I'd like to begin by reading from the conclusion of Chapter 7 of the Rule. Now therefore, after ascending all these steps of humility, the monk will quickly arrive at that perfect love of God which casts out fear. Through this love, all that he once performed would dread. He will now begin to observe without effort, as though naturally from habit, no longer out of fear of hell, but out of love for Christ, good habit, and delight in virtue. All this the Lord will, by the Holy Spirit, graciously manifest in his workmen, now cleansed of vices and sins. That third link in the triad of virtues we began with last night is, of course, humility.

[01:03]

And there's a little question in my mind that the key to understanding the spiritual topography of Benedict and the monastic tradition is this virtue. It's significant that the longest chapter in Benedict's rule by far is the one he reserves for humility. And in light of the modern disdain for anything humble being attached to human development, it might be helpful to know, first of all, what this monastic virtue of humility is not. It's certainly not humiliation. It's not the systematic breaking down of egos of new recruits, the type of monastic version of a marine boot camp, nor is it some type of robotic submission to authority. I think we examined that when we were talking about obedience last night.

[02:09]

It should never be an opening for authority to exploit feelings of shame and guilt. that will cause spiritual distortion rather than growth. Nor is it a competition over who can have the most negative self-image, because true humility always builds upon the foundation of a sound and a strong sense of self-esteem. Nor is it an institutional insistence on uniformity. certainly generations of the people we affectionately call the characters in monastic life. You may not have them here at Mount Savior, but we have them elsewhere. They constitute a sufficient evidence to dispel the distortion we're all the same thing. Nor does it disregard the voice of another person or prevent their voice from being heard. But on the positive side, I think we should say at the outset that humility is concerned with the truth about ourselves and the correct stance from which to interpret that truth.

[03:25]

You know, I'm a big fan of Michael Casey, and some of you, I'm sure, are familiar with the book he wrote several years ago on chapter 7, A Guide to Living the Truth. And I think that's a very good exposition of what humility is all about for Benedict. And the truth about anyone on the spiritual journey is that We are not divine, and we have an inbuilt capacity to deceive ourselves about what the truth is. One of the saving graces of midlife and beyond is that we come to know our woundedness better. And humility helps to set aside the mask that tries to disguise such woundedness. That doesn't always come easy. As I mentioned last evening, I think people in 12-step programs come to that realization much better than the rest of us.

[04:30]

But we should also say that humility in the monastic tradition is a disposition of heart before it is a virtuous act. It's manifest in a willingness to be saved. in an openness to God acting in one's life, even though these actions might come in strange disguises. Humility means taking the risk of having someone else see our inner thoughts in a way that rips off all those masks. It is the entry for Benedict into the paschal mystery where we come to know that by stripping ourselves of pretense, what Thomas Burton called the false self, we become aware of who we really are. You know, we had the Philippians reading again this morning at vigils, and it's just so emblematic of what Saint Benedict wants for us, to have this stripping off of all this distortion and affectivity that is part of our life.

[05:43]

And we devote so much energy to creating that mask, that when we're finally free of it, it's so liberating. But of course, this is at cross purposes with the accepted wisdom of our secular culture, a culture that's not so much interested in self-honesty as self-improvement. We live in a therapeutic society, and that society often conspires to paint the mask rather than to take it off. The monastic tradition certainly has never been much into burnishing our public image. And what the seventh chapter of the rule and legions of individual Benedictine men and women have tried to do is lay claim to what amounts to a spiritual self-improvement program that has a direct effect on our corporate wellness.

[06:44]

Perhaps one of the most dispiriting observations noted by a lot of social critics is the culture of narcissism that has flowered in so many parts of our world, a culture that our media proudly export, and one that flies in the face of ego deflation that is the normal process of formation in any monastery. What Benedict does in chapter 7 of the Rule is give us a process, not so much of personal humiliation, but of personal integration. Recall he uses that biblical image of Jacob's ladder, and he invites the aspirant to enter into this pathway of paradox. Fr. Albert Vogel gives us a sound spiritual anthropology for interpreting this image when he says that the sides of the ladder in which each of the 12 degrees is fixed are the body and the soul.

[07:51]

One rises to the highest level of humility by jettisoning the baggage of the mask and the mirrors we have so assiduously acquired. Benedict's ladder requires a stripping of the layers of pretense to arrive at that part of ourselves that's most authentically human. In a fashion that many psychologists today would find agreement with, Benedict moves in a spiritual spiral from fear to love. from behavior that is externally motivated to behavior that is instinctual and freely chosen. And of course, the spiritual motivation is what we find in both the third degree of humility and that final culmination of the latter, pro dei amore, for the love of God. That is what moves us to this state. It is certainly a process of transformation when we are so impregnated with the mindfulness of the love of God that our personal compulsions dissipate and we find ourselves, as Benedict says, operating out of good habit and delight in virtue.

