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Saint Benedict Sodoma, Monte Oliveto, c.1500. |
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Saint Benedict Sodoma, Monte Oliveto, c.1500. |
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THE LADDER (stairway/path) of ascent to God and THE HEAVENLY GARDEN of delight in the divine presence. IN the monastic tradition these two themes intertwine in an alternating rhythm of spiritual ascent always energized by mystical vision (or at least the virtue of hope). One never graduate from the ascetical path; and heaven itself is a dynamic progress into God,
ALTHOUGH the notion of ascent to God is also frequently depicted as climbing a mountain (Sinai, Carmel, Tabor), the image of JACOB'S LADDER is a powerful image of heavenly ascent and descent; and it recurs in patristic depictions of martyrdom and very often in the monastic tradition THE GARDEN is a very ancient metaphor for gentle rest in the Divine Presence. The ancient word for garden is Paradise. In the garden of Eden humanity is at peace with God and all of creation. In the prophets and psalms hope for human struggle and pain is found in the prediction that the desert will blossom and become a garden. The garden of the Song of Songs was interpreted by both Jewish Rabbis and Christian mystics as an icon of the union between the Divine Lover and His beloved spouse - His people. And in the Book of Revelation the final destiny of saved humanity is described as a lush garden with trees and flowing rivers.
BENEDICT associates Jacob’s Ladder with the ladder of humility that leads to Heaven (RB 7.5); however his description of heaven here (love) and at the end of the Instruments of Good Works (Eye has not seen...; RB 4.62) is extremely restrained in comparison with the Master. IN the Rule of the Master both the Holy Art (RM 3) and the Ladder of Humility (RM 10) lead respectively to the garden-city of heaven (RM 3.83) and the heavenly rose-garden of the Passio Sebastiani (RM 10.92 ). Indeed, every step is explicitly called a “rung of the heavenly ladder.” AT the conclusion of the Life of Benedict two of his disciples see in a vision the path by which Benedict ascended to heaven (Dial.Bk.2.37) - a clear allusion to Benedict’s Rule.
THE disciples, interpreters, and commentators on the life and Rule of Saint Benedict are too numerous to enumerate here. They include: 1. An examples of the image of an ascent back to - and even beyond - the primordial garden of Eden is found in the famous reading for Holy Saturday that is clearly influenced by the ascetical/monastic tradition of the early Church. 2. Romuald and (3) Bernard offer examples of the monastic cell as a return to paradise and the Song of Songs as a vision of the monastic goal. 4. And, finally, Dante depicts both Benedict and his disciples, Peter Damien and Bernard as guides up the ladder that leads to God and to the heavenly garden where the saints rejoice.
THREATS to the interconnectedness and harmony of the path of spiritual practice and the contemplative vision of heaven have been enumerated by Lassus. They include: [1] The zeal for the extreme nature of a life that invites total commitment to God can be misused by superiors, thwarting the virtues that can arise from [moderate] oppression. [2] Sectarian Drift: that is, deterioration of a community into a sect or cult. Appropriate discretion/discernment can be difficult.
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Aretino, 1388, The Death of Benedict and the Disciples Vision of the Heavenly Path |
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The Garden of Eden, Fouquet, 1477 |
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“Truly as we advance in this way of life and faith (conversationis et fidei), our hearts open wide,” RB Prol. 49 “[Hermits], no longer in the first fervor of their way of life . . .” (conversationis fervore), RB 1.3. “Concerning all of these [Sarabites, Gyrovagues], and their most miserable way of life . . . ” (miserrima conversatione), RB 1.13. “. . . brothers of good reputation and a holy way of life (sanctae conversationis) [are] to be appointed deans,” RB 21.1. “One newly arriving to this way of life (ad conversationem) is not to be granted an easy entrance,” RB 58.1 “. . . the beginnings of this way of life (initium conversationis). But for those hastening to the perfection of this way of life (ad perfectionem conversationis) . . .” RB 73.1-2 As Benedict uses the term it implies both perseverance and stability. RELATED is the verb convertere,“to convert,” that describes a fundamental transformation or change in one’s state of life. (e.g. RB 7.30; Prol. 38; THE classical notion of virtue as a mean or balance is echoed in Benedict's Rule in the measure/mensura of correction in the disciplinary code (RB 30; RB 24), determining the proper amount of food (RB 39) and drink (RB 40) and especially in the admonition that everything is to be done with proper measure (RB 48.9) ESSENTIAL in employing and adapting spiritual practices, as noted by Lassus, are discretion and balance, as well as formation for freedom in God, freedom as “human act,” and freedom in opening the heart.
