A Sick Society and RB 36?

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Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

St Benedict’s View of Sickness

Blue gloves and face coverings are now so familiar in the West, we have almost forgotten what they symbolize. They say we are sick, as indeed we probably are, but with a sickness that goes beyond the physical. All I have written in the past about RB 36 and Care of the Sick (and I have written a great deal as a quick search of this blog will reveal) has tended to concentrate on an analysis of the text and our movement from giving care to receiving care. This morning, however, as we re-read the chapter, I was struck by how clear and uncompromising Benedict is about what we owe each other.

Care of the sick comes above and before everything else, ante omnia et super omnia, no matter how good, holy, apparently necessary or advantageous anything else may be. In the light of the very mixed signals coming from the U.K. government, that is worth thinking about. Politicians and civil servants may be confused; economists may be reluctant to concede that striving for growth is not always appropriate; and scientists will continue to argue, as scientists should, about the best way to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and the threat of respiratory and other viruses following in its wake. For the majority of us, the response will be more personal and individual.

Concerns about Current Attitudes

I am not alone in feeling uneasy about the ‘dog-in-the-manger’ attitude many Western countries have shown regarding sharing anti-COVID vaccines with poorer nations. In the same way, I find quite alarming the readiness of some heads of state to sacrifice the health and lives of the people they were elected to serve to frankly loopy ideas of their own that lead to much suffering and loss. But it is not an easy question to solve at national/international level.

At a personal level, it is much simpler. Like it or not, we have a duty of care towards others and that includes being prepared to sacrifice a personal good for a greater social good. As you might expect, given my respiratory vulnerability, the prospect of ‘Freedom Day’ does not fill me with unalloyed joy. Until now, I have regularly worn a mask to protect others and have been irritated by workmen and others who refuse to wear one inside our house — only a few, but enough to remark upon. I suspect even more will refuse after 19 July, especially those who take their ideas of right and wrong from what is allowed by the law, i.e. if it is not a criminal or civil offence, it is alright.

Serving Christ

A Benedictine would say we serve Christ in the person of the sick. What is often overlooked is that the sick serve Christ in the person of the well. For the one doing the caring, it is a case of being alert to the needs of the sick person and being patient with them; for the sick it is a case of not being over-demanding, of allowing the carer to serve — hard as that may seem at times! Where, I think, both come together, is in their response to the moral dimension of sickness. There is a lot going on about healthcare in the UK, a lot that tugs at our understanding. I don’t pretend to have any answers, only questions gradually taking shape. It would be good if you would share yours — without blaming or party-political ranting, please.

The Rule of St Benedict in English for 15 July, RB 36, On Sick Brethren

RB36
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Kitchen Work

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Tomatoes for the Table

It is strange how, in the past and perhaps even today, certain kinds of work are regarded as menial and the people who do them as inferior. I remember some sort of gathering at which a Swedish nun and I were introduced to someone as the monastery’s cooks. The person to whom we were introduced couldn’t move away quickly enough but seemed to think better of it once she learned more about our backgrounds. It was then our turn to be a little reserved.

St Benedict in his chapter on the monastery’s kitcheners (RB 35), which we begin re-reading today, not only assumes everyone who can will take their turn at cooking and serving but also that such service increases charity in a community and secures a richer reward for the individual. Our competence is secondary, though that can be difficult to accept. Even culinary disasters (I’ve perpetrated a few myself) can be an occasion of grace, not just Gaviscon.

Why do we think of some work as important and other work as inconsequential? I don’t know, but I have a hunch it has to do with our endless status-seeking. The boss of an organisation probably has the most expensive computer, even if he/she uses it least. It tells other people how important they are to the organization and reassures them that their status is assured. We all have to eat, so unless we are a celebrity cook, work in the kitchen attracts no kudos. Forgive me for being boring and predictable, but how many people are we relying on today to do work we couldn’t or wouldn’t do for ourselves? Let us be grateful for them.

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Owning the Ugliness and Imperfection of Life

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During my most recent hospital stay (yes, there have been rather a lot lately), I found myself devoid of energy, tethered to a 24/7 drip, with an oxygen supply on a short cord and, ultimate indignity, catheterized. My eyes blurred and, despite having access to hundreds of books on my ‘phone, it was several days before my joy in reading returned. People could not have been kinder or more considerate. Despite being under enormous pressure, the hospital staff sorted me out (take another bow, Hereford County Hospital), fed me, helped me wash, and were endlessly patient, while the hospital chaplain anointed me and gave me Holy Communion for a journey I was destined not to make just then.

