A letter from a Benedictine monk

Calx Mariae is delighted to publish a series of letters from a Benedictine monk discussing the most important virtues and principles in the Rule of St. Benedict – the rule on which the Western monastic tradition was founded and on which Christian civilisation in Europe was built.

In the Prologue of his Rule, St. Benedict, the patron saint of Europe writes: “We have therefore to establish a school of the Lord’s service, in the institution of which we hope we are going to establish nothing harsh, nothing burdensome. But if, prompted by the desire to attain to equity, anything be set forth somewhat strictly for the correction of vice or the preservation of charity, do not therefore in fear and terror flee back from the way of salvation of which the beginning cannot but be a narrow entrance. For it is by progressing in the life of conversion and faith that, with heart enlarged and in ineffable sweetness of love, one runs in the way of God’s commandments, so that never deserting His discipleship but persevering until death in His doctrine within the monastery, we may partake by patience in the suffering of Christ and become worthy inheritors of His kingdom.”

HUMILITY IN THE RULE OF ST. BENEDICT Gospel passages speak tenderly of humility: “Unless you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 18:3), or “I confess to Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones... Come to Me all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, because I am meek and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For My yoke is sweet and My burden light.” (Mt. 11:25-30) These words of our Lord inviting us to come to Him are taken up in the Alleluia verse for the Solemnity of All Saints (1 November), and in the Gospel for that Mass we hear the Beatitudes, the first of which proclaims humility as the source of all blessedness: Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum (Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven). (Mt. 5:3)

As these same Gospel texts formed St. Benedict and the whole monastic tradition before him, it should not surprise us that the virtue of humility holds a central place in their spiritual teaching. A cursory glance at the tradition shows us how important humility was for the monastic fathers. In the Sayings of the Desert Fathers (known in Latin as the Apophthegmata Patrum) we read that Abba Anthony said, “I saw the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, ‘What can get through from such snares?’ Then I heard a voice saying to me, ‘Humility.’” In The Instructions of Saint Pachomius we read “Above all this, we have been given humility, which watches over all the virtues and is that great holy strength with which God clothed Himself when he came into the world. Humility is the rampart of the virtues, the treasury of works, the saving armour and the cure for every wound... Humility is least among men, but precious and glorious before God. If we acquire it we shall trample the whole force of the enemy underfoot. (cf. Lk. 10:19) It is said, “Whom shall I consider, if not the humble and meek?” (Is. 66:2; text 47) In his rule, St. Basil tells us that “Humility is this: that we consider all men better than us according to the Apostle’s definition. (cf. Phil. 2:3) Now we can accomplish it if we are mindful of the Lord who said: Learn from me for I am meek and humble in heart (Mt. 11:29), which he often showed and taught in many ways; and we ought to believe Him who has promised: Whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.” (Mt. 23:12; Lk. 14:11; Question 62 of the Rule of St. Basil)

In the Prologue to the Rule, St. Benedict speaks about humility in verse 29, in which he tells us not to take credit for the gifts of grace that the Lord gives us, nor to grow proud because of our good works. In describing who will be worthy to arrive at the everlasting dwelling of God, he says, “They who fear the Lord, and do not become elated over their good deeds; they judge it is the Lord’s power, not their own, that brings about the good in them. They praise the Lord working in them, and say with the Prophet: “Not to us, Lord, not to us give the glory, but to your name alone.” (Ps. 113:9) In just this way Paul the Apostle refused to take credit for the power of his preaching. He declared: “By God’s grace I am what I am.” (1 Cor. 15:10) And again he said: “He who boasts should make his boast in the Lord.” (2 Cor. 10:17)

St. Benedict next teaches us about humility in chapters 5 and 6, in which obedience and silence are understood as expressions of humility. But the place where St. Benedict most develops his teaching on humility is in chapter 7, in which he sets before us 12 steps that we must climb in order to arrive at the “perfect love of God which casts out fear” (1 Jn. 4:18), and which forms the momentous conclusion to the doctrinal part of the Rule. Indeed, as Dom Delatte points out, this chapter “is justly regarded as the finished expression of monastic spirituality… They (the 12 steps) describe the most characteristic disposition of the humble soul towards the essential duties and principal circumstances of the supernatural and monastic life…”

St. Benedict highlights the importance of this chapter with a sort of prologue of its own, setting before us a string of scriptural quotations that exhort us to flee from all forms of exaltation, for “every exaltation is a kind of pride”. According to Christ’s own teaching, “whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted”. (Lk. 14:11; 18:14) The psalmist, for his part, says, “Lord, my heart is not exalted; my eyes are not lifted up and I have not walked in the ways of the great nor gone

after marvels beyond me.” (Ps. 130:2) The next verse of this Psalm in the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible that St. Benedict used, reads: “If I had not a humble spirit, but were exalted instead, then you would treat me like a weaned child on its mother’s lap.” For St. Benedict, having an exalted spirit separates us from God in a way similar to how a weaned child is no longer nourished by its mother. We who seek God do not want this separation, but on the contrary, want to live in Him and grow in Him, as St. Basil says, “we ought to revere and love Him with the affection we have for our parents, and cleave to the memory of Him unceasingly, as little children do towards their mothers”. (Rule of St. Basil, Question 2) It is for this reason that we seek to grow in humility. The next image St. Benedict uses is that of a ladder, the ladder on which “Jacob in a dream saw angels descending and ascending”. (Gen. 28:12) It is interesting to note here the presence of the angels; we know that the ones who fell did so out of pride and

THE DREAM OF JACOB (C.1500), NICOLAS DIPRE, MUSÉE DU PETIT PALAIS, PARIS. those who remained with God did so due to a single act of grateful and humble love towards Him. It is, therefore, by imitating the holy angels in their grateful and humble love towards God that the monk likewise ascends this ladder. Unlike the angels, however, we human beings have bodies, thus the steps we must climb take this into account so that our whole being, body and soul – which meet in the heart – can be humbled, so that the Lord will raise us up to heaven.

