Strangers to the City

by Michael Casey

  Those who embrace the monastic means as the determining elements in their behavior gradually acquire a new identity. This is something that grows from within. It is not a role played for whatever reason. It is not a temporary phase that will soon be abandoned. This monastic identity accompanies monks and nuns wherever they go, whatever they do. Sometimes this homing instinct points out to them life-giving byways and, when (not if) they go astray, it serves as a beacon to guide them back to integrity. But there is a choice to be made. Long before such an identity is formed, those who enter the monastic way are obliged to reorient their lives radically. According to ancient usage, the first step in becoming a monk is conversion.

  2. Making the Break

  Benedict calls his followers, as we have said, to come out from the multitude. This is how it is with every monastic vocation. We are born into a family, a culture, and an ambiance, and our attitudes are largely shaped by those with whom we have had contact. By and large, our priorities are not so different from those of our peers and contemporaries. Our future is relatively predictable based on our social class, our character and talents, our education. With each passing year the possibilities narrow. For most of us the announcement of a monastic interest caused surprise and shock to those who thought they knew us. What they did not know was that something had been happening deep inside us that impelled us to evaluate issues differently, and to turn aside from the future that others so confidently predicted for us.

  What was this inner earthquake? Most of us would have found it hard to describe—at the time we were not so familiar with our interior landscape that we could easily discourse about it. We lacked a vocabulary adequate to convey our experience. Its component elements seemed trivial and banal—too insubstantial to bear the weight of their eventual consequences. When we think of conversion experiences we often imagine something dramatic happening as it did to St. Paul on the Damascus road. Yes, some conversions seem to be sudden, but often upon investigation we discover that the process had been brewing over a long period. It is only when the gathering force suddenly ruptures the shell of habit and erupts into ordinary life to change it irreversibly, that we see it. But it had long been working its magic underground.6

  The principal and permanent effect of this inner experience was to bring about a change in our perceptual horizons. This is to say that we began to see issues in a different light. We were no longer under the full thrall of appearances, but we had begun to glimpse something of the reality underlying human affairs. The more clearly we saw, the more differently we evaluated possibilities. Once we made the radical choice to submit to this secret summons, we now questioned goals and assumptions that previously seemed routine, and a great ferment resulted. We had a sense that we were being impelled toward a different future, though we did not always know clearly what shape that future would assume.

  Because the world looked different, it slowly became clear that a different lifestyle was demanded of us. There may have been elements of guilt and shame about our past, but the primary feeling was one of joy and exhilaration. This made us bold in confronting negativity in our own life and around us. Often we were overly severe on ourselves and others at this phase. It was easier to reject what was obviously dissonant with our new dream than to know what might lead to its realization. Only with the passing of time and, perhaps, the waning of enthusiasm did realistic possibilities begin to open up before us. None of them was a perfect fit, but one stood out as offering a skeleton around which a new self could be formed.

  And so we came to the monastery.

  3. Frontiers

  Few of us will ever forget the day we crossed the monastic threshold to begin a new life. It was a solemn moment of entering a new environment and leaving behind much of what had become second nature to us. It was almost like a new birth. We were infants, unable to predict or control what would happen next, feeling that our presence contributed little to the functioning of this well-oiled machine, constantly wondering whether we had made the right decision.

  As we recovered from that initial sense of displacement we discovered a whole new world of strangeness. The monastery operated on principles different from those to which we were accustomed. We found a community strong on antique ritual and symbolism and often indifferent to fashion and efficiency and somewhat removed from the banalities of suburban concern and conversation. At a deeper level our conviction that cause and effect were related seemed challenged at ever turn. Things happened without apparent reason, not only in the petty details of daily life, but even at important junctures of spiritual development. Perhaps with a rising panic we became aware that in a monastery we would never be in control—especially if we happened to become a superior. Underlying the reasonable and ordered facade was a frothy chaos that seemed ever on the point of overwhelming the community, but in fact never did. Our own identity too was in a state of flux. The primacy of self had been displaced, and there did not seem much to take its stead. Especially at the beginning, but, for some, sporadically through life, we seemed to be living in a foreign country. In the monastic world we felt ourselves as resident aliens. At times like this we may have been surprised to feel a little homesick and experience a certain nostalgia for the life we had abandoned with so much alacrity.

  It is important to recognize that the abnormality of the monastic lifestyle is not a mere accident of recent history. Certain aspects of it may be unduly quaint or archaic, but the corporate lifestyle as a whole needs to be different from that of normal society “outside” because it embodies and expresses different beliefs and values. Individual members are supported and formed in living their distinctive philosophy not so much by intense personal direction as by participation in the common life, the common work, and the network of common relationships that together constitute the community. By being with others of the same persuasion, by acting in concert with them and by permitting the free flow of thought and feeling, we absorb the community identity. Simultaneously we become more ourselves, not in isolation, but ourselves in relation with others.