I’ve been home for almost a week now. You might think that my being a nun obliges me to relentless optimism, to being upbeat in every situation. If you do, you know nothing about being a nun! While I was being looked after in every sense of the word, others were experiencing a whole gamut of negative emotions and events. Even I, in my fortunate situation, found things to criticize or grumble at, and it is fundamentally dishonest to pretend otherwise.

For instance, while I sat back and thought about the next meal (salad. Ed), Anglican friends were sharing openly their feelings about Vision and Strategy and some ill-considered comments seeming to misprize the value of a professional clergy; others were beating their breasts as revelation followed revelation of corruption and deliberate attempts to deceive. Friends confided concerns about attacks on their families or on themselves personally, and more than one admitted to serious money worries or strains on their marriage/partnership. We don’t smile bravely through these things. There are times when sharing the pain, acknowledging our own helplessness, being floored by it all, is the only human response and none of us should be ashamed of that. There is just one little caveat I think worth mentioning because I have caught myself indulging in the behaviour involved: moral distancing of a self-serving nature.

We talk disparagingly about ‘this government’ as though we had no part in its election or shaping the climate of opinion in which a political party can be elected. We declare so-and-so cannot be Catholic because he/she does not conform to our idea of what a Catholic should be, as though we were the arbiter of all things and could speak for God. So it goes on. We heap derision on those whose minds are slower or whose values differ from our own. In other words, we wrap ourselves round with a false but comforting sense of superiority which we wouldn’t if we recognized it for what it truly is: a refusal to own the ugliness and imperfection of life in which we share as much as we do in its beauty and holiness.

I don’t like leaving a post with a negative thought, so may I suggest a good exercise for today would be to give thanks for the blessings we enjoy and asking the grace of humility, of being grounded in truth and holiness? We cannot and should not be upbeat all the time. We are called to be human, and that means allowing the reality of our own experience and that of other people to register with us. As the late Bro Duncan PBGV used to say in his simple way, ‘Be more dog.’ Don’t complicate things with ideas that get in the way of truth; don’t pretend, but do your best to follow the Lord, who knew what it was to be tired, misunderstood, at odds with those he loved. We surely cannot be better than he was and is.

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Dying Can be a Lonely Business

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I am well aware that I myself may not have very much time on earth left. Death itself does not worry me, but I must admit that the process of dying does because I suspect it will involve facing my worst fear — not being able to breathe. I am sure many people can identify with that or have some other deep-seated fear that may be difficult to put into words.

Preparing for Death

We who know death is drawing closer tend to fret about arrangements, ensuring those we love are properly looked after or suffer as little inconvenience as possible, knowing full well that nothing ever works out quite as planned. We realise, probably too late, that procrastination in some matters was really rather silly but are too weak or too sick to do anything about it. Then there are our friends. Those closest to us tend to be reticent, not knowing what to do or say but keeping their distance to allow us time to get on with things. Others want daily updates and bombard us with ‘How are you today?’ messages which make the heart sink because there is no energy to respond and, anyway, what do we say? Others again want to deny the reality of the situation and pretend we are going to get better. At least in the monastery we don’t have to do that! The trouble is, preparing for death isn’t quite the same as preparing for dying, and that is where I think the confusion, and sometimes disappointment, arise.

Prayer for the Dying

The experience I am now going through has confirmed me in my view that the prayer we offer for the sick is the prayer they would offer themselves, were they not sick. It is not so much a prayer to get better as adoration, love, praise, intercession for others. Prayer for the dying, I think, is slightly different. Dying can be a lonely business. We do not want to burden others, but there are moments when we would like to talk a little or prepare sacramentally in a way that COVID-19 has made more difficult. I am fortunate in that I have a monk on standby, so to say, who has promised to come whatever the day or hour to give me the Last Sacraments. There are many more who do not have such an assurance. I am convinced that prayer for the dying asks more of us than a glancing reference in the Hail Mary.

I would suggest that prayer for the dying is a very simple prayer for the coming of the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. That is to say, it is a prayer for light, strength and a making good of whatever may have gone wrong in the dying person’s life, and for those supporting them in their last days. In the case of the dying it is not the injuries done to ourselves that we grieve for but those we have done to others, many of whom will now be beyond the scope of apology or reconciliation. These can cause a deep anguish that cannot easily be expressed. In the case of carers, there are so many contradictory emotions to go through, from exhaustion to feeling ‘guilty’ that we have not done enough.