The twelve steps that form this ladder are not entirely new. St. John Cassian, in chapter 4 of the Institutes, lists ten indications, or signs, of humility. St. Benedict has taken these ten “signs” of humility, enriched them with scriptural texts, and called them “steps”. He then added two more steps: one at the beginning (step 1) which summarises much of the material Cassian places before his ten “signs”, and one at the end, in which we are given a thorough description of how a monk manifests humility in his body and outward bearing.

The first step of humility, then, is the fear of God. The term “fear of God” can be understood in two senses. The first sense is fear of punishment. We fear disobeying God because we do not want to suffer the consequences, foremost of which is separation from Him. Hell is the state of eternal separation from Him, and the bitterest torments our puny imaginations can fathom are nothing in comparison with the deep and unending pain this separation causes to the miserable souls of the damned. This kind of fear is good at the beginning of our spiritual life because it trains us to avoid evil and do good, and it can and should be recalled whenever we face a temptation to sin; but it is a slavish fear, and God does not call us to be slaves, but sons. He wants us to know the sweetness of union with Him, and to love Him for His own sake. This love casts out the first kind of fear, the fear of punishment. The second kind of fear arises precisely from this love, it is the love of a son who fears offending his cherished father, or of the wife who fears hurting her treasured husband. Moreover, in respect to God, this fear is pervaded with a holy reverence and awe that even in heaven animates the souls of all the blessed, for “the fear of the Lord is holy, enduring for ever and ever”. (Ps. 18:10) St. Benedict, though he concentrates more on the first kind of fear, he has both kinds in mind

and wishes that his sons and daughters be filled with both of them so as to grow in humility.

On the foundation of this first step of the fear of God, the remaining 11 steps arise naturally, proceeding from internal to external, from the inmost parts of the heart to the most visible aspects of our outward bearing. We can summarise them as follows:

2. To do God’s will and not our own; 3. To submit in obedience to our superiors, as God’s representatives; 4. To persevere in such obedience even in the most difficult circumstances (i.e. heroic obedience); 5. To confess our wicked thoughts and deeds to the abbot or spiritual father; 6. To be content with the lowest and most menial treatment; 7. To be convinced in one’s heart that one is inferior to others; 8. To follow the common custom and not be singular so as to attract attention to oneself; 9. To observe silence and speak little; 10.To not be prone to laughter; 11.To speak gently, modestly, briefly and reasonably; 12.To manifest humility in one’s physical bearing, with downcast eyes.

Perhaps some of these steps might seem strange or hard to understand, particularly steps 5, 6 and 7. This is understandable given the cultural context in which we live. For this reason, it is important to clarify that for St. Benedict, humility is NOT the same thing as what modern psychology refers to as low self-esteem, or inferiority complex, or shame; St. Benedict’s view of humility is entirely different from these things, for those things are based on some kind of falsehood, whereas humility is based entirely on truth. It is the truth of what we are and of who we are, of who God is, and of the correct relationship between ourselves and God and our neighbour. Pride is the love of one’s own excellence. It is the desire to be the best, the first, the most important, the most loved, the most necessary, and the centre, not only of attention, but of reality itself, and therefore engenders contempt for others. From this evil root of self-love come forth the wicked offspring of the vices: vainglory, which seeks to have one’s excellence recognised and praised by creatures (even oneself); envy, which rejoices at a rival’s misfortune or is saddened at his success; anger, which takes delight in vengeance and harm; sadness and acedia, which fail to love God as we should and so lack the good zeal that inspires charitable works; avarice, which treasures material wealth and the ambition of rising to the top; gluttony, which seeks happiness most in the pleasures of food and drink; and lust, which thrives on the excessive love of persons to the extent of offending and disobeying God, whom we should love above all others. It is by confessing thoughts and deeds which manifest these tendencies that one can be convinced of how poorly one has responded to God and His gifts to us. This allows us to be content with the lowest treatment, and to believe in our hearts that others are better than us because perhaps they have responded to God better than we have.

As we can see, pride, and the vices it gives rise to, don’t let us see the truth of who we are, or who God is. It is for this reason that we must counter it with some force, and St. Benedict’s 12 steps of humility do just that, they counter our innate tendency to pride so that we can see ourselves, and the world, aright. St. Bernard thus defines humility as “that thorough self-examination which makes a man contemptible in his own sight” (humilitas est virtus, qua homo verissima sui congnitione sibi ipse vilescit). This does not mean that we allow others to denigrate our inherent human dignity. Humility does not ask us to be doormats that invite disrespectful treatment. But it does allow us to say with the Psalmist, “I have chosen to be an abject in the house of my God, rather than dwell in the tabernacle of sinners”. (Ps 83:11)

The goal of this climb of humility, we must remember continually, is charity, the love of God which the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts according to the measure in which we embrace the steepness of the upward climb. It is this love which will enlarge our hearts so that we can run on the path of God’s commandments (Prologue, 49), no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit and delight in virtue (RB 7:69-70). It is humility which will allow us to prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may He bring us all together to everlasting life (RB 72:11).