Saturday, July 14, 2007

Humility and Obedience

I just finished reading The Rule of St. Benedict for my Western Civilization class. This rule is a document that St. Benedict wrote to guide monks in their daily, communal life. I have never taken much interest in the monastic life because I viewed stories of their asceticism as a bit over the top. While I'm not sure if my views on flogging one's self have changed from reading this document (it doesn't really address corporeal self-punishment), it has helped me to understand the monastic life better and to appreciate headship and our understanding of obedience in the People of Praise.

There may be many motives for one to enter into the monastic way of life: fear of God, desire for salvation, ambivalence about the world and love of God. Benedict recognizes all of these motives as legitimate ones for entering into monastic life. However, the first three motives are self-interested ones--ones that are motivated by the self. Over the course of a monk's life, if his training in the monastery is successful, these three motives should drop away, leaving only the love of God as one's motivation. The way that the the first three motives are stripped away is through obedience and humility. Being completely obedient to the abbot, the rule and the community of the monastery strips a monk of his pride and self-will; no longer does he do what he would will, but submits to the will of others. After ascending through the steps of humility by obedience and various other actions, a monk will "arrive at the perfect love which casts out all fear (1 John 4:18)." and, "Through this love, all that he once performed with dread, he will now begin to observe without effort, as though naturally, from habit, not longer out of fear of hell, but out of the love for Christ, good habit and delight in virtue."

I think the process that Benedict outlines is really beautiful, and yet very hard for modern people to understand and appreciate; submitting to another in obedience can be seen as weak and dangerous. Unfortunately, history has left us with many bad examples of leaders who, in demanding total obedience, did not have the best interest of their people at heart (Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini...). People are afraid to trust leaders and follow any individual aside from themselves. Praise God that we can put our complete trust in him without fear that he will lead us astray and that the People of Praise has a set up where we can submit to one another in love and obedience, helping us to grow in humility and love of God.

2 comments:

Tom Bowar said...

Gina, this is awesome! It brings me right back to my college days at St. John's University here in Minnesota, which is a Benedictine university with a monastic community at it's center. I majored in theology, and 2 of my favorite classes were The Benedictine Tradition where we studied the Rule of St. Benedict, and Western Civilization.

Thanks for sharing this.

Tom Bowar

Buddhist, RN said...

That's interesting. I myself fear obedience to other people (other than necessary obedience to bosses and whatnot). I think it's a good idea to be wary of whom you obey, lest it be some crazy person. But if the person has your best interests at heart, perhaps it would be a good exercise. It's an interesting thought train. I don't ever endorse blind obedience in a non-monastic life, because hey, we have brains and need to use them, especially in POP. It gets complicated. It's not that easy. If a head says jump, you don't say how high, you say, why am I jumping? At least,t hat's what I do. But that's just me. I'm not trying to argue with you, I'm just offering a piece of my mind, in case you're interested.