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+INCLINING YOUR HEART
11 July 2005
Standing here before you
on this Solemnity of St Benedict I’m not without some fear and trembling as I
ask myself what is there about St Benedict that is authentic for our time, as it
was for his. One can name any number of values in his Rule of immense importance
for us today but then can I translate them well enough to evoke some enthusiasm,
a renewed interest for your life. I am convinced that St Benedict is as
graciously speaking to us as he did in his own time, inviting us to explore the
wisdom that made his life so wonderfully fruitful. Our scripture texts give us
some leads.
The reading from Proverbs
invites us to turn our ears to wisdom and to incline our hearts to
understanding. These are practically the very words with which Benedict begins
his Rule when he calls us to “listen carefully to the master’s instructions and
attend to them with the ear of our heart.” Benedict is constantly inviting the
monk to listen with his heart, with the whole of his being to what God is asking
of him. Benedict knows from his own experience that God wants nothing so much as
our hearts, the whole of our being. God engages us on our deepest level or not
at all. One realizes how underneath this engagement is God’s own desire to make
us sharers of his own divine life, one Spirit with him. To incline our hearts is
to allow them to become one with the heart of Christ, to allow him to become the
life of our life.
The reading from Ephesians
calls us into the same union with our Beloved for to “live as children of the
light” is to produce “every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth.” It is
to “learn what is pleasing to the Lord” and to be “filled with the Spirit,
addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and
playing to the Lord in your hearts.” What could better describe the Benedictine
/ Cistercian way of life? Or as St Benedict so beautifully puts it: “Let us open
our eyes to the light that comes from God". . .and “run while we have the light
of life that the darkness of death many not overtake us.”
The gospel text from
Matthew may seem at first, no more than a warning about the dangers of riches
and the pursuit thereof. To be used on this Solemnity of St Benedict suggests it
carries far more. There is the “hundred times more” and the inheritance of
eternal life. But let me dare to explore a little what Jesus and Benedict are
saying about riches and our relation to them. When Jesus tells his disciples
that it “is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one
who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God,” we are told that they are greatly
astonished and ask: “Who then can be saved?” This comparison with a camel
passing through the eye of a needle” has been interpreted in the recent past as
referring to a gate into Jerusalem what was very low so that only humans could
pass but modern scholars say this is to undermine what Jesus really intends to
say. He is telling us that it is impossible for the rich to enter the kingdom of
heaven. Riches create a false security and preoccupation with them blinds one to
values necessary for entry into the life of God. And let me add, I believe that
what Jesus is saying here is especially difficult for persons like ourselves
living in an affluent society where so many comforts of life are taken for
granted and deemed necessary. As much as many of us may fantasize about living
in a cave like Benedict once did, I wonder how many of us could live that way
for even a short time. Besides we say, we have been called to live as cenobites.
And yet, if it is true that this is where he became a man of the Spirit, there
must be a lot that such simplicity can teach us.
How in fact does St
Benedict pass on to us the gospel message we’ve just heard? He dares to call
private ownership “an evil practice that must be uprooted and removed from the
monastery.” No one is to receive or retain anything without an order from the
Abbot, not a single item “since monks may not have the free disposal even of
their own bodies and wills.” If we look more closely, beneath this apparently
strict requirement, we see an experience that runs through the lives of many
early monks. If the heart is to be free for God, open to the fullness of life,
it must be free of all attachment, free of any possession. It is a matter of
making space for God, of letting God fill the incredible longing of the human
heart. To enter the kingdom of God is to allow Christ to take hold of our whole
being, to let our hearts become empty and free for God’s own Self gift.
Our celebration of the
Eucharist at this altar tells of an almost uncontrollable desire on God’s part
of share divine life with us. Christ’s Body broken, his Blood poured out is a
manifestation of love that can hardly begin to be grasped by faith, much less by
any human reasoning. But if we dare to live from the strength they provide, we
will “run on the path of God’s commandments” as St Benedict invites us, “our
hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love.”
Proverbs 2:1-9; Eph.
5:8-20; Mt. 19 23-30
Michael Casagram, OCSO
Abbey of Gethsemani
Feast of St. Benedict
July 11, 2005
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E-mail: info@laycisterciansofgethsemani.org
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