Listening to the Rule

The questions of what in the Rule of Benedict makes monastic life not just doable or even bearable have to do with the praxis and structure it offers. But for a document that has endured to the present day, that is not the end of the matter. There is in the Rule something that makes this life generative, something that induces and encourages both present flourishing and future-directed creativity. Besides our own well-being, this life is also seeking to make us generative of something on behalf of the life of the world now and in the future.

So what in the Rule makes monastic life sustainable, regenerative? What are the practices or principles that allow the life to be just that—that when engaged, continuously renew and feed those living it? To put it negatively, what are the protective or nourishing elements that mitigate against emptiness or outright burnout? While the Rule itself is not preventive against all the ill effects of living, it does contain principles that, attended to without anxiety or possessiveness, can sustain a climate for the flourishing of the life of Christ in us.

For example, the very first word of the Rule: “Listen.” That is, to put myself in receptive mode, to have a posture that is not defensive or a stance of habitual refusal. The prologue continues, “my child”: that is, I am not an atomic, hermetically-sealed entity; there is a relationship going on that I did not initiate, that I can only respond to (or not), but is initiated by an Other that always precedes me, is always initiating me and my vocation and everything, always inviting me and calling me to Itself. I am being addressed, and in that address my existence is proved, an ongoing relationship is shown to be desired by the God who addresses me through the words of the Rule, a relationship and invitation never to be rescinded.