideal of finding balance in life entails keeping one’s heart from “be[ing] loaded down,” from being so sated and dulled by excess, whether of food or drink or any of the “crapula” of life, that one loses the capacity to discern the presence of God in his Word and Sacraments and in the faces of the people in one’s life.

Portion control is one of the popular phrases that come up in conversations about nutrition and dieting. It’s the notion that one can eat healthfully, not by launching into a fad diet of cabbage soup or all meat or whatever, but by exercising discipline over the quantity of food on one’s plate. It’s a matter of eating a balanced diet and of balancing the quantity of food with the need for the energy the food supplies.

It seems to me that just as I feel better physically when I eat reasonable portions, I will feel better spiritually when I seek reasonable portions of all things in my life. This is what I find so deeply attractive in the ideal of sufficiency. It leads me to ask more often of more parts of my life, “What is enough? How can I seek and maintain balance?” I am finding that as I extend this practice to more of my life, I am growing less “loaded down,” less dulled to the presence and power of God at work in both the holy and mundane realms of my life.

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

I am basically a shy person, an introvert, so it’s always been a little puzzling to me that I made the decision almost twenty-four years ago to attend seminary and to prepare for a vocation that would place me in front of crowds and call me to speak in public. As I followed that calling, the path has taken a number of turns and detours, leading me to this point in my life, where I can look back on the places I have served and see that I really have spent about five years of that time in the parish with regular responsibilities for speaking before gatherings of people.

This meandering reflection comes to mind today in response to a reading from The Rule of St. Benedict on the role and responsibilities of the brother who serves the community as the “weekly reader.” This role fulfills the ancient responsibility for the community to hear some sort of edifying and inspirational text read aloud during communal meals. The particular passage in the reading that struck me is this:

After Mass and Communion, the one beginning the week should petition all to pray for him, that God might protect him from the spirit of pride. And let all recite this verse three time in the oratory, with the reader beginning it: Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise (RB 38:2-3).

Brother Terrence Kardong makes the observation in his commentary that the “spirit of pride (spiritum elationis) is the opposite of humility” (Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary, p. 314). To me this points to the danger or temptation inherent in stepping into a public and proclamatory role in the life of the Church, that I can be tempted to believe that the spotlight shines on me and not on the message that God has called me to share.

When I have the occasion to preach, I try to be mindful of the extent to which my homilies refer to my own story and draw attention to me, rather than in pointing out and leading listeners to watch and to listen for God’s actions and messages. It’s a balancing act, as the danger on the one hand is to bend the task of preaching in ways sometime subtle that feed that spiritum elationis, while on the other hand remembering the insight from Henri Nouwen that part of the efficacy of one’s ministry is sharing the personal journey of doubt and faith.

St. Benedict wisely provides an insight and a practice that helps. He says that when the reader is beginning his task for the week, the community gathers in the oratory (literally the “prayer-room”) and the reader leads the community in a three-fold petition and confession of trust taken from Psalm 50:17: “Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise” (RB 38:3). This reminds me that the purpose of my words is to proclaim God’s praise, to be a medium for his message turning our thoughts and hearts to his promises and challenges that reveal his will for us to live in peace with him and his people.

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

One of my friends in college, Mustafah, was a student from Iran who had come to the United States to study. He was “trapped” in this country when the Shah was deposed and the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power in Iran in 1979. Because he was cut off from family, he depended upon aid from various churches to enable him to remain in school. One of my fond memories of him was stopping by his off-campus apartment. It was simply furnished, with the kinds of furniture and items a congregation would collect from its members. Among Mustafah’s many admirable qualities was his practice of hospitality; whatever he had was yours. Even though he had little, he bore no traces of hoarding for himself when he was offered the opportunity to welcome me into his home. As a Muslim and a man of the Middle East, Mustafah had his particular motivations for practicing hospitality. But even so, his practice has stuck with me for over a quarter century as a model for this act of generosity.

Benedictine communities, too, are widely known for the practice of hospitality. The most famous saying regarding hospitality in the Rule states, “All guests who arrive should be received as Christ, for he himself will say, ‘I was a stranger and you took me in’” (RB 53:1). For Benedictines and for Oblates who strive to live by the spirit of the Rule, the motivation for hospitality lies in the trust that Christ himself comes hidden in the guise of the people whom we welcome or rebuff. This insight, while stated later in the Rule than the passage I read this morning, still underlies the section on caring for the sick members of the community. St. Benedict writes, “The sick are to be cared for before and above all else, for it is really Christ who is served in them” (RB 36:1). Terrence Kardong, the commentator, notes that the phrase “before and above all else,” or ante omnia et super omnia, appears also in the works of Sts. Basil and Augustine when they speak of love. “It is, of course, the greatest commandment and it is the root meaning of all Christian service” (Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary, p. 301).

