CHAPTER 4 OF THE RULE OF BENEDICT FOR OBLATES

THE  INSTRUMENTS OF GOOD WORKS (Oblate version)

                                             by S. Ann Kessler  (Apr/ May,  2005)

Review excerpts from RB4—regarding ministry/service 
#’s 1-31; 72.

Chapter 4 of Benedict’s Rule is really very interconnected with stability, obedience and humility.  Benedict and St. Peter have the right idea about the real essence of humility.  In his First Letter Peter (5:5) tells us that we should wrap ourselves in humility in order to serve others.  If God favors the humble, Peter says, obviously the best way to achieve that humility is a life of ministry—a life of service—ministering to others.

Everyone is called to serve, even the Pope!  I recall well that most of the time Pius XII (in whose audience I once had the privilege of participating) and maybe other popes before and since would sign after their name –the Latin, “Servus servorum Dei.”  (Servant of the servants of God.)  I recall that in a church history class of mine decades ago, a college student expressed astonishment when I related this fact.  She found it hard to believe that even popes would and should regard themselves as serving, always ministering to, others.  We must not look at work as a job, but a ministry—serving others needs.

Service, we are told, is a form of, and forum for, humility.  Humility, in reality, is not the denying of one’s gifts or going about meekly letting others run all over us; it’s all about caring for those who need our care.   At times it even needs to be expressed assertively—demanding that Christian values be observed in all circumstances.  It’s taking on the mind of Christ and Benedict.

Instrument # 34 in RB4 calls for humility --“You must not be proud”.   But it is frequently understood as what it is not, that is-- seeking humiliations.  One can get very proud of one’s humility when one becomes   good at tolerating humiliations!

A Camaldolese nun, S. Donald Corcoran describes humility as “ seeing where we are in the scheme of things, understanding who we are before God and recognizing the demands of the Sacred.”  Humility, then, is gained by serving, not by seeking to be humiliated.

Humility and service are not exactly high priorities in this world.  Christian oblates and monastics, then, must live a counter-cultural mode.  That’s what Chapter 4 is all about.  In that chapter Benedict reminds us that “Your way of acting should be different from the world’s way.” (#20 in his list)  The world’s way, the cultural milieu, the general sought after priorities,  to which he refers is, of course, the choice of material, as opposed to spiritual values. Then Benedict goes on to list all the ways that make us different—countering the material culture, infusing a spiritual one wherever we can.  

Chapter Four of his Rule is all about how we must act out he spiritual values.    It is usually titled “Tools” or “Instruments of Good Works.”  It describes how we take on the mind of Christ.   Thinking of instruments, we may have the image of playing life like on a violin, or a piano, or a carpenter’s tool, or as in a kitchen blender—any instrument serving to help us  achieve our goal of living out the gospel.   I feel that in this circumstance I am really preaching to those who don’t need it, as oblates are outstanding for their service of others—but we all need to reminded occasionally that we are ministering, we are fulfilling the words of Christ related in Matthew’s gospel (whatsoever you do to others, you do to Me) and really acting out our prayer and contemplation in doing what Christ urged us to do.  We need to be aware that our every action for the good of another is a ministry – to them and to Christ Himself.  It shows our faith in Him.

What a different world we would have if Chapter 4 were universally implemented, especially that mandate to “never turn away someone who needs you or your love”—the 26^th instrument, which means that anyone who needs you, your time, your words, your gifts, your generosity should not be ignored, passed by, neglected, pawned off to someone else if one of us can respond as or more adequately than another.  Just imagine that if all were to follow Tool # 31, “Love your enemies” blessing them instead of cursing, how revolutionary and peaceful the globe would be. Instead of hoping that, or waiting for other persons to respond to someone’s need, if they ever will, it is up to us to put ourselves out for them if and when WE can.     

Dom Cyprian Smith in  The Path of Life—our study-text --commentary on the Rule for 2005-- reminds us of the values we must counter--the excessive, immoderate seeking of power, pleasure and money.   Of course we need some power to do good, some pleasure to enrich our lives, and some money to sustain them but—only in moderation.  Recall that Benedict  says that also about wine—okay in moderation!