Our prayer for the dying therefore, by its very nature, must be ongoing. I myself may have days, weeks, even months, left: who knows? Nor do I know the extent of the demands I may make on others. But during sleepless nights or when everything seems black or hopeless, it is a consolation to know that someone is praying, that I face this last and most uncertain journey in the company of others, and those I care about, those looking after me, are likewise prayed for. The loneliness of dying is lessened and there is the bright hope of eternity somewhere over the horizon. Please join me in praying for all who are dying at this time, and for those caring for them.

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What a Difficult Day Can Teach Us

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Photo by Chitto Cancio on Unsplash 

A Difficult Day

Yesterday was a difficult day for many people. Unless there is some on-going horror to be worked through, the dawning of another day changes the mood and gives perspective. In the West, a decent night’s sleep or an unexpected kindness can prove transformative. They remind us what whimsical creatures we are and how apt to let the enemy of the moment, be it pain or muggy weather or some disappointment, dominate our lives.

Yesterday I stayed off social media because I was feeling a little below par myself and was surprised this morning to see how many people had not only been having a bad day themselves but had been busy sharing their irritation with others. Sometimes the way that irritation is expressed speaks volumes, especially when listened to with the ear of love and attention. Of course, it is quite a big ask to listen to a ‘moaner’ lovingly and attentively! (Please note the use of quotation marks.) Sometimes, with the best will in the world, we can only conclude that they are out of sorts; sometimes we can glimpse a deeper pain within — and it does nothing to assuage that pain to talk about how much worse must be the experience of those in less affluent parts of the world. Pain is pain.

Monastic Prayer

One aspect of monasticism that is not always sufficiently recognized is that monks and nuns withdraw from the world, so to say, in order to be closer to it. Many people ask us for prayers, often specifying a particular outcome they desire. There is no harm in that and much that is good; but monastic prayer has to go beyond such specifics. It has to embrace all the pain and hurt, sin and failure, difficult days and disappointments, that we experience as human beings. I do not know what it is like to be a parent in Ethiopia watching my child die of starvation; I do not know the despair of someone locked into an over-crowded prison cell in South America; I do not know the agony of decision-making of someone who feels they must choose this minute between two evils. I do not know, but my own experience of difficulty and of a gracious God whose love and mercy are beyond anything I could ever dream or imagine, mean that these unknowns can be brought into prayer. 

Giving a Difficult Day Time

If a difficult day merely turns us in on ourselves or makes us snappy with others, we need to give it more time. Not everything is made plain all at once. Just as we grow physically and mentally over the years (or, at least, I hope we do), so does our understanding and our ability to use that understanding for good. We learn to reflect as well as react. We can turn a difficult day into a learning day. That may sound trite and obvious but with the challenges the world faces, it is not to be despised. Let us continue to pray for the G7 Summit, for those whose decisions affect us most personally, for ourselves and our impact on others. And as for those seemingly intractable problems, those we personally can do nothing about, let us entrust them to the mercy of God. God knows, and God will.

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Too Woke for our Own Good?

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Every time I read of the latest manifestation of ‘wokeness’, I am inclined to groan and pass on to something more interesting. It seems but a short step from ‘wokeness’ to ‘cancelling’, and both strike me as being absurd. Should we spend time even thinking about them?

If an American citizen wants to remove a portrait of the Queen from an M.C.R., I merely ask myself if she will achieve as much in her lifetime as Elizabeth II. If 150 dons decide that they will not teach anyone from Oriel unless the Fellows remove a statue of Rhodes, I simply lament the intellectual and moral cowardice, as I see it, of those who believe in silencing others rather than engaging in proper debate. In such cases, I might even go so far as to sing the merits of the Little Place in the Fens, although it certainly doesn’t have a faultless record.

What, however, I’m forced to acknowledge is the power of sign and symbol, and the ambiguity of many of those in current use. For example, ‘taking the knee’ as a protest against racism causes me no difficulty, even if some of those using it are doing so without any great depth of conviction (who can tell?). It is a beautiful gesture, taken from Byzantine court ritual and subsequently incorporated into Christian worship. If, however, it is used to identify with the political aims of the BLM movement, I find that much more troubling.

There is no need to multiply examples. When the G7 summit opens tomorrow, one of the challenges the leaders will face is the different way in which they express and interpret values and motivation. Let us pray they are not too woke for their own (and our) good but achieve something of substance for us all.

