I don’t usually like to write two “Elsewhere” posts in a row, but there’s a very good chapter talk on the Rule of St. Benedict over at Vultus Christi that is, I believe, worthy of my readers’ attention. The author points to the spiritual fullness of the Rule. St. Benedict gathers together the very best of the great spiritual traditions of the Church. Put another, more historically correct way, his Rule has served as the “wellspring” from which all manner of saints have drawn the waters of life.

Monasticism is the norm of the Christian life. It is the baptismal life as such, to which every other charism must be compared. Those who do not have a priestly or religious vocation are not exempt. Even those in the world must develop a “monasticism of the heart,” a certain enmity towards the Flesh and a love of God in the Mass. St. Benedict’s Rule, in its great flexibility and simplicity, is a very good guide to achieving that inward state, itself an ever more perfect conformity to Christ.

The whole chapter is worth reading, but here’s an excerpt that struck me:

If you were or are attracted to Carmel, to Saint Teresa and Saint John of the Cross, or to Saint Thérèse and her Little Way, know that nothing of their teaching is missing from the Rule of Saint Benedict: purification of the heart, ceaseless prayer, secret exchanges with the Word, the Divine Bridegroom, and participation by patience in the Passion of Christ.

If you were or are drawn to Saint Dominic, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and Saint Catherine of Siena, know that the Rule of Saint Benedict calls you to the joy of the Gospel, to the love of chastity, to the quest for Truth, to confidence in the mercy of God for sinners, and to the ceaseless prayer of the heart represented by the Holy Rosary.

If you were or are fascinated by the Little Poor Man of Assisi, the Seraphic Saint Francis, know that the Rule of Saint Benedict offers you complete disappropriation to the point of having neither your body nor your will at your own disposal; that the Twelfth Degree of Humility is configuration to the Crucified Jesus; and that the adorable Body of Christ, the Sacred Host, shows you the perfection of monastic holiness in silence, hiddenness, poverty, and humility.

If you were or are charmed by Saint Philip and the Oratory, know that the Rule of Saint Benedict calls you to good cheer, to gentlemanly courtesy, to an ever greater infusion of the charity of God, that is the Holy Ghost.

Vultus Christi

Any Catholic who wants a deeper spiritual life cannot neglect the monastic tradition. It brought forth all the others, and continues to enrich them. I have written in the past on the likeness between St. Philip and St. Benedict. Much more could be said for the monastic roots of each of the spiritual families listed above.

I can’t help but notice that one major stream of Latin Catholic spirituality is absent from this list: Ignatian spirituality. Perhaps this is because the Ignatian charism depends upon a subjective, individualistic, and pscyhologized spiritual experience rather than the objective, external, communitarian piety of liturgy that stands at the heart of St. Benedict’s Rule. This is not to say that Ignatian spirituality is necessarily worse or that it cannot produce saints. Nor is it to say that St. Ignatius could have produced his school without the preceding sixteen centuries of spiritual development. But the assumptions of Ignatian spirituality are so divorced from the monastic tradition as to constitute a sui generis chapter in the history of Latin Spirituality. St. Ignatius inaugurated a real break from the Western tradition of prayer and ascesis, a break that was, in fact, little more than an epiphenomenon of the advent of modernity in the prior century.

But these historical-theological considerations are secondary to a deeper admiration for the piece. May St. Benedict pray for all of us who would seek the Face of God.