Br Cedd Mannion OSB reflects upon the teaching of St Benedict on the keeping of Lent.
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Lent is an important time for all Christians. This is perhaps especially true for monks, as St Benedict dedicates a whole chapter of his Rule for Monasteries to the keeping of Lent (click here to read). Chapter 49 suggests that during Lent the whole community should try to ‘keep its manner of life most pure and to wash away in this holy season the negligences of other times.’ This might suggest three aspects of Lent which Benedict sees as crucial.
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Firstly, the emphasis in ‘washing away … the negligences of other times’ is not upon making life difficult through some unbelievably penitential practice, but upon trying to be honest with ourselves; trying to identify those areas of our lives which – if we are honest – often get in the way, and prevent us being fully alive to ourselves, to our neighbours and to God. For Benedict, this principally meant things like ‘indulging evil habits’ and ‘scurrility’, and he suggests that we take on some measure of fasting, for example, to learn self-control and to create some space for God.
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Secondly, in ‘keeping our manner of life most pure’, we try to draw closer to God – the one thing necessary – and invite him to take up the space we have found. The two most important methods suggested by St Benedict for this are prayer and lectio divina, when we speak to God of our needs, and allow him to speak to us. This ‘purity of heart’ is an important monastic (and Christian) goal.
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Finally, Benedict does not offer his advice to individual monks, but to ‘the whole community’, and this is important. If Lent is to draw us closer to God, it will be something that we undertake together. It is important, then, that we pray for the fruitfulness not only of our own Lent, but also that of the whole community to which we belong, so that (as Benedict says) we may all ‘look forward to holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing.’ (RB49:7)
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Firstly, the emphasis in ‘washing away … the negligences of other times’ is not upon making life difficult through some unbelievably penitential practice, but upon trying to be honest with ourselves; trying to identify those areas of our lives which – if we are honest – often get in the way, and prevent us being fully alive to ourselves, to our neighbours and to God. For Benedict, this principally meant things like ‘indulging evil habits’ and ‘scurrility’, and he suggests that we take on some measure of fasting, for example, to learn self-control and to create some space for God.
zz
Secondly, in ‘keeping our manner of life most pure’, we try to draw closer to God – the one thing necessary – and invite him to take up the space we have found. The two most important methods suggested by St Benedict for this are prayer and lectio divina, when we speak to God of our needs, and allow him to speak to us. This ‘purity of heart’ is an important monastic (and Christian) goal.
zz
Finally, Benedict does not offer his advice to individual monks, but to ‘the whole community’, and this is important. If Lent is to draw us closer to God, it will be something that we undertake together. It is important, then, that we pray for the fruitfulness not only of our own Lent, but also that of the whole community to which we belong, so that (as Benedict says) we may all ‘look forward to holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing.’ (RB49:7)
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