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Respect — Not Ridicule

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Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash

The tenth degree of humility, which we re-read in today’s section of the Rule of St Benedict, RB 7.59, always seems to cause trouble. Why should we not laugh? Is Benedict really such a sourpuss? The answer, of course, is to be found in an understanding of sixth-century culture. The laughter we are being warned against is the laughter of scorn and derision, the empty cackling of the fool, not the joyful and life-enhancing laughter of those who see the funny side of life.

Before we pass on to something of more consequence, perhaps we should pause for a moment and consider our own conduct. How often do we end up using laughter as a way of dismissing others, substituting ridicule for respect? A gentle tease can easily get out of hand; a snappy retort in social media can do more harm than we realise. No one is suggesting that we should forego spontaneity, but we may need to do a ‘rain check’ every now and then. Cheerfulness and good humour are true blessings. Let’s make the most of them and not hurt others with our insistence on being funny at their expense.

Personal Update
I’m very grateful to be back at the monastery after my latest hospital stay. Thank you for your prayers. The ‘new normal’ is evolving.

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Health, Happiness and the Holy Spirit

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Today many of the most awkward restrictions of lockdown in England will come to an end, and people will be free to mix in a way that hasn’t been possible for months. There will be much relief, a certain amount of rejoicing and perhaps a little anxiety among those who know that a dose of COVID-19 could be a death-sentence for them or those they love. Here at the monastery we shall be maintaining some of the restraints we have been practising throughout the past year, including visitors ‘by appointment only’. That may sound unfriendly, but it is a reflection of the difficulty my health places the community and me in.

During the past three and a half months there have been a few little blips, with the result that I am now unable to walk more than a few steps without becoming very breathless. A ‘phone conversation is only manageable if I know in advance someone is calling and I can prepare by sitting down and not attempting to do anything else for a few minutes. I tire quickly and, unfortunately, even if I can sleep, it isn’t restorative. All this is par for the course for people with advanced cancer and/or major respiratory illnesses. One consequence, I’m sorry to say, is that I tend to avoid face-to-face meetings and have gone from being a bad correspondent to a very bad correspondent. I value your letters, email and messages, but even if I had no other claims on my time, it would be impossible for me to answer them all; and in a small community such as ours, there is no one else to do so.

Health, however, is not essential to happiness in the way the Holy Spirit is, so please read on.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Novena we Pray

In May 2016 I tapped out a series of posts on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as the community prayed for them each day during the Novena; and I’ve often written about individual gifts at other times. You can find the original sequence of posts by using the search box on this blog. Today I offer you just a few, rather dry thoughts on the subject.

The nine days before the feast of Pentecost are very precious. They allow us to pray earnestly for the coming of the Holy Spirit and the renewal of his gifts within us. We are asking for a radical transformation of ourselves and of the world in which we live. Just think for a moment. What would we — or the world in general — be like if we were filled with wisdom, understanding, right judgement, fortitude, knowledge, piety (in the sense of reverence), and fear of the Lord (in the sense of wonder and awe)?

St Thomas Aquinas said that four of these gifts — wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and right judgement — direct the intellect, while the remaining three — fortitude, piety and fear of the Lord — direct the will towards God. He links them to the seven capital virtues. Of course, we can go further and, following the Vulgate, consider the twelve fruits, or rather, the twelve manifestations of the fruit [singular], of the Holy Spirit : charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity. (This list enlarges on the one Christians of all traditions will be familiar with from Galatians 5. 22–23, where St Paul lists nine visible attributes of Christians as the fruit [singular] of the Spirit). There is more than enough there to reflect on over the days before Pentecost, but I would like to add one further thought.

The Holy Spirit, the Advocate, is the Spirit of Truth. Truth is not always comfortable. In fact, it can be difficult to accept and make us feel naked and defenceless. If we look at the world around us, how much untruth there is, how much defensive posturing! When we pray for the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, perhaps we should be praying above all for this gift of truth, both in our own hearts and minds and in the heart and mind of every person on earth. Have we the courage to do so? Do we dare to be happy?


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A Further Clericalisation of the Laity?

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Yesterday Pope Francis issued an Apostolic Letter motu proprio, Antiquum Ministerium, formally instituting the lay ministry of catechist. As you will see if you read the document, he is at pains to stress that this is a lay ministry:

6. The lay apostolate is unquestionably “secular”. It requires that the laity “seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will” (cf. SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium, 31). In their daily life, interwoven with family and social relationships, the laity come to realize that they “are given this special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth” (ibid., 33). We do well to remember, however, that in addition to this apostolate, “the laity can be called in different ways to more immediate cooperation in the apostolate of the hierarchy, like those men and women who helped the apostle Paul in the Gospel, working hard in the Lord” (ibid.).

