Stability

by Br. Leven Harton

a Path to Living in the Truth

One of my favorite movies is a fun blockbuster from 2004, Catch Me If You Can. It tells the true story of a young man named

Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) who, somewhat through his circumstances, and somewhat through his own decisions, finds himself becoming a world-class forgery artist. As he lives this life, he is forced to run from place to place: he begins as a fake airline pilot, forging and cashing fake paychecks; then becomes a fake doctor and, once again, is forging his pay; then he poses as a lawyer (somehow passing the Louisiana bar exam to do it—presumably by cheating); and he ends up, just before he gets caught, simply forging those airlines checks again. So Frank runs from place to place, making a life out of running. It is his running that is so interesting. Frank is not running just from “the law” but from a particular person, FBI agent Carl Handratty (Tom Hanks). Carl has been on Frank’s trail since the beginning, and the two develop a father-sonlike relationship in brief encounters and in yearly Christmas Eve phone conversations. In spite of the apparent opposition of an FBI agent chasing a criminal, a depth undermines the straightforwardness of Carl’s pursuit of Frank. As the movie goes on, the action becomes less about restoring justice by catching the criminal and more about the significance of their relationship, the two growing into a real friendship. The movie is, then, fittingly titled,

Catch Me If You Can: “You, Carl, catch me, Frank, if you can.” In a particularly telling scene, Carl is extraditing Frank back to the States to be prosecuted and tried. On the plane back to America, as Carl sits next to Frank, he turns and asks, “One thing I still can’t figure out, how did you pass the bar in Louisiana?” And the longtime criminal says that he’ll tell him if Carl will give him half of his éclair. But Carl won’t do it and, therefore, doesn’t find out! He stuffs the éclair in his mouth with evident pleasure, a sort of punishment for Frank’s elusiveness, his unwillingness to tell! What is interesting about this scene is that it maintains the fundamental quality of DiCaprio’s character, his need to avoid being “found out,” his need to avoid being known by others. Carl has captured Frank Abagnale, Jr., has tracked down and arrested him, but there is this one piece of information about Frank that Carl doesn’t know and Frank simply isn’t ready to tell him. This kind of honest and straightforward communication and vulnerability (admitting how he cheated at something as important as the bar exam), this immediacy, being known, Frank is not yet ready for. Even at the end of his criminal career. I imagine that Frank would not have felt comfortable in a religious community that takes the vow of stability. The title of the movie says it all: Catch Me If You Can — understand me, know me, accept me, be with me, if you can—but I’ll be doing my best to avoid that, to confuse you, to hold you at arm’s length, to feed you a story. This attitude wouldn’t work in monastic life. The way St. Benedict envisions monks living together, I would suggest, is perfectly contradicted by Frank in this movie. Fr. Michael Casey has done much for me in understanding this vow of stability. He points to the inevitable consequence of living together as Benedictines in his book Strangers to the City; he writes of community life, “we are compelled to live at a high level of truthfulness, since we cannot escape from what we have been and still are.” The important part of this quote is the last, “what we have been and still are.” Our permanence, our stability—this is decisive! Unlike Frank, we stick around. We are caught by this vow! We are caught

How good and how pleasant it is,when brothers dwell together as one!psalm 133:1

in a distinctive sort of environment, where thirty other full-grown human beings see us on a daily basis behaving just as we do.

This dynamic is unique, unrepeated in most other vocations: as a parent you are only under that kind of scrutiny from your spouse (your children being too young to really offer this kind of attention). If you live in another kind of religious community the change of confreres provides some turnover and an ability to maintain at least some façade with certain individuals or groups (and, thus, with oneself). But in the stable Benedictine life, where the monastery is home forever, each monk has a host of eyes on him at all times— over the course of time. In other words, none of us stands a chance to come off looking all that great in the presence of one another. There is too much immediacy. Too much being known. We have been caught by our vow of stability!

What is created, then, in stable Benedictine life is an environment that does not allow one to maintain a story without extreme and undue effort. We do not harbor illusions about one another, and it is very hard to maintain them about ourselves. Perhaps this is what Fr. Casey has in mind when he talks about Benedictine humility as “living in the truth”; humility in the context of stability, humility formed by stability, is living in the truth.

If we are living stability authentically, we begin to become realistic about everything. Not carping and critical, not lazy, not hopeless or frustrated, certainly not bitter. But through the undeniable accountability of stable immediacy, we become realistic. And this affects us on a moral and spiritual level—in our encounter with Christ. We come to see Christ clearly, in the truth—in His truth. The vow of stability is a vow in the monastic life in which our circumstances become a great good for us, our neighbors become a great good for us. They become the agent that purifies, cleanses our perspective, frees us from illusions, breaks down our façades, offers us clarity of vision as we strive to gaze on Christ. And over time purity of heart does take root and the joy of authenticity blooms.

For this purification to occur, for a monk or a lay person, our posture toward our neighbor is decisive. Do I consider those close to me to be a good for my life? Am I open to receiving the (sometimes) painful purification of remaining stable with others in my life? How does the claustrophobia of “being caught” by the immediacy of my neighbors challenge my perspective? None of us is a finished product in our spiritual/moral life. We all have quite a bit of work to do. And it is very likely that we lack a complete perspective about this work. In our own context of stability we each (thankfully!) have the resource of other persons who have been with us and can supplement and correct our understanding. Living with this kind of sober and humble openness to others is very hard and running away might be the more appealing option at times. At times we might wish to flee, like Frank Abagnale, Jr.! But we don’t have to, despite the overwhelming prospect of sticking around.

The final scene of Catch Me If You Can manifests the truth that each of us knows in our depths. Frank has taken a job working in check forgery under Carl at the FBI and is on parole. One weekend he bolts, and Carl follows him to the airport to track him down. When the two meet in the terminal Carl points out to Frank, “Turn around. There’s no one chasing you anymore.” And though Frank leaves for the weekend (permissible under his parole), he returns by the end of the Monday workday. He has, finally, realized that what he has always wanted is a true friendship, with Carl in particular. Running did not make him happy. And we know that this is the case for us: stability, according to our own state in life, is necessary for our joy. Through stability we can gain a communion with others that is at once challenging and satisfying, a path to living in the truth. By living in the truth we can see Christ himself, the good that corresponds to the depths of our hearts.