THE BENEDICTINESBenedictine order introA) The B.docx

THE BENEDICTINES
Benedictine order: intro
A) The Benedictines: INTRO
About 70 years after the fall of Rome, one finds Benedict of
Nursia .
He was born around 480 ce and died about 547.
You know that the Desert Fathers and Mothers have been
around since the 200’s…
… so the idea of Christian men and women living in prayer and
solitude is already centuries old
A monk named Pachomius is credited with the idea of those
Desert Hermits…
…forming into groups and living in community.

So by the time of St Benedict, the idea was a familiar one.
Benedict really made it work, though. He had a lot of common
sense, so his ideas about how to live in communities lasted!
His first abbey was founded in Italy in 529.
By 708, there were also Benedictine monasteries in France!
The following slide shows the monastery of Mont Saint Michel.
Mont Saint Michel; Wikipedia; 5 July 2011; Photo by DAVID
ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0
Mont Saint Michel; 20 11 2005 Wikipedia
Mont Saint Michel 15 09 2011 Ввласенко Wikipedia
Cloister inside Mont Saint Michel 9 9 2008 Wikipedia
One of the main “purposes” or “gifts” or “charisms” of the

Benedictine Monastery was HOSPITALITY.
Sometimes Benedictine monasteries even served as hospitals or
medical centers (“such as they were”) in medieval times.
Imagine wandering on foot, cold and hungry, and exhausted,
with no Motels in existence…and then seeing ahead of you..
…all lit up of course with candles and fire-places, instead of
gas….
Mont Saint Michel at night from land bridge; 20 09 2006 Benh
LIEU SONG Wikipedia
What a comfort that would be!
They would take you in…and you could spend the night
(HOSPITALITY) and feed you…
..and they had herbs and salves to give you, if you were feeling
ill or had blisters.
In the 900’’s, another French abbey, at Cluny, was founded.
In the 1100’s, it was consecrated by the Pope and had become
very powerful.

(the next slide shows where Cluny is located)
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=7gR
WEEGY&id=
472A6BF0DCAE757E31D01EF93C1603457BE41771&thid=
OIP.7gRWEEGYa4VSc5Y08VuEQgHaGJ&mediaurl=https%3a%
2f%2fwww.greyworldnomads.com
%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2018%2f01%2fWhere-is-Cluny-
Abbey-on-map-France
.jpg&exph=570&expw=686&q=cluny+monasteries+map&simid
=608003072965085976&selectedIndex=0&ajaxhist=0
In the following slide, you can see how all the IMPORTANT
MEN OF POWER were gathered around the consecration
(“blessing”) of this monastic complex.
Again: the Church is involved with culture, money, and power.
Consecration of Cluny by Urban II in 1100’s (Bibliotheque
Nationale) Wikipedia
The original Church from the 1100’s was destroyed. Additional
parts were built up over centuries.
Here is a model of how the whole thing looked in medieval
times.

A MODEL of how Cluny looked in medieval times, view from
south. The semi-detached
building on the LEFT is narrower…and is the “ante-church,”
with Barabans towers. The
gold-ish white roof is the tower which survives today (south
transept tower). Sacred destinations.com
Here is a picture of the FLOOR of that narrow part on the
left…the ante-church…
…you can still see where the pillar columns remain, like broken
tree trunks.
“CLUNY
Site of the huge antechurch or
porch (1130-90), in which the
foundations of pillars can be seen,
viewed from the west.”
http://www.sacred-destinations.com
/france/cluny-abbey-photos/slides
/xti_1625 (06 02 08; 4 pm)
In the same picture, on the right hand side, you can still see the
only surviving (goldish-white on the model) south transept
tower.

“CLUNY
Site of the huge antechurch or
porch (1130-90), in which the
foundations of pillars can be seen,
viewed from the west.”
http://www.sacred-destinations.com
/france/cluny-abbey-photos/slides
/xti_1625 (06 02 08; 4 pm)
Here is another close-up view of that south transept tower. It
was built in 1088 – 1130…
….so it was built even before the ante-church!
It is the only thing that remains of the original abbey.
Cluny became so powerful that it had hundreds of smaller
monasteries under its “administration” or “wing,” so to speak.
A WHOLE NETWORK OF MONKS AND NUNS!!!
These dependent monasteries were called “priories,” and they
spread across Europe!

