Homily for the Solemnity of St Benedict 21 March 2009
It is not easy to define or describe St Benedict whose feast we keep today. We do not have a biography in the modern sense of the word. Two key documents have survived the passage of the years, his Rule and the second book of the Dialogues, part of a bigger work written by St Gregory the Great. From these two works we can, if we take a little time to read them, discover a man who was inspired by the words of the Gospel from his teenage years until the moment of his death.
The Rule of St Benedict is a comparatively short book: an introduction and 73 short chapters. It seeks to give practical expression to the teaching of Jesus as it is described in the Gospels, in particular the greatest commandment of the Law. You will recall that when he was asked which was the greatest commandment, Jesus replied, "This is the first: Listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one, only Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: You must love your neighbour as yourself" (Mark 12.29-31, see also Mt 22.34ff., Lk 10.25ff.). Benedict's Rule describes a way of life which makes these commandments visible.
In the closing pages of the Rule St Benedict describes the qualities, the good zeal, which he hopes will be found in all monks and I offer these to you for your reflection today. He says, "The monks should each try to be the first to show respect to the other, supporting with the greatest patience one another's weaknesses of body or behaviour". He goes on to say, "No one is to pursue what he judges better for himself, but instead, what he judges better for someone else" and he expects monks to show their fellow monks "the pure love of brothers" (RB 72.4-8). St Benedict expects monks to behave in this way because he is mindful of the teaching found in the first letter of St John that if we cannot love the brothers and sisters whom we can see - brothers and sisters who are made in the image and likenesss of God - we cannot possibly love the God whom we cannot see.
The teaching of the Rule is not addressed to monks alone. In a Benedictine school we seek to hand on to you those parts of the Rule which enable you to grow in knowledge and love of God. In this school we believe that the good zeal demanded of monks is also a zeal which should be present in everyone who lives and works here.
Many of you, I know, take it for granted that we should seek to love each other as Jesus taught us in the Gospel. You find nothing strange in what St Benedict says. But in fact his exhortation to his monks is extraordinary in today's world because Benedict is seeking to create a society in which people care for each other. In this chapter Benedict is talking about our duties to one another. Indeed if you read his Rule you will find that he is almost always talking about our "duties" and never about our "rights".
Benedict lived in a time when the classical world was breaking apart, when bloody war was tearing down the civilisation of the Graeco-Roman world. The rule of culture, of law and duty based on a common understanding of the world were being replaced by the rule of physical strength. Within his monasteries, however, a different culture and learning prevailed and they became a beacon of hope for the people of Europe.
We live in a world where the utilitarian ethic and the focus on the individual have torn down the rule of culture and law and the duty to care for others. It has destroyed the fabric of society. Once again we live in a world of mindless and destructive violence. But it does not have to be like this: the values of the Gospel still have something to teach us about how to find true happiness and the Rule of St Benedict still teaches us a way to live the Gospel together. And so we are quite unapologetic about expecting you, indeed requiring you, to take seriously the words of scripture, found in St Paul's letter to the Galatians, which remind us that baptism has made us "children of God". Each one of us "has been clothed in Jesus Christ" and so there can be "neither Jew nor Greek, there can be neither slave nor freeman, there can be neither male nor female - for we are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3.26-28). What this means for us is that we are not permitted to harbour any resentments or prejudices against people which are based on religion, on our racial origins, on whether we are male or female.
There is a temptation to regard school as a place where we learn facts in order to pass exams - and so secure our future. Exams are of some importance in building a future; but St Benedict teaches us that a real school also teaches us the art of living together. In this school we learn how to see each other as made in the image and likeness of God. We learn how to see Christ in those around us. We learn how to give to others and how to receive from them. And we learn also that we are quite unique, that we have a purpose in this world, a work to do for God and for others which has been committed to us and has not been given to anyone else. When we have learnt this and when we live this we, too, become beacons of hope for those around us.
Rt Rev Cuthbert Madden OSB, Abbot of Ampleforth