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“PENTHOS:”
COMPUNCTION,
PENITENCE
and WEEPING:
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NAVIGATION BAR LINK DETAILED DISCUSSION of SPIRITUAL RHYTHMS
ALL human experience can be conceived as a kind of alternating rhythm, a life-giving, energizing movement back and forth, between the the two poles of “activity” and “receptivity”:
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NAVIGATION BAR LINK
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King David at Prayer Medievel illum. ms. |
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IN ancient and modern monastic spirituality the chanting of psalms is believed to have the power of both purifying the soul and enabling the Christian to perceive God’s inner purposes (“logoi”) embedded within history and creation. Three traditional levels or uses of the Psalter include:
first, the psalms as an encounter with Christ for repentance and inner transformation;
second, the Psalter as a mirror of Christ in one’s relationships in history and the world;
and third, the Psalter as a window into union with Christ in heaven.
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THE PSALTER: HYMNAL of the JEWISH TEMPLE PSALM ONE |
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BLESSED
is the man who walks not in the counsel of
the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of
scoffers; |
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FROM
The Art of
Biblical Poetry, Robert Alter, (New York, Basic Books 1985)
Chapter 5 - Forms of Faith in Psalms
[1. THE PSALMS ARE INTENDED TO BE SUNG]
OF all the Books of the Bible in which poetry plays a role, Psalms is the one set of texts whose poetic status has been most strongly felt throughout the generations, […]. This unwavering perception that the psalms were formal poems […] was no doubt reinforced by the musical indications in the texts themselves. Many of the psalms, that is, are explicitly presented as liturgical songs to be intoned to the accompaniment of the lyre, the ten-stringed instrument, cymbals, drums, and whatever else was once used to fill the temple courts with melody. The name of the book in Western languages, from the Greek psalmos, a song sung to a plucked instrument, stresses this musical character, as does the full Hebrew title, mizmorei tehillim, “songs of praise.”
[2. REPETITION is PART of THE BEAUTY of THE PSALMS]
[That the psalms repeat conventional texts over and over] is perfectly understandable. For a text that is to be chanted by pilgrims in procession on their way up the temple mount, or recited by a supplicant at the altar or by someone recovered from grave illness offering a thanksgiving sacrifice, you don’t want a lot of fancy footwork in the imagery and syntax; you want, in fact, an eloquent rehearsal of traditional materials and even traditional ways of ordering those materials in a certain sequence.
This conventionality of the psalms, […] is in so many instances to the liturgical function of the poems,
[The psalms are] a collection where in any given genre a dozen or more poems seem to be saying the same thing, often with more or less the same metaphors and sometimes even with some of the same phrasing. What I think we need to be more attuned to as readers is the nuanced individual character—“originality” in fact may not be the relevant concept—of different poems reflecting the same genre and even many of the same formulaic devices.
[3.
AS
POETRY
THE
PSALMS
CAN
EXPRESS
DEEPER
MEANINGS
THAN
NARRATIVE
TEXTS]
Poetry, working through a system of complex linkages of sound, image, word, rhythm, syntax, theme, idea, is an instrument for conveying densely patterned meanings, and sometimes contradictory meanings, that are not readily conveyable through other kinds of discourse.
Poetry is a way of using language strongly oriented toward the creation of minute, multiple, heterogeneous, and semantically fruitful interconnections in the text. […]
The psalms are of course poems written out of deep and often passionate faith. […] the poetic medium made it possible to articulate the emotional freight, the moral consequences, the altered perception of the world that flowed from this monotheistic belief, in compact verbal structures that could in some instances seem simplicity itself.
Psalms […] often became an instrument for expressing in a collective voice (whether first person plural or singular) a distinctive, sometimes radically new, sense of time, space, history, creation, and the character of individual destiny.
In keeping with this complex expressive purpose, many psalms, on scrutiny, prove to have a finely tensile semantic weave that one would not expect from the seeming conventionality of the language.
NAVIGATION BAR LINK DETAILED INTRODUCTION
INSPIRED by the work of Abbot Gueranger and his successors and confreres at Solesmes who labored on the restoration and interpretation of Gregorian Chant, Abbots Maurus and Placidus Wolter, OSB, restored Benedictine life at Beuron in Germany. The monasteries of their congregation actively promoted liturgical prayer as a form of spiritual and doctrinal catechesis among clergy and laity. THE importance of the liturgy as a means of catechesis for the faithful was highlighted at the Second Vatican Council, where special emphasis was placed the fullness of the Paschal Mystery.
