*culture is not optional

St. Gregory's Abbey and Benedictine monasticism

The Bible and Monastic Values

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There is no question of the intention of the first monks to live as
followers of Christ as revealed in scripture. In fact, for the first
monks, Holy Scripture was regarded as the monastic rule. That St.
Benedict shared this basic assumption can be seen by the fact that, in
his Rule, quotations from scripture add up to almost a third of the
text. The fact that the Bible does not specifically enjoin monastic
institutions need not necessarily call in question their claim to live
by scriptural values. The Bible is not a blueprint specifying how
Christians should organize themselves. Rather, the Bible is the
inspiration which guides Christians into many different ways of
imitating Christ in the unfolding history of the Church. Even
Christians who have sought literally to live the commands of Jesus,
such as St. Francis of Asissi and Southern Baptists, have ended up with
institutions which are not the same as a free-lance rabbi wandering the
countryside with a small group of followers.

Early monastic writers demonstrated their intention to live by the
Bible by claiming to follow the apostolic life as outlined in the early
chapters of Acts. Some writers even claimed that Jesus founded the
first monastic community! Such claims do not hold up to historical
scrutiny, but they help to show the intention of monks to live the
apostolic life as they understood it. A group of men or women living
together, sharing material goods in common, gathered round a teacher in
the Faith, does show, in basic shape, a community like that of the
apostles.

Anyone concerned with living the Christian life must desire to
imitate Christ. However, in discerning how each one of us should
imitate Him, we need to remember that Jesus Christ shows Himself to be
a complete person in a way that no other person can hope to do. Each
single activity of Jesus is imitable; what is not imitable for an
individual Christian is doing all the things Jesus did as fully as
Jesus did them. In the Gospel we see Jesus the Laborer, Jesus the
Preacher, Jesus the Healer, Jesus the Teacher, Jesus the Social Critic,
Jesus the Contemplative Monk, and much more. Not only did Jesus engage
in much active ministry of preaching and healing, but he also went off
by Himself for protracted times of prayer. Each of us should try to
include elements of several vocations which Jesus embodies, but we will
find ourselves called to imitate Christ most particularly in only one
of these vocations. A monk called to imitate Christ the Contemplative,
for example, will be concerned about other issues such as social
problems and healing ministries, but he also needs to realize that a
contemplative cannot follow these equally valuable vocations as fully
as those called to them will do. Thus, in following Christ in our own
particular way, we must trust Divine Providence to build up the Church
as the Body of Christ with many members, each with different functions
(1 Cor. 12:4-30).

Jesus demonstrated the importance of the interior journey in much of
his teaching. For example, in Mark 8:21 Jesus says: "It is what comes
out of a man which makes him unclean." Such a verse draws our attention
to the long work of self-examination of that which is inside us and to
that which we are bringing to others from our inner selves. Monastic
writers stressed the importance of the inner journey by meditating on
the Beatitude: "Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see God"
(Mat. 5:8). Similarly, St. Paul, for all of his active missionary work,
also witnesses for the importance of seeing God within oneself with his
prayer: "Out of his infinite glory, may he give you the power through
his Spirit for your hidden self to grow strong, so that Christ may live
in your hearts through faith, and then, planted in love and built on
love, you will with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth
and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of
Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, you are filled with the utter
fullness of God" (Eph. 3:16-19).

Next:  Historical Sketch