Br.
Philip. Wednesday Talk
Monastic
Life Chapter Talk – 17 June 2015
The
Beginning – the Word
Jesus Christ did
not directly found the monastic life, but He did have its origins in His
preaching, for this included those elements which later became characteristic
of the way of life of monks. Did Jesus
not tell us that “we must leave all to follow Him”? That we must “sell our possessions and give
to the poor” and that we must “renounce marriage” for the sake of the
Kingdom”? Did not Jesus surround Himself
with men and women disciples who shared His everyday life and His care for the
coming of the Kingdom and especially His mysterious dialogue with the Father?
Jesus appeared
to his contemporaries as equal to those great men of the Old Testament who had
been suddenly uprooted from their ordinary lives by the power of the word of
God, so that they might be more completely dedicated to God’s service. Men such as Abraham, Moses and the prophets.
From the
beginning of sacred history the word of God has never ceased to work in this
way. It calls each one, inviting him in
a special way to Him and dedicating him to a particular service. The word of God recreates a man from the
depths of his being – if necessary even changing his name. In this way, through the call of one
individual, the life of a whole people can be profoundly changed and they can
be led to God.
At the beginning
of every Christian life is the word of the Lord. It comes in many ways, but it always calls
accepted values and standards into question and stirs the soul of the believer
to its depths. St Anthony the Great, the
father of monks owed his vocation to a word of the Gospel, heard by chance
during a celebration of the Eucharist one day; “If you wish to go the whole
way, go sell your possessions and give to the poor, and then you will have
riches in Heaven; come follow Me. Anthony did not know where this would lead
him. But the word of Jesus suddenly
coming alive in his heart was call enough.
On the strength of it, he committed his whole life.
Likewise, two
centuries later, St Benedict who was to become the Patriarch of the monks of
the West, did not know any other way than that of the Gospel. St Benedict knew that his Rule would not
supplant the Gospel. On the contrary,
when he wrote the final chapter he recalled that the Rule is only a sort of
humbly beginning, a kind of manual of introduction to what he calls “the
heights of perfection, the loftier summits of teaching and virtue” which the
disciple will find in every page of the scriptures. The word of God is the sole rule of life and
it alone is more than adequate. Any
religious rule has meaning only to the extent that it can make the demands of
the word of God specifically. It must
apply the Gospels to the concrete circumstances of a particular age and
culture. St Benedict knew nothing of the
world wide destiny of his Rule. He was
content to prepare his monks to hear the word of the Gospel and to follow
Christ.
_____ cf. Andre Louf
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