Some people said that the abbot---or leader--- of Cluny was…
ALMOST (but not quite) as powerful as the Pope!
Some people said that the abbot of Cluny was ALMOST (but not
quite) as powerful as the Pope!
With power and hundreds of monasteries came a lot of
land…and a lot of corruption.
All of a sudden, monks didn’t have to be poor and focused on
God anymore.
They could have private two room suites including their own
bath and be focused on God!
So, like all long-lasting human institutions, the Benedictines
went through cycles of poverty, purity, corruption, and reform.
The Benedictines also played a large role in conserving texts,

and learning, during the chaos left by the Fall of Rome
(next slide = https://uwm.edu/graduateschool/professional-
development/the-scriptorium/
http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/palefont.html
https://www.broadsheet.ie/2016/10/10/at-the-scriptorium/
https://pages.uoregon.edu/klio/
maps/med/Great%20Monastic%
20Centers%20of%20Learning.jpg
There are still many Benedictines around today.

b) Saint benedict
Saint Benedict. Detail from a fresco by Fra Angelico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_of_Nursia
About 70 years after the fall of Rome, one finds Benedict of
Nursia .
He was born around 480 ce and died about 547.
Supposedly, Benedict did miracles…
…like healing a monk when a wall fell on him.
Saint Benedict Restores a Monk to Life
Depiction by Lorenzo Monaco (crushed by a falling wall…see
the “devil” near the wall!)

Even with such miraculous gifts, though, it was hard to get
people to live together in harmony!
Things always rise up to pull a community apart.
In the following slide, you can see a little devil who is
beckoning and enticing one of the monks…
…away from the light of community, and out into the dark
isolation of temptation and confusion.
Lorenzo Monaco. (devil tries to tempt a monk away from the
community)
Some of his monks, for example, thought that Benedict was too
harsh.
They began to hate him SO MUCH…that they decided to poison
his wine.
Fortunately for both Benedict and monasticism, his wine cup
(“miraculously”) shattered…
…allowing the poisoned beverage to seep harmlessly into the
ground instead.

SAINT BENEDICT
Francisco de Zurbarán (Spanish,
Fuente de Cantos 1598–1664
Madrid)
Date: ca. 1640–45
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 74 x 40 3/4 in.
(188 x 103.5 cm
The Benedictines
What Benedict is best known for, however, is his Rule…
…the ground-rules for how to Live Together in Community and
Prayer…
while not going Crazy or becoming Corrupt.
Why is the formation of such a community based on Prayer
important?
Well, left to our own devices, we’d probably just forget to pray.
The community reminds us.
Why not just withdraw totally from our busy lives like the
Desert Fathers, then, so that we don’t get distracted?

The life of the hermit is difficult.
Most of us cannot handle such a life. We would dissipate into
vice or weird neurotic loneliness. It would be of no benefit to
us whatsoever.
The Benedictines
However in a community, we would receive necessary support
to live a balanced, prayerful life centered on God.
St. Benedict’s Rule gives us the framework for this community.
The Benedictines
Benedict described his Rule in terms of a (huge) keg of beer.
If you put the spigot really high up, only tall people would be
able to reach it.
But if you put the spigot right in the middle of the cask,

…it is readily accessible for everybody.
That is like saying that if you make it REALLY HARD to live
this holy life in your monastery…
…the normal person would have to leave!!! They wouldn’t be
able to make it!
It has to be…not too hard…not too easy…not too hot…not too
cold…
…the sort of monk’s life that most of us could handle.
Thus the Rule of St. Benedict took a previous rule, the Rule of
the Master (the original monastic rule)…
… and made it much more sensible and balanced for the
common person.
The Benedictines
For example, the Rule of the Master required penance if one
were even a few seconds late for prayer.

The Rule of St Benedict , however, counsels that the group
prayer start just a bit late and slowly,…
… so that those who ARE running those few seconds late have
time to slip in un-noticed.
The Benedictines
Prayer, by the way, was 8 times a day:
Matins or Vigils (before night ends, just at dawn) ,
Lauds (early morning, after dawn),
Prime (around 7 am),
Terce (around 9 am),
Sext )(around noon),
None (around 3) ,
Vespers (evening),
and Compline (around sunset).

http://christdesert.org/Detailed/27.html.
Prayer centered on the Psalms.
One would pray all 150 psalms once a week.
The Benedictines
One lived in the same location for one’s whole life (vow of
stability).
Therefore one got to know the patterns of the weather, the way
that the ground smelled in spring, and the types of birds that
visited the monastery.
The Benedictines
The motto was Ora et Labore or Work and Pray.
One would eat, sleep, pray, and work, all while living with
other human beings in community.
The Benedictines