[09:13]

But the way of humility requires that we only come to that point after we've come to terms with our own indigence. and have awakened a desire to be restored to God's likeness. Abba Alonius said, if I had not destroyed myself completely, I would not have been able to rebuild and reshape myself again. Again, this paradoxical soundness of simply rebuilding ourselves and recapturing what is most authentic, most God-like in our person. I don't think Benedict would have been comfortable with the climate of individualism that marks so much of our life today. On one level, the ladder of humility is presented as a way of providing a cathartic for the elements of individualism at work in our culture, elements we know that detract from the common wheel of any community.

[10:27]

But we should also remember, Benedict would have been a respecter of individuality, not the same as individualism. because he recognizes he's sensitive to the differences in personality and background that people bring into the monastery. He respects that. He was not about producing some cookie cutter model of a monk, but he created a spiritual roadmap where people of diverse traits could find in their own way the truth about themselves. The ladder of humility is certainly a spiritually and psychologically healthier alternative than pursuing our own illusions or entering the dangerous territory of our own compulsions. It helps to realize as well the Latin root of that word humility, humus, Latin for soil,

[11:33]

Those who work with the soil, and those here in this room certainly have a familiarity with that, know the truth about themselves in a way that allows for no pretense. Growing things reveal the truth about ourselves and the world around us. One of the seminal insights of Michael Casey is that Humility leads us to a recognition of who we really are before God. Whatever keeps us from being humble is nothing less than a de-formation of our nature. And of course, one of the ways that truth is brought before us is through another person. That may be one reason why, on his ladder of humility, Benedict makes the point of exhorting the monk to entrust inner thoughts, especially those that may be sinful or shameful, to a superior or elder.

[12:36]

And the encounter, I think, resembles not so much a clinical therapy session as it does confiding in a soul friend whose primary interest is the salvation of our soul. And if people are truly interested in that, above all, we should create no barriers. The standard model of that, of course, is a spiritual director or confessor. And as such, it stands in marked contrast to a current tendency of people to air family secrets and personal scandals to the widest possible audience through our social means of communication. In the monastic tradition, secrecy can easily undermine the spiritual health of the disciple. But that doesn't imply a collective transparency as the only alternative. The structures of life in the monastery ensure accountability, but never at the cost of exploiting a person's weakness for vulnerability.

[13:50]

I think we need to see, both in the moral sphere and in human development, that confidentiality is important. And again, the motives for confidentiality are the common good. It's quite different than the type of secrecy, for example, that surrounded sexual abuse cases in our church in the last 20 years. There is, I think, part of the rule, too, that deals with the code of discipline. Recall where Benedict provides for wise and mature monks to send pecte, to urge a sinning monk to be humble by giving the erring brother support, prayer, and affirmation. It's noteworthy to see as well that Benedict cites humility as the hallmark virtue to be manifest by the person entrusted with the care of community goods in chapter 31, and those who handle the guests in chapter 53.

[14:57]

And people certainly with experience in the monastic community can verify a seller or a guest master with too inflated an idea of himself is not likely to edify the people he's supposed to serve. So too, the monks entrusted with caring for the sick in chapter 36 are to know that the very experience will bring them a steepened sense of the truth about themselves. If you've dealt with sick people for any period of time, you know that. And I'll mention later in retreat something about Sean Vanier and the L'Arche communities, how that happens through dealing with the disabled as well. If there is an ironic overlay about people vying to be humble, it certainly beats the collective arrogance that we see as a substitute in so much of our culture today. Who's number one? Who's first?

[15:59]

But that too is, I think, a manifestation of a rather perverse perfectionism. We have perfectionists in the monastery. We have them everywhere else. And I'm sure they were in Benedict's first monasteries. And as much as their perfectionism tries to be like God or introduces compulsions that try to change people, they need to be disabused of their narcissism. A monastic spirit of humility knows that perfection resides in God alone, and the sinfulness that clings to us is enough to ensure that the last thing we should be concerned about is imposing our personal categories of goodness on others. I think it's worthwhile at this point to remember another word that comes from humility, humor. A self-deprecating sense of humor is a sure antidote to any pretentious or pride.

[17:05]

And along with that is a generous sense of irony, as we are to be God's instruments of his grace. God does have a sense of humor. Another thing, you know, in our modern life is what I would call the blame game. We have this society of victimhood, and no one is spared the necessary self-inventory. One of the illusions of so many contemporary Christians is that their frailty or their moral failure is not evident to others. I think that may say a lot about how self-absorbed people are. And you listen to some conversations among adults who are mature and supposedly productive people, and the pretensions are just all too palpable.

