Like me, you use a remembered bible. At the end of chapter 64 of your Rule you refer to a verse: Matthew 24:47 ‘God will put this one in charge of everything’.
When I looked in a printed bible for the context I saw it was part of a small story about ‘a wise and faithful slave’ who was expected to ‘oversee the other slaves of the household’. Now you must understand that we read slavery differently to the way in which it was read in 6th century Europe. Too much of history has been about the exploitation of some human beings by others in systems called slavery, none of them as benign as these few verses suggest. No master had an good business owning slaves. That slavery was part of the Roman Empire and other administrations in the ancient world such that bible writers thought it acceptable to mention this, is not a reason to be uncritical of it now.
O root of Jesse: a radical tree
In similar ways your Rule has been subject to criticism for its treatment of children, even though physical punishment of children would have been commonplace in your day. Unfortunately cruelty towards children is still too common in our day and age for us to make such excuses.
If there’s one thing I expect from life in Christian Community, it’s being radical. I do not expect Christian communities to uphold unfairness or endorse cultural inequalities just because they are there, and I also expect them to seed this radicality into the systems and institutions that surround them.
O root of Jesse: some radical vegetables
Last night, on British TV, a Deaf woman won a major reality TV show, one that attracts millions of viewers each week. It’s a dance show. I’ve never seen it, but it’s glamorous and glitzy. Someone the public knows and loves is offered up as a trainee dancer and dancers with a professional dance partner doing a new dance each week. This time round several taboos were broken. In the final, one couple were a same sex pair of men dancing together and in the second couple one participant was Deaf.
So you see what I mean about the need for Christian communities to sow radicality. Why was two men dancing together ever thought unreasonable? Why had there not previously been a Deaf participant?
It seems that both of these sets of dancers has challenged the British public in new ways. The numbers of would be dancers who want to dance in same sex couples at local dancing schools and clubs has increased as has the number of people interested in learning British Sign Language (BSL).
BSL is the language of the British Deaf Community. I can only use a few simplified bits of it, but I do believe it should be taught in all British schools. That would be radical and it would break down a lot of barriers for British Deaf people. The Christian community would be a good place to start this radicalisation.
Would I change history? You bet. One dance partner at a time if necessary. But more than that, the community I’m interested in is radically inclusive. In that community anyone can dance.
Dancers
From the remembered bible: That One comes on a day when not expected and at an hour no one knows.
O Root of Jesse, make me radically ready.
From a Friend of Scholastic and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
I’ve been interested to read how your Rule first came to Britain. It is thought to have been bought here at the end of the 6th century by Augustine of Canterbury. I find this interesting because some call Augustine’s mission the ‘Christianising’ of England, which is clearly wrong. It might have been a further wave of Christian missionary activity, but it wasn’t the first. In fact the names of the first Christians in Britain are unknown to us, just as you might expect.
Remains of an Anglo-Saxon cross shaft at Nunburnholme, Yorkshire.
So it’s possible that your Rule was bought here by someone else, but Augustine got the credit. It seems that he wanted religious houses in England to use the Rule and it was promoted for men and women to use in monastic communities. I’ve been reading a sample of a book concerning the activities of Benedictine Women during the Middle Ages. Product of a great deal of scholarship I’ve only read the sample but it is fascinating. The author, Katie Bugyis, has looked at many manuscripts from the Middle Ages to support her finding concerning the kind of ministries women were practising during that period.
The remain of St Pancras Church Canterbury, possibly the oldest part of the Augustinian Abbey.
I mention it in relation to chapter 65 of your Rule, another essential read about community leadership. Bugyis suggests that your Rule wasn’t fully adopted by women’s monastic houses in England until the 10th century, and that a feminised version was promoted to make it more applicable to these Abbeys. I’d love to see that.
Her main findings are about the sort of roles women had during this period: reading the Gospels liturgically, hearing confession and offering intercessory prayers are the ones she explores in detail. My heart was joyful: once again we find that women were doing these things and they have been forgotten or covered up or negated in some way. Of course my heart also sinks that power was abused in ways that robbed women of leadership roles then and now. It’s not something I am at peace about.
Statue of St Benedict wrapped up for protection at Stanbrooke Abbey, Wass, Yorkshire in 2016
Chapter 65 refers to the communal need for the ‘preservation of peace and love’ being the foundation of the way in which Abbott or Abbess shall lead the community. Unfortunately, those outside the walls were the ones to determine, too often, what some of those gender based activities might be, and such discrimination is still limiting some interpretations of the ministries of women.