These two passages from the Rule call me to see—to perceive—not with the eyes of my flesh, but with the eyes of the Spirit. It’s just like trusting that when I eat the bread and drink the wine of the Eucharist, I am truly receiving the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. When I welcome someone to our home, when I yield to a stranger at the checkout line at the grocery store, when I open my heart to the need of a relative, I am practicing hospitality. This hospitality is an act not in the sense of producing a fine and gracious “entertainment experience” for dinner guests, but in the deep and ultimate sense of surrendering my own personal agenda, needs, desires, priorities, and schedules to Christ who comes hidden in the people who step into and out of my life.

When I come to trust Christ, through the gift of faith, to keep his promise to come into my life in this way, then I can practice hospitality that emulates, in its outpouring of graciousness, the hospitality that Mustafah showed me in his tiny apartment in Annville, Pennsylvania, so many years ago.

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

When I attended the retreat at the Benedictine Mission House in Schuyler, Neb., last year, I, along with my fellow retreatants, ate midday and evening meals with monks in the monastery. The meals were served “family-style,” with one of the monks cooking and another serving the food. When I look back on the experience, I’m reminded of times I spent living communally—Boy Scout camp and the summers as a church camp counselor. In both cases, members of the group took turns setting the tables, serving the food, and cleaning up. At Camp Bashore, the scouts called this KP, kitchen patrol; it was part of one’s duty to the group. At Camp Kirchenwald, the times spent in the kitchen were seen as times spent practicing Christian service.

During the mad rush that fills our days, it is easy for meals to degenerate into fueling oneself. We eat on-the-go, perhaps in the car, maybe while working. But St. Benedict sees a greater purpose in meals beyond the restoration of our energies. As he describes the routines of “The Weekly Kitchen Servers,” he begins by noting, “The brothers should serve one another…for thus is merit increased and love built up” (RB 35:1-2). It seems to me that he is concerned not only with good order, but also with good ends. In fact, the handing off of duties occurs on Sunday mornings in the oratory (the sanctuary, literally the prayer-room) after Lauds (Morning Prayer, or Matins), when those finishing their week of service kneel and ask for the prayers of their brothers, while those beginning make the petition, with the psalmist, “God, come to my assistance; Lord, hasten to help me” (Psalm 69:2 in RB 35:17).

So, to make Luther’s famous catechetical turn, it’s worth asking, “What does this mean?” When I am living by the spirit of the Rule of St. Benedict, living out my commitment as an Oblate, I look at every part of my days through a special lens. This helps me to see that even the most routine, mundane parts of my day have a nobler, spiritual end to them. Wednesday is garbage day, for example, so Zeke and I walk the can from the house to the road in the morning. This fulfills the practical purpose of removing garbage from our house. But perhaps I might come to see this as a time to be reminded of God’s forgiveness.

But in addition to that, removing the garbage is an action that I can take as a way of showing love (caritas) for Anne. It’s nothing that would work well designed into a greeting card, but along with the many other actions, both small and great, that we take in our daily routines, we, just like the monks, “…serve one another in love” (RB 35:6). And that is a good and beautiful thing.

The challenge is to use this special lens to look at all of our encounters, relationships, and communities, and to ask ourselves how we can show love for others through our service. And so we pray, “God, come to my assistance; Lord, hasten to help me” (Psalm 69:2).

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.

Right after St. Benedict talks about how possessions can take on the power to possess their owner—me!—he turns to the question of how the community distributes necessities, depending upon need. It’s a stretch for me to listen to this passage and let it shape my thoughts about my life, partly because my daily life is so far removed from concerns about necessities, what I really need to live. I don’t ever find myself wondering whether I will have food to eat, clean water to drink, shelter from the weather, protection from war and violence, and good health.

All of my needs are satisfied, so I live in the realm of satisfying the wants in my life. My wants, as compared to my needs, can become boundless, and exercise their power over me by remaining unsatisfied. The basic word that wants plant in me is More! Then when my “need” for my wants goes unmet, I turn grouchy and ungrateful, focusing solely on what I have not yet acquired, while all around me abundance goes unacknowledged. This leads me to the practice, not of gratitude, but the “evil of murmuring” (RB 34:6).

In this section, St. Benedict addresses the question of how the commonly held goods of the monastery ought to be shared, taking into account some monks have greater needs than others. He rejects the approach of giving each monk an equal share, in favor of matching portions with needs. Thus the monk “who needs less should thank God and not be sad” (RB 34:3) In the same way, the one who “needs more should be humble about his weaknesses and not gloat over the mercy shown him” (RB 34:4) This leads to peace and the opportunity to avoid the “evil of murmuring” (RB 34:5-6).

