Family life inspired by the Rule of St Benedict
"We do not speak great things: we live them"St Cyprian
"How wonderful is your dwelling place..."
Every domestic home is a dwelling place for God.
St Benedict's secret for family happines.
"When came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing"
The parable of the Prodigal Son presents us with a young man alone, starving and desperate who, after a long period of insensitivity, senses the birth within himself of an agonising nostalgia and a sweet hope: the memory of his father's house which, after so many illusions and delusions, offers him the image of a warm and welcoming home. "How many paid servants in my father's house have enough to eat, and here am I dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father..." How many prodigal sons there are in the world today, but how few warm and welcoming homes respond to the longing of their disillusioned hearts! Visiting an old family home, be it aristocracy, middle-class, or rural, abandoned or reduced to a museum, has there never re-awoken in you a secret yearning, accompanied perhaps by the thought: "Today we are no longer worthy to have such welcoming homes"?
"Listen carefully, my son..."
Do you want to be able to offer your children a home which is not a hotel room they're passing through, a free dormitory, a gathering place for people who are strangers to each other, but rather a home of peace and love, a safe harbour where comfort after the storms of life can be found? Fifteen centuries ago, when every trace of civilisation seemed about to disappear in a world shaken by barbarians, invasions, wars and plague, a man left a document full of wisdom to teach how a community can live in harmony and peace and thus form a real "house of God", where "no one may be disquieted or distressed": Saint Benedict. Today, couldn't his teaching prove to be valuable not just for men and women consecrated to God, but also for young and not so young families?
"Therefore we intend to establish a school for the Lord's service"
So what is special about the teaching of St Benedict? Isn't everything already in the Gospel? And aren't missionaries, the servants of the poor or sick or even politicians and revolutionaries more important than monks enclosed in their monasteries? Benedict does not directly create missionaries, nor servants of the poor or sick, and even less politicians or revolutionaries: however he creates concrete conditions so that human life in a community – human life which normally cannot be but communal – can be lived out in a Christian manner in all its daily detail without any obstacles, and even with a continual stimulus for improvement. So it is about establishing how one sleeps, eats and works, how time, silence, common and private prayer are all respected, how the house must be built so that it may "be in the care of wise men who will manage it wisely." From the abstractions of spirituality or plans for social improvement one comes down to the level of incarnating the Gospel in the flesh of the everyday. Then the monks will do all the good works demanded by love of neighbour, but without ever omitting the most immediate duties towards the community in which they live and which gives them material and spiritual support, and so makes them also capable of bringing help to the world, not just with ingenious ideas or extraordinary activity, but also and above all through the example of charity exercised in everyday life.
The monastic family a model for the natural family
So in the light of the Rule of St Benedict and subsequent Benedictine tradition, the modern family should ask itself: What time do we get up? How and when do you pray together? What does the building look like? Is there space for worship? How do you eat? How are set times respected? What are the work rotas so that everyone learns mutual service? What use is made of modern means of communication so that they do not take over everything nor wipe out every human and natural relationship? What should be the times of rest and silence? What books are circulating round the house? What is the function of the library? What type of music, what songs are liked and sung? What type of clothes are worn? What pictures, what sort of art decorates the house?
"What is sweeter for us than this voice of the Lord that invites us, dearest brothers?"
Have you never thought of it? Aren't you curious? Are you called? Attracted? Do you want to know more?
A suggestion...
Your best human and Christian intentions often remain ineffective if they are not shared and supported by the people you live with. Is the ordinary way of life of a modern human family a help or rather an obstacle to your deepest aspirations?
Without an environment and social custom which sustains it in daily life, the life of the individual cannot come to fruition according to an ideal of human and Christian integrity. That means that it is not sufficient to evangelise the intelligence of an individual with beautiful catechesis and it is not even sufficient to evangelise the individual's heart, will and good works with the practice of the evangelical virtues: it is necessary to create social environments regulated in everyday life by customs correctly inspired by human and Christian wisdom and shared by all. Now, what is human life's fundamental social environment, the easiest to reach, the one most open to listening and which is very close to the heart of the Church? The family, naturally. But unfortunately it, too, is exposed to the greatest degradation, so that the life that is lived at home almost universally suffers conditioning by common trends passively accepted as inevitable destiny. Faced with such a widespread habit which, without asking permission, even before co-existence can begin, installs itself as boss of the house, individuals – be they husband, wife, children – feel and are impotent. Television always on and available for every kind of message, uncontrolled and often very precocious and irresponsible use of modern electronic means of communication and gadgets (internet, playstation, games and electronic gadgets, mobile phones, etc.), schedules disregarded, not turning up at meals, young people coming back at night when they want, books, magazines, newspapers and comics of a shoddy type which are found all round the house without a care, young people's dress sense ready to follow any fashion without any restraint, pseudo-music which wafts around the house or sneaks into the brain through headphones, ornaments and pictures of every type and taste – rarely of beautiful, classical art or religion -, parents and children always absent, with the focus of their interests always outside the home. What else? Is it possible in this context not to remain a victim of the prevailing social custom, of the most cynical commercial propaganda, of rampant immorality through the most powerful modern means of mass communication? What is the point of wonderful sermons and beautiful catechesis? Returning home, even the most well-disposed individual will find him/herself defenceless in the face of his/her family environment.
If you do not want your family to be an obstacle to the good which is in you, won't it be necessary to buck the trend and reform the common fashion, rather than accept it passively as an inevitable occurrence? But how? Perhaps Saint Benedict can give you some good suggestions
St Benedict and the monastic tradition wanted to order the daily life of a community in the light of human and Christian wisdom, so that the individual who wants to live in a Christian manner may not be thwarted, but on the contrary might be supported in his/her choice of life by the community of which he/she is a part. This ordering has two elements: the practical arrangement of actions and the inner disposition which must animate them. The first element comprises the ways and times to be followed in the various areas of work (that is, work, rest, meals, going out, dress, etc.). The second comprises the associated spiritual dispositions, that is humility, obedience, charity, prayer, listening to God, etc. and the concrete conditions which encourage them. From these two elements and from their interweaving comes a complete and detailed picture of community life, the fruit of reappraisal about the preceding monastic tradition put into practice by St Benedict after years of experience and then subsequently developed by his followers down the centuries.
We will now try to gather from this tradition the various aspects, external and internal, which should order the life proper to a family which, with Benedictine human and Christian wisdom, wants to escape today's prevailing disorder. First of all we will try to list two types of dispositions – external and internal – inspired by the Rule of St Benedict and its developments and adapted to the spirit of a family.
- External dispositions concern work (domestic, professional, creative), rest, meals, dress, going out, surroundings, furnishings, tools.
- Internal dispositions will depend in large part on those aspects of family life ordered more directly to nourishing the heart and mind: prayer, common and in private, charity within and beyond the family, mutual service, fraternal dialogue, the times and manners of conversation and silence, reading, study, music, sacred and secular song, relaxation and the more traditional arts, the modern means of entertainment, artistic expression and communication, the organisation of the house (a place of worship, the library, the setting for work together, the artistic decoration, devotional objects and images).