Benedict of Nursia (480–587) is a central figure in the founding of Western monasticism. In the spring issue of ONEING, CAC affiliate faculty Carmen Acevedo Butcher describes how Benedict’s prayerful life in the desert became a chosen and holy exile from a world in crisis:
A stirring in Benedict moved him to choose the uncertainty of self-exile and contemplation in a world of collective exile and traumatization…. Benedict’s monasteries were “the bomb shelters, time capsules, laboratories, and protected cultivators of the contemplative tradition in a world falling apart.” [1] They preserved the wisdom of the desert ammas and abbas and were communities of healing in a time of chaos.… We can learn much from Benedict. During societal disorder and crushing need, how did he sustain both his own and communal peace and compassionate activity?…
Richard Rohr’s allegorical adaptation of Archimedes’ law of the lever, in A Lever and a Place to Stand, can be applied to and can deepen our appreciation of Benedict, who repeatedly chose to live in and from the “fixed point” of a contemplative stance. In this calm place of daily ora [prayer]—Psalm-chanting and Scripture-steeping lectio divina—Benedict stood “steady, centered, poised, and rooted,” gaining “a slight distance from the world” even as his heart or fulcrum of engagement was “quite close to the world, … loving it, feeling its pains and its joys” as his own. In prayer, Benedict experienced a “detachment from the … useless distractions, and the daily delusions of the false self” that gave his fulcrum, set in the suffering of wrecked empire, the capacity to “move the world” through various “levers” of compassionate action, or labora [work]. [2]
A communal rhythm of prayer focused on the Psalms permeated the lives of Benedict and his monastic brothers:
Focused daily on doing the ordinary, Benedict’s life was a series of risings in the dark. Most Italians, even bakers, were sound asleep when lights fired up in his monasteries before 2 a.m. in winter, as Benedict’s community woke and walked to chapel for Vigils. They sang Psalm 51:17: “Domine, labia mea aperies, et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam” / “Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”…
Benedict prioritized this chanting through the 150 Psalms each week as a community, as his communities and descendants, Cistercians and Trappist monks, do today. The Desert Elder Athanasius (c. 300–373) described the daily hours spent singing Psalms as beneficial in teaching biblical history and prophecy, nurturing and maturing the emotions, and transforming how the chanter understands the Bible’s words and even God:
The person who hears the Psalms as they sing them is deeply moved and changed by their words. They become a mirror where you see your soul. Whatever causes us grief is healed when we sing Psalms, and whatever causes us stumbling will be discovered. It’s like the Psalms were written by you yourself. They become your own songs. [3]
====================
| MAY 6, 2025 Universal Callings vs. Particular Callings |
 There is a cliche among more fundamentalist Christians that is often employed to end discussion and shut down dissent: “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it.” I’ve had this quip, or some version of it, tossed at me by a critic many times on social media. More than just a way to virtue signal their submission to the authority of Scripture, it’s simultaneously used to accuse the person they disagree with of irredeemable heresy and to close the door on any further discussion. To be clear, the person who says, “The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it,” is really saying: “I believe the Bible says it. That settles it.” In other words, rather than a humble statement of their submission to the Bible, it’s actually a prideful statement that elevates their own interpretation of the Bible. And their interpretation, like mine, is far from infallible. Of course, a fragile faith—not to mention a fragile ego—will never admit such fallibility to themselves, let alone anyone else.The more mature believer, however, accepts the difference between the authority of the Bible and the authority of their interpretation of the Bible. Why this distinction is so difficult for some Christians to grasp is a mystery to me. It’s no more controversial than admitting that God is perfect, but I am not. Perhaps we struggle because it requires us to acknowledge that the process of reading, interpreting, and applying the Scriptures is always a human endeavor and therefore open to error and ambiguity. It diminishes some of the certainty that provides both a sense of safety and self-righteousness, which are immensely attractive to religious believers and the institutions seeking to attract them. The fallibility of our biblical interpretation becomes evident when we explore which words of Jesus we hold to be universally applicable, and which ones we dismiss as particular. For example, I have heard many sermons where Jesus’ command to Simon, “Come, follow me, and I will make you a fisher of men” (Matthew 4:19), is broadly applied to all Christians. On the other hand, I’ve yet to hear a single sermon where Jesus’ command to the Rich Young Ruler to “go and sell your possessions and give to the poor…and come, follow me” (Matthew 19:21) is universally applied. Why do preachers apply Peter’s missionary calling to everyone, but not the Rich Young Ruler’s calling to poverty? Why is one calling seen as universal and the other seen as particular? Could it be that Peter’s calling looks a lot like the preacher’s own, and universalizing Peter’s calling also validates the preacher’s? Could it be that many pastors desire more of their people to participate in the mission of the church, and universalizing Peter’s calling creates more urgency for this work? Could it be that Peter’s decision to leave his fishing business for ministry reinforces the superiority of sacred vocations over secular ones, which is an assumption carried by many churches and church leaders? Could it be that our culture idolizes wealth and individual ownership, so we particularize Jesus’ words to apply only to the Rich Young Ruler and not to us? Could it be that we create both biblical laws and loopholes based on our cultural and personal biases more than we’d like to admit? Here’s my point—interpreting the Bible always requires us to make choices, and sometimes our choices align with the biblical author’s intent and God’s. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes we are aware of the choices we’re making as we read the Bible; very often we are not. Instead, for many Christians, interpretive decisions are completely subconscious. We always read the Bible through the lenses of our culture, experience, biases, and personality, but few of us are actually aware of the glasses on our faces. Our interpretive decision-making happens automatically, invisibly. It functions like unseen software running in the background. We can’t turn these background programs off, but we can slow down and be more aware of their presence and influence. We can pause from time to time and remove our glasses and try to read the Bible through another set of lenses. For example, the story of Jesus’ calling Peter and the miraculous catch of fish, is often used to motivate more Christians to participate in evangelism and the mission of the church. For some, their evangelical cultural biases cause them to universalize Peter’s vocation and assume that we are all called to be fishers of men. But if we are aware of this evangelical lens, we might be more careful and discover other ways of reading the story. Rather than universalizing Peter’s response to Jesus’ call, we might universalize Peter’s response to Jesus’ miracle. After the miraculous catch of fish, Peter humbled himself before Jesus, called him Lord, and confessed his own sinfulness. This posture of submission is what prepared Peter to hear and obey Jesus’ call. What if the best application of the story isn’t that we’re all called to be fishers of men, but that we’re all called to humbly submit ourselves to Jesus and obey whatever particular calling he gives us? Maybe the story isn’t primarily about becoming missionaries, but about becoming people who are more surrendered to Jesus’ authority and much less certain about our own. DAILY SCRIPTURE LUKE 5:1-11 MATTHEW 19:16-24 WEEKLY PRAYER. from Brother Roger of Taizé (1915 – 2005) O Christ, tirelessly you seek out those who are looking for you and who think that you are far away; teach us, at every moment, to place our spirits in your hands. While we are still looking for you, already you have found us. However poor our prayer, you hear us far more than we can imagine or believe. Amen. |