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RB; RM 87-92
THE process of entry entails progress from entrance to guesthouse, then to novitiate. Then responsibility for formation lies with a senior skilled in winning souls, who watches for the four signs of a vocation. The novitiate is of three periods, testing stability, patience, and obedience. Implicitly linked to the eucharistic celebration, the vows are made at the altar: obedientia, stabilitas, conversatio morum suorum. The emphases on stability and obedience make it clear that the conversatio to which the monks commits himself is the way of life of a particular monastery RECENT authors such as Lassus have stressed the importance of formation in freedom [c.6; c.9!], and freedom in opening the heart, as well as avoiding prophetic assurance by the formator that a candidate has a vocation. THESE portions of the Rule of Benedict correspond to and contrasts with Chapters 87-91 of the Rule of the Master which is stricter and even encourages suspicion of those who wish to enter.
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NAVIGATION BAR LINK
First, the monks learn to “see” Christ in the Abbot, “who is believed to hold the place of Christ in the monastery.” RB 2.2: Christi enim agere vices in monasterio creditor But Christ must also be contemplated aurally and perhaps paradoxically in the voice of the youngest newcomers to the monastery, through whose counsel God often (saepe) indicates what is best for the community to do. RB 3.3: (quia saepe iuniori Dominus revelat quod melius est)
Guests, too, are to be contemplated as Christ-bearers: on arrival and departure
they “are to be received as Christ” and venerated with a bow or prostration,
“because Christ is to be adored in them just as he is received in them”.
Similarly, monks visiting from another monastery may be the unexpected bearers
of a prophetic message from Christ.
The sick are “truly to be served as Christ Himself […] out of honor for
God”
Thus the monks are to “outdo one another in
showing honor” that is, to
honor others in community as the Christ-Bearers they are. |
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IN Chapter 72 the contemplative embrace of God is an destiny towards which we are drawn pariter - together into eternal life (RB 72.12). The good zeal that enables the brethren to contemplate Christ in one another is very different from the competitive zeal described in Chapter 92 of the Rule of the Master.
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NAVIGATION BAR LINK
THIS book portrays St. Benedict's spiritual progress from solitary hermit to abbot of a community, and the last chapters depict his gradual transformation from zealous, miracle-working ascetic to receptive contemplative. At the very end his disciples receive a vision of the path (via) of Benedict's heavenly ascent (2.37) that is also his Rule (2.36).
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RB; RM
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SAINT Benedict describes the daily practice of lectio divina in Chapters 4, 8, 38, 48, and 49 (sel.) of his Rule. The medieval monks Peter Damien and Guigo II depict lectio divina as ascent to the heavenly banquet and the divine embrace. THE result of lectio divina is the practice of contemplative exegesis, again, a method of prayerful contemplation inherited from both Judaism and classical antiquity. Also called allegorical exegesis, this refers to the practice of contemplating the presence and purposes (logoi) of God in Sacred Scripture, in the unfolding of one’s own life, and in the movements of history. A medieval poem describes the interrelationship between the literal and mystical/allegorical senses:
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THUS four levels or aspects of biblical and historical contemplation are identified:
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LITERAL |
God in the Sacred Text |
SACRED SCRIPTURE |
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MORAL |
God guiding us in our choices |
OUR LIVES |
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ALLEGORICAL |
God unseen in the events of our lives |
HUMAN HISTORY |
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ANAGOGICAL |
God united to us for all eternity in Heaven |
HEAVEN (beyond time) |
A CLASSICAL depiction of this practice/charism is the medieval Benedictine historian Bede’s story of the cowherd (and later monk), Caedmon.
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NEW monasteries continue to be founded, and the identification and manifestation of new monastic charisms is an ongoing task, and sometimes a source of concern. The shape and content of the different monastic congregations undergoes constant change.
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THE
most recent and comprehensive movement of monastic renewal and reform occurred
in the wake of the French Revolution, and has powerfully affected all
Benedictine monasteries in the world today
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IN both the Rule of Benedict and in Benedict's principal source, the Rule of the Master, the image of the ladder, with explicit reference to the dream of Jacob, is central as a way of conceptualizing spiritual progress. Their ladder of humility adapts a similar concept found in John Cassian.
THE Master describes the pleasure-garden of heaven in detail, while Benedict prefers a more succinct allusion to What eye has not seen, nor ear heard. For Benedict the garden of eternal life (ch.72) is attained by running together with others in the sweetness of love (Prol.) along the path that enables the community to be seen - and served - as Christ.
This Webpage was created for a workshop held at Saint Andrew's Abbey, Valyermo, California in 2003