  We live in a period in which religious practice is becoming progressively more privatized and more the object of personal choice. It is sometimes hard to give up the idea of a designer religion, in which everything is tailored to my present needs and aspirations. Delivering oneself into the hands of a community of relative strangers and asking to be formed does not seem like a very good idea. Yielding control does not come easily to me; I don’t always appreciate the fact that self-transcendence is impossible so long as the self remains in the driver’s seat. Even if I can learn to discern the difference between life-giving choices and those that lead nowhere, I am still bedeviled by deeper impulses that so often guide my actions but escape the scrutiny of my conscious mind. Even the most sincerely pious searchers after God harbor within themselves much hazardous material that, if disregarded, may eventually poison their best efforts. The fact that so many of our contemporaries do not recognize is that the higher our religious aspirations, the more we need the guidance and support of other people. If we intend merely to coast along the low roads, maybe we can do it alone. If we are heading for the mountains, the support of others is indispensable.

  The lifestyle of the community we entered is not simply the sum total of individual neuroses. It is a community that stands in a tradition that has perdured for a millennium and a half. The basic parameters of the lifestyle, which no “Benedictine” can abandon, have their constitutional basis in the Rule of Benedict. Although Benedict is open to other input, his basic insight is that this fundamental law of community life is to be interpreted and applied by those who have experience in living it and the capacity to communicate this experience to others. No priority is given to bright ideas. Everything has to be measured against experience. The result can sometimes seem a bit stodgy, as we fail to keep up with the latest trends. The monastic tradition is so extensive that it does not give itself to easy maneuverability, but there is something solid about it. Its very
archaism can serve to protect us from fads and “novelties” that hold sway for a season and then disappear. The rhythms of the monastic day are dictated by specific monastic goals; they do not have to conform to the preferences of those who seek something else.

  It is important to note, at this juncture, that accepting to live monastic conversatio is not a matter of going back to live in a previous century. It is much more radical than that. The sixth century has no more claim on us than our own. Benedict does not recommend his own century to us, he teaches us to leave it behind and to try something different. We are citizens of heaven, and, knowing this, we try to live in accordance with heavenly standards as these are conveyed to us in the Gospels.

  4. Benedict’s Contribution

  As far as we can make his acquaintance, Benedict seems like an attractive person—much more so than the Master, for instance. But we need to respect his historical distinctiveness. We need to beware of turning him into a glove puppet spouting the preferred platitudes of our own generation. We should not attempt to co-opt Benedict as the spokesman for our twenty-first-century agenda. He is his own man. And he is not slow to make solid demands of those who would become his followers.

  The community as envisaged by Benedict does not operate according to the standards of this age. Many of us would find his provisions too severe and unyielding. While it is true that Benedict is sensitive to weakness, he expects the “strong” to pull their weight and maintain a solid degree of monastic observance. Some of his precepts seem unreasonably hard to us. But Benedict is convinced that this apparent harshness is the way that leads to God (58:8) by blocking the tyranny of self-will, making provision for the extinguishment of vices and giving scope for the flowering of love (Prol. 47).

  Let us look at some of the texts that we find hard, distasteful, or difficult to understand. Benedict resists any tendency which would lead his monks to do any of the following:

  • to be more concerned about “transitory earthly trifles” than the kingdom (2:33–36),

  • to become protective of private property (33:1–8, 55:16–18),

  • to be pleased to receive gifts (54:1–5),

  • to be responsive to hospitality when traveling (51:1-2),

  • to be happy to make extra profit from their work (57:7-8),

  • to be hopeful for an inheritance (59:6),

  • to pay attention to worldly rank (2:18),

  • to insist on clerical privilege (60:5–7),

  • to be prejudiced in favor of blood relatives (69:2),

  • to claim the right to grumble when things go against them (5:17-18, 34:6-7, 40:9),

  • to remain enthralled by self-congratulation (elatio: 4:69),

  • to engage in self-promotion (exaltatio: 7:2, 7:7),7

  • to keep their options open (58:15-16),

  • to indulge in laughter (6:8, 7:59),

  • to exercise initiative (31:4, 49:9, 67:7),

  • to eat more than sparingly (39:7–10)8 and

  • to want to bathe frequently (36:8).

  Most of these actions would be considered normal behavior in secular society—and, indeed, they may seem harmless enough. They become reprehensible only in the context of the holy community that Benedict is establishing—the school of the Lord’s service, to recall the phrase with which we are all familiar. In such a lifestyle there are new demands because there is a substantial discontinuity with the manner of living evidenced all around us. Benedict is establishing a second and more specific level of morality. This is why actions and attitudes that are “unmonastic” such as laughter, grumbling, and drinking to satiety, evoke from him a greater wrath than those that are merely immoral. That is why the complex of attitudes Benedict collects under the umbrella of “humility” makes little sense and holds little appeal outside the context of a fervent commitment to the monastic ideal.