The chief Benedictine virtue is humility, or self-knowledge.
Prayer-meditation helps one in achieving it…although it takes a
life-time.
Of course interacting with people helps one to achieve it also.
You are living with the same group of people, day in and day
out, week in and week out, year after year.
The Benedictines
Benedictine Churches emphasize an incarnational type of
spirituality. They are beautiful, indicating that beauty can lift
one’s heart up to God.
They may include some icons, or a beautiful pipe organ, or nice
architecture.
The Benedictines
Like any other group of people, however, the Benedictines
became corrupt.
After awhile their monasteries were huge and wealthy.
People began to see that it was no longer about poverty…. so
much as it was about the amassing of vast tracts of land and a

lot of wealth.
So a reform movement arose to “purify” the Benedictine way of
life.
The Benedictines
This reform movement occurred in the 1000’s.
The Cistercians opted for a more simple lifestyle, and a
sparser, less luxurious physical plant.
Eventually they also needed to be reformed…and the cycle
continued.
CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING
Catechism.
Hart, John. What are they saying about Environmental
Theology
Vogt, Christopher. “Catholic Social Teaching and Creation,”

Green Discipleship: Catholic Theological Ethics and the
Environment ed by Tobias Winright (Winona, MN: Anselm
Academic, 2011) Noted as V
SOURCES
A. Catholic social teaching: introduction
Modern CST began in 1891, with Pope Leo XIII.
A. INTRO_CST
Pope Leo XIII
Wikipedia
Source: book on Pope Leo XIII
By Karl Benzinger
Pope Leo XIII wrote something called Rerum Novarum, because

he was worried about
“the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the
majority of the working class” (V, 221)
A. INTRO_CST
He thought it was important to set forth the “relative rights and
the mutual duties of the rich and poor” (V, 221)
Since Pope Leo XIII was the Pope, he was obviously (along
with the bishops) part of the magisterium, or “official teaching
body” of the Church.
This means that his words have “some authoritative claim” on
you, if you are Roman Catholic. (V, 223)
A. INTRO_CST
However since the 1950’s and the pontificate of Pope John
XXIII,
Catholic social teaching has also been addressed to “all people
of good will.” (v, 223)

B. The Common Good
One part of CST (Catholic Social Teaching)
Catholic social teaching’s definition of the common good has
developed over the last several decades.
It originally stemmed from an understanding of the human good,
taken from the Greek polis.
In ancient Greece, according to Aristotle, the “good of each
individual was inseparably linked to the quality of the common
good of the society in which they lived” (V, 224)

Since Catholics took their understanding of the common good
from the Greek tradition, the Catholic Catechism also states that
‘the good of each individual is necessarily related to the
common good” (1905).
And the Vatican II document Gaudium et Spes states that the
common good means: “the sum total of social conditions which
allow people, either as groups or as individuals, to reach their
fulfillment more fully and easily.” (Hart, 21-2).
For example: how good would your life be if:
You had no way to get a good education
You couldn’t go to a hospital when you were sick
You couldn’t see art, or read literature, or listen to music
The economy was so bad that you couldn’t get any job at all (V,
225)
Both the ancient Greeks and the Catholic Church are saying
something about who human beings are.

They both say that we “are social creatures who can develop to
[our]…full potential and achieve a deeply satisfying, good life
only when…[we]…participate actively in the life of a good
society” (V, 225)
In a word, “The common good concerns the life of all,”
(GS26.1; 1906 Catechism; Hart, 22).
Therefore it is “the responsibility of everyone in a community
to build up the common good” (V, 225)
Pope John XXIII said that thinking of the common good of a
nation was not enough; some goods cannot be achieved by the
actions of one nation alone.
Instead we have to think of the GLOBAL common good (V,
226)

The US Bishops agreed:
“Some of the gravest environmental problems” (for example)…
“are clearly global. In this shrinking world, everyone is
affected and everyone is responsible” (V, 226)
The same is true for non-environmental issues such as
immigration, or population growth, or the stock market/global
economies.
You should do things in a way which “will benefit the greatest
number.” (#2405)
This is true on the international, national AND individual level.
The stuff in your house…the stuff which you worked for, paid
for, and moved into your house for you and your family?
You should enjoy that stuff “with moderation, reserving the
better part for guests, for the sick and the poor.” (#2405)

So if the government were to say that it is “best for the common
good of society” if your house was leveled so that a freeway or
hospital could be built instead…
…the Church would agree (as long as it really WAS best for the
common good).
“Political authority has the right and duty to regulate the
legitimate exercise of the right to ownership for the sake of the
common good.” (#637)

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