The word murmur is one of those words that sounds like what it means, an example of onomatopoeia similar to our words for animal sounds like bow-wow or meow. If I say the word repeatedly, it begins to sound like a grumble, the voice of dissatisfaction, dissent, ingratitude. The word spoken begins to change how I feel, bringing those feelings to life in me. That might be what St. Benedict means by referring to the evil inherent in the action of murmuring. When I murmur, not only am I dividing myself from the people around me, but also I am separating myself from God who gives me the people in my life and the sustenance that meets my needs. And when I’m divided from God and neighbor, I cannot love him and them.

Maybe that’s why a commentary notes, “So murmuring signifies a basic lack of gratitude for one’s own status as a forgiven and graced sinner. In this sense, it is not a human foible but a serious spiritual fault” (Terrence G. Kardong, Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and Commentary, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minn., 1996, p. 288).

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus. (That in all things God may be glorified.)

One of the commitments I have made as a Novice Oblate is to immerse myself in the Rule of St. Benedict. This is a slender book, and my tendency is to read quickly so I can give myself the check-mark for completing the book. But that’s not the spirit that fosters rumination, chewing the wisdom of this little volume like cud to receive the nutrition it offers me. So I had decided to pair up the Rule with a little book, Oblation: Meditations on St. Benedict’s Rule, by Rachel M. Srubas. This book presents meditative poems inspired by the chapters of the Rule.

Today’s reading came from RB 33, “Whether the Monks Should Consider Anything Their Own.” The monastic ideal or standard was to own nothing individually, but to hold basic possessions in common. This is not as an end in itself, but a means to remaining free from the possessive power of possessions and of recognizing one’s dependence upon God. In her poem, Srubas writes, “Remind me what’s ‘mine’ is on loan from you… (p. 37). This leads me to reflect upon how much of my day, my time, my effort, and my worry are focused upon the accumulation, protection, and maintenance of the things filling my life. I am led to realize that so much of my worry comes from perceiving threats to my possessions.

This then leads me to recognize that my things turn my attention away from God and his desires for how I ought to live and toward how I serve my possessions. So, back to square one, the first commandment, and the question of the gods I choose to place ahead of God. It seems to me that even monks are not free of this path of diversion, or else St. Benedict would not have written about the destructive power of personal possessions. As an Oblate, I am searching for how to live according to the spirit of the Rule, reminding myself that I am not a monk, but someone who desires to live more deliberately, thoughtfully, and devotedly.

That’s what makes Srubas’s poem helpful. She reminds me that God lends me the objects in my life. This leads me to see that my role is to care for them and not to see myself as the owner. In fact, even I myself am on loan to me, as St. Benedict writes, “…they have neither their bodies nor their own wills at their own disposal” (RB 33:4). The image that comes to mind is that of the curator of a traveling museum exhibit. The small museum does not own the masterpieces it exhibits, but gladly displays the works on loan from another collection, placing the care for the exhibit in the hands of the curator.

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.
(That in all things God may be glorified.)

A year ago this month, I spent a weekend at the Benedictine Retreat Center in Schuyler, Neb., joining with three other men on a retreat called “Experience the Life of a Monk for a Weekend.” It was an eye-opening and life-changing time for me. The monks with whom we prayed, ate, relaxed, and talked all radiated a deep serenity, a sense of balance and calm, an attitude of patience and awareness of the world and people around them, that I found immensely beguiling.

From talking with one of my fellow retreatants while walking from the retreat center to the monastery for one of the observances of the Liturgy of the Hours, I learned about Benedictine Oblates. They are people, both laity and clergy from Roman Catholicism and other traditions, who commit themselves, with God’s help, to live according to the spirit of The Rule of St. Benedict. This brief document, dating to the 500s, captures in its 73 brief chapters the wisdom and guidance of St. Benedict for how to live a monastic life.

From the earliest days, individuals—who were not monks—attached themselves to monasteries and offered themselves to God while continuing to live their daily lives. The key is the term “offering.” This English word and the term “oblate” share the same root. So an Oblate is an individual who makes his or her life an offering to God.

When I returned home from the retreat, I discovered that Lincoln, Nebraska, has a chapter of Benedictine Oblates affiliated with the Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, South Dakota. Sister Phyllis Hunhoff directs the life of the chapter. I visited with her and decided to follow the path to becoming a Benedictine Oblate. This means that since November 2008 I have been a Novice Oblate, spending this first year exploring life as an Oblate and discerning whether I am called to make a commitment to becoming an Oblate this coming November.

As a way to mark the first anniversary of my journey along this path and as a practice of the disciplines of careful reading and reflection, I plan to spend a little time each day reading, reflecting, praying, and writing about this oblate’s path. I have no outline to guide the month, aside from deciding to spend some time along the way with several books:

• Acedia & Me. Kathleen Norris.
• Bread in the Wilderness. Thomas Merton.
• The Rule of St. Benedict. St. Benedict.

If you’ve chosen to listen in on this conversation, I’m glad you are here.

St. Benedict begins the Prologue to his Rule with these words: “Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart” (RB Pro. 1). My intention is to take this admonition to heart.

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus. (That in all things God may be glorified.)