Real pleasure  comes  from sharing who and what we are  with others, not being hedonistic like the proverbial playboy, or playgirl, who seeks only own his or her own selfish desires and entertainment at a cost to others.   Aristotle says that the greatest good (the summum bonum)  is happiness, but it is the contentment knowing that we are doing the right thing—not that we won’t have to endure days of sadness and trauma of all sorts, but remaining content—always  doing what is right and best—again,  as our conscience dictates. 

Money is needed to provide for those dependent on us, but not to make it the primary goal of one’s life--  how many millions does one need for personal financial security???? What drives billionaires to spend their lives adding more millions  and spending lavishly on themselves—not justly sharing with laborers, extended family and others in need and there are millions throughout this world?  My dad would always remind us that we should rejoice that we were only a lower middle-class family—one that had enough, but not too much, when one of us would voice some envy of a wealthier social elite.

Dick Francis, who writes whodunit novels bout horseracing (he is a former steeplechase jockey of Queen Elizabeth’s), calls a character in one of his books, a “moneyholic.”  He speaks of the disease of “moneyholism” certain millionaires have who are addicted to adding more and more to the abundant wealth they already have and never will use for the good of others.  That disease seems to be very prevalent in the Americas and Europe, but no less, it seems, among the elite few in Asia, Africa, and Australia as well.

Do riches bring happiness or contentment? It appears to us that it doesn’t.  One look at the lives of those famous and infamous persons of royalty, Hollywood, TV and the hundred wealthiest, and there seems little to envy, let alone admire.  Is the richest woman in the world, Queen Elizabeth, really happy?  How many more wives and how much wealth does Donald Trump need to make him happy?    

Materialism,  consumerism, waste, competition for prestige does not square with love of God and others.   Benedict’s Chapter 4 challenges us always to be counter-cultural, to adhere to the Christian values found in the New Testament,  to exemplify for others  and  to live out what Christ asks of us now and for the rest of our lives.  

RB 4 constantly urges us to follow the New Commandment, to give up the ancient pre-Christian custom of  demanding an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—the basis of the polytheistic early rulers’ so-called justice —known as Hammurabi’s Code, which badly needs debunking if we are to call ourselves Christian.  Revenge is not justice, is not Christ-like. I assume that we all saw TV clips of John Paul II forgiving, then praying with the man who had attempted to assassinate him.  That is being Christian.

“Thou Shalt Not Kill” among those familiar Ten Commandments Benedict repeats, also covers those who are mistakenly judged—or convicted as deserving of the death penalty. I’m aware of convicts sentenced for life (and have spoken to one) who spent their prison time changing their lives—seeking the spiritual—reading the bible in preparation for their “final exam.”  The one I knew taught English to the other convicts who would go back on the street.  The Pope did not want his would-be assassin to die; he wanted him to live and reform. 

Early Christians were urged to be pacifists, not to join wars to kill others.  St. Martin left the military when he became Christian.  Only when we lay down our lives to save others can anything else be justified.  That self-defense statement needs to be more closely examined.  Christ said that we can have no greater love than to lay down our lives for our friends.  That is the only time we may let someone or put ourselves in the way of being crucified, as He was.

Benedict’s chapter reminds us of the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.  Our founder is like St. James, who comments in his letter that faith must be shown in doing good works, and elsewhere we read that faith without works is dead.  We are told that if you want to know my faith, observe my good works.

Seemingly it is oblates and monastics, as well as members of other religious orders, who best live out all the works of mercy.    I am aware that so many of our oblates spend much of their time ministering to others insofar as they are able.  Oblates are  outstanding volunteers in their communities—caring for the needy whether it is taking them out to get groceries or shopping for needs; driving them to church services, doctors,  and elsewhere for appointments, serving them  at soup kitchens and other meals, visiting the sick,  distributing meals-on-wheels, as well as the Eucharist to the home-bound, participating in all kinds of fund-raising drives for good causes, contributing to food pantries for the low-income,  tutoring those who need help reading.    It is not surprising to find oblates honored as “volunteers of the month” or “of the year.” In fact, sometimes they may be overcommitted in ministering to the needs of others—not finding enough time for the solitude for lectio, prayer, or leisure—needed to sustain a life of ministry to others.

However, as you oblates integrate your prayer and ministry —seeing that their actions flow from your prayers and reflections – you are probably the least in need of more commentary on the Instruments of Good Works.  You may need, nevertheless, to be reassured often that your ministry to others is, as Christ tells us, a ministry to Him and that makes it holy—with the added joy that its reward is out of this world— life everlasting with Him whom you will have served so well and even contentment, happiness here in this world, in knowing that you have made a positive difference in someone else’s life by responding to one of their needs.

