Benedict in France (II)
The Pope’s evening address at the Collège de Bernardins is a rich reflection, using as his point of entry the monastic tradition and achievement. He several times refers to the classic work by the late Jean Leclercq, “The Love of Learning and the Desire for God.”
Here is the opening:
I would like to speak with you this evening of the origins of western theology and the roots of European culture. I began by recalling that the place in which we are gathered is in a certain way emblematic. It is in fact a placed tied to monastic culture, insofar as young monks came to live here in order to learn to understand their vocation more deeply and to be more faithful to their mission. We are in a place that is associated with the culture of monasticism. Does this still have something to say to us today, or are we merely encountering the world of the past? In order to answer this question, we must consider for a moment the nature of Western monasticism itself. What was it about? From the perspective of monasticism’s historical influence, we could say that, amid the great cultural upheaval resulting from migrations of peoples and the emerging new political configurations, the monasteries were the places where the treasures of ancient culture survived, and where at the same time a new culture slowly took shape out of the old. But how did it happen? What motivated men to come together to these places? What did they want? How did they live?
First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past. Their motivation was much more basic. Their goal was: quaerere Deum. Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential – to make an effort to find what was perennially valid and lasting, life itself. They were searching for God. They wanted to go from the inessential to the essential, to the only truly important and reliable thing there is. It is sometimes said that they were “eschatologically” oriented. But this is not to be understood in a temporal sense, as if they were looking ahead to the end of the world or to their own death, but in an existential sense: they were seeking the definitive behind the provisional. Quaerere Deum: because they were Christians, this was not an expedition into a trackless wilderness, a search leading them into total darkness. God himself had provided signposts, indeed he had marked out a path which was theirs to find and to follow. This path was his word, which had been disclosed to men in the books of the sacred Scriptures. Thus, by inner necessity, the search for God demands a culture of the word or – as Jean Leclercq put it: eschatology and grammar are intimately connected with one another in Western monasticism (cf. L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu). The longing for God, the désir de Dieu, includes amour des lettres, love of the word, exploration of all its dimensions. Because in the biblical word God comes towards us and we towards him, we must learn to penetrate the secret of language, to understand it in its construction and in the manner of its expression. Thus it is through the search for God that the secular sciences take on their importance, sciences which show us the path towards language. Because the search for God required the culture of the word, it was appropriate that the monastery should have a library, pointing out pathways to the word. It was also appropriate to have a school, in which these pathways could be opened up. Benedict calls the monastery a dominici servitii schola. The monastery serves eruditio, the formation and education of man – a formation whose ultimate aim is that man should learn how to serve God. But it also includes the formation of reason – education – through which man learns to perceive, in the midst of words, the Word itself.
Whispers has the full text. As I mentioned in the earlier post, it will evoke a good deal of parsing … and several readings. Bon commencement!
I am a beginner with lectio divina. Currently my main goal with
lectio is to maintain a stability, a gentle stability, with it. I
take time for it every day. I believe lectio facilitates our
responsiveness to the Lord. It is part of an ongoing and dynamic
conversion. At times there will be unconscious opposition to
it. This does not mean we are failing the Lord. It means we are
changing.
I try, often unsuccessfully, to not judge if my reading of Scripture
is fruitful while I am actually doing lectio. Judgement at this time
can easily become an unnecessary obstacle to lectio. Sometimes when I
am restless and have to struggle to just pay attention, I get some of
my best insights from lectio. Lectio is not mainly about information.
It is mainly about prayer and our conversion.
I would like to add that lectio is not just for the moment. If we
are only interested in what it does for us at the moment, we can
reduce lectio and prayer to the level of devotional self-indulgence.
We need to give it our attention and effort over a long period of
time. The changes it brings often happen imperceptibly.
I am not an expert. If anything I have written is not helpful,
ignore it.
Michael, Oblate OSB Cam.
Dear Michael Miller,
Many thanks for your reflections on lectio.
They brought to mind some words of the Pope at the Vespers Service in Notre Dame Cathedral this evening.
Though he was addressing priests at the time, I think they apply to all who pray the Liturgy of the Hours and practice lectio divina:
“Even now the word of God is given to us as the soul of our apostolate, the soul of our priestly life. Each morning the word awakens us. Each morning the Lord himself “opens our ear” (cf. Is 50:5) through the psalms in the Office of Readings and Morning Prayer. Throughout the day, the word of God becomes the substance of the prayer of the whole Church, as she bears witness in this way to her fidelity to Christ. In the celebrated phrase of Saint Jerome, to be taken up in the XII Assembly of the Synod of Bishops next month: “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ” (Prol. in Is.). Dear brother priests, do not be afraid to spend much time reading and meditating on the Scriptures and praying the Divine Office! Almost without your knowing it, God’s word, read and pondered in the Church, acts upon you and transforms you. As the manifestation of divine Wisdom, if that word becomes your life “companion”, it will be your “good counsellor” and an “encouragement in cares and grief” (Wis 8:9).”