  Such provisions are not mere archaism to be explained away and abandoned without regret. They are indications that Benedict’s community lives according to norms different from those typical of “this age.” Chronological inculturation and aggiornamento are fine unless they begin to undermine the radical distinctiveness of monastic conversatio. In the process of updating of monastic life it is important that we seek not only new ways of relating to the age in which we live, but also new ways of expressing our essential distinctiveness.

  There will always be a problem in deciding where to locate the boundaries between the monastery and the world. Within the Benedictine tradition there have been many different solutions accepted by different groups and yielding good results. If the monastery is to develop a nurturing and creative sub-culture it seems that some balance needs to be achieved between distinctiveness and porosity. I am not recommending constructing a cultural chasm between ourselves and the age in which we live. Nor do I believe this to have been Benedict’s intention. But we need sufficient distance to generate the freedom to create our own enculturated sub-culture. Too much “openness” can lead to a loss of symbols, a decline in morale, and maybe eventually to near-indistinguishability. Walls that are too impermeable, on the other hand, can lead to the creation of a “social fantasy system” in which reality “inside” begins to have more weight than reality “outside,” and people are hurt. Defining appropriate frontiers is an area where discernment is especially vital.

  Before we arrive at the point of legislating for material separation, it is necessary to ensure that there is a more fundamental differentiation. In the chapters that follow we will explore different aspects of a monastic outlook that define and identify the followers of St. Benedict.

  2 Asceticism

  To deny oneself to oneself

  in order to follow Christ

  RB 4:10

  Monasticism without renunciation is meaningless. The greedy, lazy, and self-indulgent monk is a figure of fun in many medieval stories. Wherever we find genuine monasticism, there is an emphasis on a simple, austere way of life in which normal human desires are but scantily fulfilled. Monks serve as a reminder that a life of ease and pleasure is not the best way to find ultimate fulfillment. In a Christian setting those who practise monastic renunciation point to the existence of a richer and fuller life beyond death in eternity.

  Benedict recognizes that implementing the attraction to pursue the way that leads to life (Prol. 20) necessarily involves discipline and renunciation. John Cassian’s third Conference clearly sets forth an experiential teaching that shows how the different levels of renunciation are woven into the very texture of monastic life. Without some channeling of energies there is no possibility of attaining the goals that monasticism places before itself. “He is badly deceived who thinks that while he lives in this mortal body that he has no need of bodily exercises.”9 Following Christ is impossible without shouldering his cross. It does not take much observation to come to the conclusion that systematic lack of renunciation is the root cause of many familiar situations of malaise, signaled by narcissistic attitudes, tepidity, behavior inconsistent with monastic profession, a chronic tendency to conflict, acedia, or a generalized lack of commitment.

  Finality is crucial. Practices that involve the curtailment of desire have never been enjoyable. Any approach to life that would recommend such an approach to life must be anathema especially to an age in which self-gratification is seen as the normal mode of human existence. Although sexual abstinence, sleep-deprivation, fasting, poverty, and various forms of austerity are widely attested among ascetical groups in all the world religions, mere statistical support is not enough to encourage people to undertake them. Only a bent disposition would renounce gratification and choose suffering unless some proportionate advantage could be expected. If the pain leads to gain, there is no problem. Champion athletes and professionals in every sphere of life understand that purpose-driven renunciation is essential in any pursuit of excellence. Most are not motivated to asceticism if they cannot see any purpose in it. Finality is crucial; there must be a purpose in mortif
ication.

  “Asceticism is necessary first of all for creative action of any kind, for prayer, for love: in other words, it is needed by each of us throughout our entire life…. Every Christian is an ascetic.” Without asceticism none of us is authentically human.10

  In inculcating the values of the ascetic life, it is necessary that we are able to demonstrate their finality: We fast, we obey, we are celibate, for this reason or for that, not because it is the rule or the tradition, but because it is perceived to produce good effects in our life.11 The fact that we sometimes find it difficult to come up with convincing reasons for many customary observances may indicate that our own values may need deepening. The much-chronicled loss of the sense of sin12 has effectively invalidated penance as a motivation, since the link between personal guilt and penitential practices has been considerably weakened. For many people, even for those who embrace monastic life, this reluctance is not so much due to a lack of generosity or fervor, but derives from a general inability to understand why denying pleasure to myself can be a benefit to me or to anyone else.

  One approach is to emphasize the cenobitic forms of self-restraint. By limiting my level of self-gratification I make fewer demands on others in the community. I appropriate less of the common resources. I am available to be at the service of brothers or sisters and to play second fiddle to their virtuoso performances. Probably I will be friendlier and more cooperative in general, more manageable in work situations and less competitive on less structured occasions. I can be reasonably sure that nobody in my community would complain if I become less self-gratifying. For those of an altruistic disposition, this rationale can work well. For others it can sometimes lead to the querulous plaint, “Why should I be the one always to deny myself? What about me?”