We are often reminded—and RB4 does that also-- that we must love God with our whole heart and soul and our neighbors as ourselves.  That assumes, of course, that because we know that we are loved unconditionally by God, that we also love ourselves—as that is necessary before we can love anyone else. Since God loves us, it means that we are all lovable.  But love isn’t limited to God and self, it includes everyone, especially those who are near and dear to us, those whose lives are touched by ours on a regular or irregular basis—family friends, co-workers, our superiors and supervisors on in our ministries (jobs, work, are integrated if made part of ministry to others consciously).

The Latin that Benedict used and that is generally translated as “neighbor” is “proximum” best translated as those who are proximate—near or next to us.   We need to keep in mind that whatever we do for someone else’s benefit,  whether its manual labor, white-collar or blue-collar, deskwork,  nursing, educating, or whatever occupation—if it will help others,  it is a ministry—and that includes not only direct response and  volunteering but in the business world as well.   The retail clerk who checks out purchases is serving the customer’s needs—is ministering.   It’s all about the awareness of God, responding to someone’s need —as long as what we sell, whom we assist in our clerking, making meals for our families and others—whatever we do is  to aid someone else or ease their way physically or spiritually through life we are ministering.

We are content, when we  know that  we do God’s will and that, as Matthew quotes Christ, whatever we do to and for others, we do to and for Him.  At the end, He says, those who ministered to others, will be the sheep He admits to eternal happiness, as opposed to the goats whom He places on the other side.

To repeat--it cannot be emphasized often enough that to give love, we must have love—feel loved and recognize that we are lovable.  We must convince ourselves that we are gifted and loved by God and others, so that what we have we can share with everyone else.  Love is the nicest thing around as someone put it—the more we give away, the more we have and get.  So RB4 calls for not only vertical loving, up to God, but also horizontal as well—to those laterally – here on earth.  How we love seems to be the only evaluation we will have to pass in eternity. The fullness of joy, Julian of Norwich said, is to see God in everything, and we may add, everyone. 

A homilist once mentioned this story to us.  A certain University professor of Social Work, decades ago,  sent out his graduate students  to the city’s slums to interview—to survey several hundred Middle School youths coming from families or single parents or relatives among the poorest of the poor.  The teenagers obviously had a total lack of opportunity, lived in grinding poverty, were generally minorities,  very poorly educated, untidy and unclean—often living in an immoral environment with a very bleak future and a cynical outlook about their years ahead.  The grad students were unanimous in reporting that the teenagers were in a hopeless situation, the obvious breeding ground for future delinquents and criminals.  Twenty five years later, the same professor sent out his new generation of students to survey those teens who were now a quarter-century older to follow up the same group considered hopeless earlier. 

These students were astounded to find that the 75% they were able to track after 25 years, had all become outstanding citizens; comfortably secure, with good jobs, functional families, admired by those whose lives they touched.  When questioned what had turned them around, they unanimously attributed their success to a teacher whom they had the good fortune to have touched their lives after being first surveyed decades before by the earlier class of students.   So the second group of grad students tracked down the retired idolized teacher, expecting to  learn of some major pedagogical, some classroom-type breakthrough,  that had made her so effective.  To their amazement, when asked her method—this woman, also a minority,  who had made such a difference in so many students’ lives, said simply  “I loved them!”  As Paul told the Romans and says to us –the life and death of each of us has its influence on the rest of us.    Putting RB 4 and the gospels into practice contributes to our and others’ happiness.  Those young students of hers had one need, to be found lovable.  When she convinced them they were—their confidence brought out their innate abilities and talents.

So what is the end result of all of our efforts to be for others? Benedict says we must keep death daily before our eyes.  All of us, some day, will die.  It’s one of those inevitabilities—I guess taxes are the other.  It is thoughtful of Benedict after scaring us to death about dying, to add that we should yearn to leave this world for the next.  Heaven is God Himself and heaven is not always confined to the other side of the grave—we can be happy here and hereafter or make it hell for ourselves and others here and hereafter.   When we fail, Benedict intimates,  it wasn’t the devil who made us do it.   We bring our spiritual failures on ourselves.  But all of us are human, so failure is a part of life.  No one is perfect until we reach the bright beyond where we will all be asked “How did you love?”  Christ, himself, according to Matthew 20: 16-17, told us that “anyone among you who aspires to greatness (read, heaven) must serve the rest, and whoever wants to rank first among you must serve the needs of all.”