[18:18]

You also can, of course, have that happen with the younger generation. As I've mentioned before, for the last 35 years, I've been teaching adolescents five days a week, nine months of the year, and that's an occupation that permits me to see at first hand the closed world of people who are saturated with themselves. One of my real calls, I think, is to pop their eagle balloons with some regularity, and I do that. But, you know, The impulse they have for the concentration and self-absorption goes with the territory. They're adolescents, you know. It's a lot worse when you see it in their parents. And we do. And this cult of me that we see today is certainly generational and that has been passed on. The parents, for example, were so conscious of choosing the right college for their children, living in the right neighborhoods, having all those status symbols.

[19:28]

They don't go unnoticed by the children. Quite in contrast to all this drive for success and self-absorption, The Benedictine tradition teaches that the acquisition of humility comes only after a long internship of letting go of our personalized agendas, accepting the normative wisdom of a common rule and observance. That common code of life ultimately trumps any attempt to resist it to the channel of individualism. And it will result in isolation or alienation of the person, sad to say. I do think monastic communities probably internalize the traditional sense of religious or Catholic guilt as deeply as anyone. But I don't think we became as enmeshed in this neurosis of a type of Jansenistic guilt or self-denigration.

[20:32]

Benedict and his world this sense of human culpability and to give it. And, you know, we have, and especially in Pope Francis today, this understanding that with our sinfulness always comes God's mercy, which of course is that a great end to chapter four, and you never lose hope in God's mercy. And the humble person is able to say that with conviction and with true faith that it will happen. Humility is certainly about more than self-effacement. Even to eliminate the self-consciousness of status and privilege is no assurance that persons will be able to face the truth about who they are. But as described by Benedict, and has lived by generations of those who follow the monastic way of life, humility has to start from an interior disposition before it's manifested by any external indices.

[21:39]

It presumes a sound interior life. It presumes people around us from whom we can fix our personal bearing and people who keep us humble in both a practical and spiritual sense. With that is, I think, an important dimension. We talk about fraternal correction, but an openness to being corrected is so important for growing into spiritual life. And the older we are, the more that should be evident. It's very difficult, not just for superiors, but for other members of the community. I remember a few weeks ago just being very saddened by a member of our community who obviously did not want to take a correction. And the instinctive thing is to pray for the person, but how sad. But also how important that we have the correction. I don't know, did you talk about the corrector at Christ in the Desert here?

[22:46]

Actually, it's an ancient monastic tradition, but, you know... Poor guy, he has to do it. Is it still just for a year? I'm not sure now. At the time, it was me. make things worse by a couple of things we can just say that is the superior's job you know if brother so-and-so who is constantly you know on my nerves is going to be improved as the superior's job. I think what we have to do is have the love for the person that motivates us to, in a very charitable but very honest way, say, you know, brother, do you realize that's really causing me great distress? And I'm happy to hear what you have to say, but put it out and make the correction something that is not done when the person is not going to hear about it, you know, with another confrere who's going to add his own pound of flesh.

[23:52]

Openness to correction is certainly one more index of humility at work. And I think it accepts the limitedness and the sinfulness that's inside all of us. My own experience is that the greatest saints the truly holy people of our own time and place, all realize their own fragile and fallible human character. And it's very moving to me when you see that type of humility manifest. We had an abbot in our community who, after doing meditation and prayer, decided he was going to step down. And a lot of people in the community had no idea what was going to happen, so he called the community together and he gave his statement. And it was very moving because he talked about his own fragility and his failures.

[24:57]

And it was not done in some self-justifying way. It just was a heartfelt manifestation of, I'm sorry if I have hurt any of you. And you can tell that that's put on. It was not. It was right from the heart. And it, I think, touched all of us. And certainly the words of Jesus in the Gospels should convince us of the fact he came to call sinners. And, you know, our own sinfulness stares us in the face every day of our lives. There are other people around us to remind us of our frailty, and that is something we should give thanks for and not exercise some of the other responses of passive aggression for. So humility is the ultimate spiritual reality check. It puts us in touch with the truth about ourselves, and the world around us. It rejects the inflated sense of self and entitlement that I think are still so much of church and state at the time we live in.

[26:08]

In its place, the wisdom of monastic centuries posits the most basic truth of how we relate to the world and how we stand before God. And in tandem with obedience and silence, it forms us into the pattern of the Christ who calls us to witness to the splendor of the truth. We'll get on this evening with some of the vows of monastic life.

[26:37]

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