In Matthew we hear about how James and John were mending their nets when Jesus came up to them and asked them to follow him. I have imagined that these men were also being mended while they attended to their nets. My guess is that they were silent and attentive and even contemplative while they mended their net. Silence and attention can mend and heal and can lead to prayer. Perhaps their hearts were at peace and silent and this was what was needed in order for them to be able hear Jesus call them.
Fr. Imbelli, Thanks for quoting the Pope’s comments at Vespers. I probably would not have known about them if you had not quoted them. I found them helpful to read and I do understand what he means. Our journey seems to be one of passages with no perceptible before or afer point for most of us.
The psalms are personal and communal prayers. The writer Patricia Hampl wrote about the moodiness at the very center of Christianity. She was writing about the psalms. The psalms wake us up and they wake us up to aspects of our spirituality that might have been asleep. Scripture constantly tells us to stay awake and to pay attention. With the psalms we talk about our anger, joy, sorrow, hope, despair, etc. With the psalms we tell ourselves, each other and God about who we really are.
Also like the psalmist tells us, each day creation waits at the threshold to be born again.
Fr. Imbelli–
The following quote from the excerpt you cited above reminded me of a discussion at my parish’s book club meeting last week:
“Dear brother priests, do not be afraid to spend much time reading and meditating on the Scriptures and praying the Divine Office! Almost without your knowing it, God’s word, read and pondered in the Church, acts upon you and transforms you.”
We were discussing Kathleen Norris’s “Amazing Grace,” a book containing her short essays about religious words such as belief, prayer, salvation, and eschatology. Norris mixes theology, storytelling, humor, and imagination in her explanations. As you likely know, Norris also brings a poet’s sensibility to all of her writing, and though she is Protestant. she is also a Benedictine oblate who has been greatly influenced by her many visits to Benedictine monasteries and her conversations with Benedictine monks. (Her best-known book, “The Cloister Walk,” details her attraction to Benedictine monasticism and spirituality.)
In the essay on either prayer or belief (I forget which one), Norris tells the story of a Catholic friend who tells one of the monks that he doesn’t believe everything in the Nicene Creed. To the friend’s surprise, the monk is nonplussed, and he says words to the effect, “That’s okay. Just keep repeating it.” Norris’s friend does that and comes back to the monk some time later (weeks or months?), telling the monk, I still don’t believe everything in the Creed.” The monk again reassures the man, “Don’t worry, you’ll get it. Just keep repeating it. Think about it.” These exchanges continue at sporadic intervals until the man tells the monk that he has finally grasped the essence of the Creed and that he accepts it in full.
Now I don’t know if the monk’s advice works in all instances, but Norris’s point (and it seems to be the point BXVI makes as to the praying of the lectio divina) is that the repetition of a prayer over time, even if the prayer is not fully understood or believed, can have a cumulative effect that can lead to a transformative experience.
There are so many items worthy of reflection that this visit conjures up. Iraeneus did not like the way the Gnostic practice of quaerere Deum existed. But now this pope points to it as essential and finds it laudable if the secularist seek it. Some feel the monks developed out of a Christianity that lost its soul. Others opine that the monks were really orthodox gnostics. Certainly some of the mystics language was similar.
The “oldest daughter” of the Church was once hardly distinquishable from the church itself. So much so that the creators of the French Revolution went after the church as much as it did royalty. Now that daughter has become almost missionary land as some wonder the US may become.
There is a lot to parse here.
Bill–
I think the U.S. has already become “missionary land,” or so say the “Southern Hemisphere” priests (e.g., from Kenya, Nigeria, and India) who have either visited my parish and said Sunday Masses there over the last several years, or who have been “incardinated” (is that the correct term?) as parish priests in our diocese. ;)
Most returned missionaries that I have met indicate that they have learned from those to whom they ministered as much as,if not more than they were able to impart.
May that also be the case of those who think that the US is mission land. Come to think of it, this is a wish for many or our indigenous hierarchy these days.
How does the picture look as to former Catholic countries becoming mission territory? Since JPII, with almost yearly papal visits abroad and annual Youth rallies, very few are joining the clergy. All the books by Karol W and Joseph R have come in the midst of one of the worst declines in history. Those the Vatican backed like the Legionnaires and Opus Dei are in disfavor. The NeoCathechuminates, the darling of John Paul II, are disowned by Rome. …..
Who is doing the reality check?