Our Benedictine Federation president once related that she knew of a  man who had had an after-death experience.  This man said that he had actually reached the end of the tunnel usually described in after-death stories as lighted etc,. but he reached the end, the judgment seat.  He was asked only one thing—“How do you love?”  If we do the most loving thing and model for, as well as encourage others to do the same, even when circumstances call for tough love, we have nothing to fear when we near the end of this life.  We can be assured that to love is to be loved, to care is to be cared for—part of that hundred-fold promised in this lifetime.     Our prayers for others are important, but love must be generated from it.  The great contemporary Trappist Cistercian, Thomas Merton,  always maintained that contemplation must always result in action.

Someone named Bob Rowland, in a poem he entitled, “Listen, Christian, severely criticizes those of us who feel that all problems can be solved by prayer alone—forgetting that God put us in charge of each other so we could be doing as well as praying.  In free verse the poet said in part: 

I was hungry and you formed a humanities club

and discussed my hunger.   Thank you.

I was naked, and in your mind

you debated the morality of my appearance.

I was sick and you knelt and thanked God for your health.

I was homeless and you preached to me

of the spiritual shelter of the love of God.

I was lonely and you left me alone—to pray for me.

You seem so holy, so close to God but I’m still very hungry, and lonely, and cold.

Re: the spiritual shelter of the love of God.

We need to ask ourselves often—“What doth it profit a man or woman to page through a book of prayers while others need them to relieve their suffering of one kind or another?”   Listen to the Apostle James who wrote in his New Testament Letter:  “If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and no food for the day, and you say to them, good-bye and good luck!  Keep warm and well fed, but do not meet their bodily needs, what good is that?  So it is with the faith that does nothing in practice.  It is thoroughly lifeless.”  Happiness comes from holiness, from contentment in doing and being what we can.

If we expect life to be a bed of roses we had best remember the thorns that come with those beautiful flowers and that the thorns with which Christ was crowned during His Passion were also undeserved.    Life can often be like a bowl of cherries— but sometimes it can be the pits.  Then again, after reviewing our failings and being grateful for our gifts and for our call to minister to others, we can more often say to ourselves not just that when the going is tough,  the tough get going, but that, recognizing  the going may be tough here,   the rewards are certainly great hereafter.

We need also, frequently,  to remind ourselves that what we do for others is a ministry, not just a job, or work-- whether we cook a meal,  home,  sack or sell groceries in a store,  shovel the walks so no one falls,  mow the lawn to add beauty to the environment, recycle goods of all kinds, and care for those who need us, we are ministering—doing to others what Christ would have us do.  Others are dependent on us, but we are also dependent on others.

Someone once penned a document titled:  “A  Declaration of Interdependence.” I quote an excerpt:

“All people everywhere are dependent upon one another,         
Everyone needs everyone else for freedom, life,
love, and happiness.   That this universally shared
dependence comes from God and is of God.  And
that each individual in this great relationship has
his or her own part to play—their own destiny to
fulfill God’s plan.”

Benedict agrees.  He concludes in RB4 that all the seventy-two instruments he names can best be done by following his guidelines.  Thus the monastics and those living the Rule in their lives outside monasteries, insofar as they are able, will follow the principle that in all things God will be glorified and we can say with Julian of Norwich that “all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”  So—to paraphrase Christ’s words, go teach all nations; go practice all instruments of good works.   

Consequently, we should have no fear of death as Benedict concludes this chapter with a promise of a heavenly reward, merited through our daily good works.  It is an award absolutely unheard of.  He quotes scripture again that we can look forward to “What the eye has not seen nor the ear heard, what God has prepared for those to love Him.”  That love, we are told, is shown by lovingly attending to the needs of others.  So if we wonder if we are doing God’s Will, a check of Chapter 4 and also that of Chapter 72—putting the needs of others before ours—will suffice to reassure us that His Will is being done by us.

May God be served for Himself and in others throughout our lives and by our death—as we continue to act that “In all things God may be glorified.”