The role played by catechists is one specific form of service among others within the Christian community. Catechists are called first to be expert in the pastoral service of transmitting the faith as it develops through its different stages from the initial proclamation of the kerygma to the instruction that presents our new life in Christ and prepares for the sacraments of Christian initiation, and then to the ongoing formation that can allow each person to give an accounting of the hope within them (cf. 1 Pet 3:15). At the same time, every catechist must be a witness to the faith, a teacher and mystagogue, a companion and pedagogue, who teaches for the Church. Only through prayer, study, and direct participation in the life of the community can they grow in this identity and the integrity and responsibility that it entails (cf. Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization, Directory for Catechesis, 113).

The only problem I have is not so much with the pope’s intentions as to how his instructions will be received by those to whom they are addressed. Are we going to see a further clericalisation of the laity? Years ago, I remember reading a great deal about the restoration of the permanent diaconate, how it would function quite differently from the transitional diaconate, but it didn’t universally work out like that. In some dioceses even the wearing of a clerical collar was prohibited; in others the new deacons appeared indistinguishable from priests, ‘all black and breviaries’ as one old nun said with a sigh.

We now have three lay ministries — lector, acolyte and catechist — and one wonders how they will develop in the post-pandemic Church. Evangelisation is as necessary as ever, and lay leadership of priestless communities is a ‘given’ in many parts of the world, but I have a suspicion that, initially at least, our understanding and development of these ministries will follow a familiar and ultimately clerical pattern. Perhaps that is the real challenge of Pope Francis’s decision: to pray and work for a fresh understanding of a role that has been with us from the beginning, of bringing others to faith, of sharing the riches of grace.

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The Holy Abbots of Cluny

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The feast of the holy abbots of Cluny rarely excites the imagination of anyone outside the cloister. A few liturgists may perhaps refer to them in passing, those who know something of the story of Abelard and Heloise will probably smile at the mention of Peter the Venerable, but, by and large, they are all ‘long ago and far away’. Even my attempt to sketch a pen-portrait of four of them on Twitter this morning may have confused or bored as many as it enlightened. The trouble is, we are not very good at integrating history into our everyday lives or seeing the relevance of the past to the present. Instead of seeking to understand or explain the cruelties and injustices of Black Slavery, for example, we prefer to do away with any of its relics, from statues to church monuments, because that lets us off the hook of really engaging  with the subject. We all know slavery of any kind is wrong, so we don’t have to bother with why it is wrong. Unfortunately, that weakens our ability to judge other matters where decisions about rightness and wrongness are not so clear-cut. We forget that the argument is part of the answer, and the way in which we conduct that argument is an intrinsic part of working the answer itself out.

The abbots we commemorate today — Odo, Maiolus, Odilo, Hugh and Peter the Venerable — were not weak men, far from it, but we do not think of them as controversialists. St Odo, for instance, was particularly severe on the use of rough or judgemental language by his monks. I do not imagine, for example, that he would have endorsed the current trend among some Catholics to impugn the faith of public figures like Pope Francis or President Biden on the basis of their own understanding of Catholicism. He knew — as we are often reluctant to admit — that judgement in such matters is God’s business unless we have been given explicit authority, and even then, there are all kinds of caveats to be observed. It is no accident, I suppose, that his devotion to Our Lady was to Mary, the Mother of Mercy. Peter the Venerable became involved in many of the hot topics of his day, but he was a patient man, who knew that finding out what another thought or considered true was essential to opening up a dialogue with them. That, I suspect, is why he had the Quran translated into Latin rather than assuming he already knew what Muslims believed and taught. 

You notice how careful I have been in my use of verbs: imagine, suspect, think, suppose. That is because no matter how well we may think we know the people of the past, to attribute ideas and sentiments to them is a risky business. We may have good grounds for thinking as we do, but we do not have certainty. That applies as much to the present as to the past, though most of us forget that when we use social media!

One of the things that has always attracted me to Cluny is precisely that element of not knowing everything, of being ready to let God be God in all things, while still being firm and clear about the values we hold. By a happy co-incidence, today we begin re-reading Benedict’s first chapter on the kind of person the abbot should be, RB 2. May I suggest it has something to teach us all? Something the holy abbots of Cluny grasped very well.

N.B. If this post is not to your taste, you will find at least five more on the holy abbots of Cluny in this blog.

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