In his Rule for Monks, Saint Benedict (c. 480) writes,
These strong monks live in community; they are cenobites (from kenos, common, and bios, life). It's not enough to live together, we need to make some kind of commitments, too, to shape our lives according to the life of Christ. If you don't make these vows, or you make them and break them all the time, Benedict has other descriptions for you.
When a young man (or middle-aged) man leaves the community to be a hermit, and he's not ready to be one yet, maybe he's running away from something. I think these hermits are afraid of their vow of obedience. Without an Abbot, without brothers, who can you listen to? Who can tell you when you've gone off the deep end? To whom can you be charitable, all alone out in the desert?
Stability is the first vow, the ground for the other vows, and if you break it you're the worst kind of monk. We've all got a little bit of the false-hermit, the Sarabaite, the Gyrovague in us. That's why it's hard to keep our promises and live according to the Gospel. Keeping promises is always hard, because we never know how circumstances will change, how I will change, how the other people will change.
As beginners we are wise to follow Benedict's good counsel and make and keep all three promises. If we do that, we will come to learn that God's presence, that for which we long and seek with our whole being (in our best moments, anyway), is already here, already committed and faithful to us.
It is well known that there are four kinds of monks.Benedict asks these monks, who are just starting out in the monastic life, to make three vows. The Benedictine vows pre-date the other religious orders, and so are unique to us as monks: Stability, Fidelity to the monastic way of life, and Obedience.
The first kind are the Cenobites:
those who live in monasteries
and serve under a rule and an Abbot. (Chapter 1)
These strong monks live in community; they are cenobites (from kenos, common, and bios, life). It's not enough to live together, we need to make some kind of commitments, too, to shape our lives according to the life of Christ. If you don't make these vows, or you make them and break them all the time, Benedict has other descriptions for you.
The second kind are the Anchorites or Hermits:To be a hermit is a good thing; Benedict himself started out as a hermit. Maybe it's not a good idea to become a hermit too early, though, if you are too young and not tested and trained in the spiritual life. Being a monk involves a lot of spiritual warfare. Hermits are expert soldiers who face the demons alone in the desert. If you go out too early, too young, too green, you'll fail.
those who,
no longer in the first fervor of their reformation,
but after long probation in a monastery,
having learned by the help of many brethren
how to fight against the devil,
go out well armed from the ranks of the community
to the solitary combat of the desert.
They are able now,
with no help save from God,
to fight single-handed against the vices of the flesh
and their own evil thoughts. (Chapter 1)
When a young man (or middle-aged) man leaves the community to be a hermit, and he's not ready to be one yet, maybe he's running away from something. I think these hermits are afraid of their vow of obedience. Without an Abbot, without brothers, who can you listen to? Who can tell you when you've gone off the deep end? To whom can you be charitable, all alone out in the desert?
This third kind of monk is never good, and they're not really monks. They want to pretend to be religious, but they have no discipline. They do whatever they want, and say that's what's right for them (sound familiar, moral relativism?). On my account, Sarabaites (sera-bay'-ites) break the vow of Fidelity to the monastic way of life. They're never challenged, they never grow, they never become monks.
The third kind of monks, a detestable kind, are the Sarabaites.
These, not having been tested,
as gold in the furnace (Wis. 3:6),
by any rule or by the lessons of experience,
are as soft as lead.
In their works they still keep faith with the world,
so that their tonsure marks them as liars before God.
They live in twos or threes, or even singly,
without a shepherd,
in their own sheepfolds and not in the Lord's.
Their law is the desire for self-gratification:
whatever enters their mind or appeals to them,
that they call holy;
what they dislike, they regard as unlawful. (Chapter 1)
The fourth kind of monks are those called Gyrovagues.This last kind, the worst kind, the Gyrovagues (jy'-roh-vaygs) break their vow of stability. They never stay in one place long enough to make a commitment, to do any work, to learn to love people. They think everyone likes them because it's easy to be nice to a stranger. The thing is, however, that they don't love, really love, anyone, and they're always superficial.
These spend their whole lives tramping from province to province,
staying as guests in different monasteries
for three or four days at a time.
Always on the move, with no stability,
they indulge their own wills
and succumb to the allurements of gluttony,
and are in every way worse than the Sarabaites.
Of the miserable conduct of all such
it is better to be silent than to speak. (Chapter 1)
Stability is the first vow, the ground for the other vows, and if you break it you're the worst kind of monk. We've all got a little bit of the false-hermit, the Sarabaite, the Gyrovague in us. That's why it's hard to keep our promises and live according to the Gospel. Keeping promises is always hard, because we never know how circumstances will change, how I will change, how the other people will change.
As beginners we are wise to follow Benedict's good counsel and make and keep all three promises. If we do that, we will come to learn that God's presence, that for which we long and seek with our whole being (in our best moments, anyway), is already here, already committed and faithful to us.
