Next week I'm scheduled to give a retreat on Humility and the Rule of Benedict. All summer I've been thinking about this topic, and now I have a week to put it down on paper. So, here I'll be practicing some of the main ideas of the retreat before an "audience."
Humility sounds like a bad word today; we think of authorities trying to squash individuality and creativity by promoting humility and meekness. Christ was humble, however, and he calls us to be humble as children (Mt 18:1-5) so as to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Humility can be thought of as Christlikeness, as Michael Casey points out in "A Guide to Living in the Truth: Saint Benedict's Teaching on Humility." Margaret Funk adds that humility is THE Christian virtue, just as "enlightenment" is the ideal for Buddhists. So, there's good reason to meditate on humility in our Christian life.
Saint Benedict devotes the largest chapter in his Rule to the topic of Humility, Chapter 7. His teaching did not spring up out of nothing, but must be read in view of the monastic tradition before him. Firstly, there is the scriptural basis for humility, and references to this virtue abound in the New Testament. The desert monastics emphasized humility also as an ideal for contemplatives to be like Christ.
John Cassian (ca. 360-435) collects teachings on humility, and organizes a series of signs that one is progressing in this virtue. As my novicemaster Fr. Harry points out, Cassian's ideal of humility was the Abbot Pinufius. Pinufius was highly honored and esteemed as the abbot of a large community. One day he fled away from the monastery to take up residence in another community where he was unknown. He did not tell anyone of his status as abbot, and was treated to simple, humble manual labor. A radical example of humility, and hard to follow. By thus humbling himself, however, Pinufius grew in all the virtues and led a life of apostolic love.
Later, before Benedict writes his Rule, the unknown author of the Rule of the Master takes over Cassian's teachings on humility. The Master's vision is of a difficult ascetical climb up the ladder of humility. The monk is supposed to humble himself in various ways, and only in heaven will he find his reward and exaltation. This vision of humility does not attract us today.
Benedict copies much of the Master's chapter on humility, but edits most of the talk of heaven. In his Rule, Benedict has a practical and attainable description of the ladder of humility. The reward of humility comes even in this life, when a monk finds that love "which casts out fear" and enables him to do good things out of love rather than fear. This treatment of humility leads to a more humane level of humility, even if some of his examples rankle us today as excessive.
Humility sounds like a bad word today; we think of authorities trying to squash individuality and creativity by promoting humility and meekness. Christ was humble, however, and he calls us to be humble as children (Mt 18:1-5) so as to enter the Kingdom of heaven. Humility can be thought of as Christlikeness, as Michael Casey points out in "A Guide to Living in the Truth: Saint Benedict's Teaching on Humility." Margaret Funk adds that humility is THE Christian virtue, just as "enlightenment" is the ideal for Buddhists. So, there's good reason to meditate on humility in our Christian life.
Saint Benedict devotes the largest chapter in his Rule to the topic of Humility, Chapter 7. His teaching did not spring up out of nothing, but must be read in view of the monastic tradition before him. Firstly, there is the scriptural basis for humility, and references to this virtue abound in the New Testament. The desert monastics emphasized humility also as an ideal for contemplatives to be like Christ.
John Cassian (ca. 360-435) collects teachings on humility, and organizes a series of signs that one is progressing in this virtue. As my novicemaster Fr. Harry points out, Cassian's ideal of humility was the Abbot Pinufius. Pinufius was highly honored and esteemed as the abbot of a large community. One day he fled away from the monastery to take up residence in another community where he was unknown. He did not tell anyone of his status as abbot, and was treated to simple, humble manual labor. A radical example of humility, and hard to follow. By thus humbling himself, however, Pinufius grew in all the virtues and led a life of apostolic love.
Later, before Benedict writes his Rule, the unknown author of the Rule of the Master takes over Cassian's teachings on humility. The Master's vision is of a difficult ascetical climb up the ladder of humility. The monk is supposed to humble himself in various ways, and only in heaven will he find his reward and exaltation. This vision of humility does not attract us today.
Benedict copies much of the Master's chapter on humility, but edits most of the talk of heaven. In his Rule, Benedict has a practical and attainable description of the ladder of humility. The reward of humility comes even in this life, when a monk finds that love "which casts out fear" and enables him to do good things out of love rather than fear. This treatment of humility leads to a more humane level of humility, even if some of his examples rankle us today as excessive.