As we approach the season of the Nativity, it’s a time to pray again for a wider understanding of ministry of women. I think of the times when women have ‘given up’ ministries for ‘the peace of the church’. Good thing Mary never gave up pushing for the incarnation.
From the remembered gospel: Jesus said: ‘It’s peace I leave with you, but it’s not like the world’s peace’.
Help me to keep pushing for justice.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
Today’s letter is to Mother Julian of Norwich, the first woman to write a book in English that has survived, from the 14th century.
Dear Mother Julian,
I imagine you missed them. How could you not? If the Black Death was anything like we understand it, then it was horrendous and to lose you family to it, dreadful. Other plagues would come and go. I’ve visited Eyam, for example, where there was plague in 1665, and seen the place where one woman buried her whole family, one after another. It’s here: https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/education/educational-images/riley-graves-riley-lane-eyam-6974
I often think of you in that simple space, made holy by your constant prayer. A quiet and austere stone cell, I have my own aluminium equivalent, but I also have the choice to open the doors, be inside or out.
Inside the Mobile Chapel of St Scholastica, Bambi.
I wonder what took you there, as I listen to contemporary stories of loss and grief, anxiety and sadness, of the missing and the missed, the lonely and the alone: was it like that for you?
Or did the stones seem warm and welcoming, resonant and reflective as you readily embraced this lone existence? Time to think, to remember, to grieve, to renew, to celebrate; we all need such times and places.
I first read your book about 40 years ago. It astonished me. It confirmed me as a woman of faith in ways some other word didn’t do. I could stretch out my hand to you over the centuries and see you open yours and show me the hazelnut; simple but significant. A woman, on her own, was enough, to be able to see God and say so.
I am not alone, not like you were. I flit back and forth, connected in different ways, by sight, by internet, by memory. But I still hugely value your insights and your persistence. As I dig down into the earth of faith, I am pleased to echo with you that ‘We shall not be overcome’ and ‘All Shall Be Well’.
Words on The Wall
From the remembered bible: Pray at all times.
In response to the call of Christ, I seek to live holy communion, create holy space and offer holy service. (Prayer of the Lay Community of St Benedict http://www.laybenedictines.org/)
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
Dear Benedict, sorry to confuse you but I’m writing about something else, although being the Patron Saint of Europe I think you’ll find it interesting.
Last night I watched a film called Schindler’s List. It’s not about the sort of seasonal list that occupies the Christmas adverts. It’s about an altogether different sort of list and many readers may already have seen the film. I’d not seen it and we decided to watch it last night.
It’s a harrowing film, shot in black and white, except for one child in a faded red coat. It’s a chaotic film with crowds and crowds of people moving here and there, at one point I thought I don’t understand what’s happening even though I sort of knew the story. It’s an anonymous film, with only a few main characters, like Schindler, Isaak, Otto and Helena having names that stayed in my memory. All of the others were a huge anonymous mass. It’s a long film, at over 3 hours we’ve still to watch the last hour tonight.
In the film Schindler is not a sympathetic character. He is abrupt, appears not to listen, is dismissive at times and seems corrupt. Maybe that’s what it took to hide in plain sight. I understand he was arrested several times.
The list doesn’t feature until fairly late on. It’s a list of names of ordinary people. Schindler pays to keep these people safe. As he does this, all around him, Europe is in chaos and hundreds of thousands of others are being carted off to the death camps from which he is saving the people on the list.
It’s a film about racism in Europe eighty years ago. A time when racism was so acceptable that millions of Jews, Roma, disabled people and LGBT people were murdered. This mass murder, called the Holocaust, was the product of an ideology called Nazism and at the moment those on the political Right want us, ordinary people, to forget it ever happened.
I will not forget.
I will make my own list. I will remember the hate. I will call out racism, however ‘casual’ you may think it is. I will remember the camps and the cruelty. I will remember the ordinary people. I will continue to hope.
From the remembered bible: Pray at all times, give thanks in all circumstances. This is what God wants from you in Jesus Christ.
Even so, come then Lord Jesus.
Father Benedict, pray for us.
From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.
Note that St Benedict is remembered as the Patron Saint of Europe.
Another break from Letters to Benedict to post some O antiphons.
Traditional O Antiphons begin on 17th December but you can easily start a bit earlier by making up your own. Here’s a few to give you some ideas, based on my recent observations.
O heater of chestnuts
Thank you Jesus, that you feed us.
O sitter in doorways
Disturb us, homeless Jesus.
O sun dancer
From the margins of the cosmos, come and dance with us Jesus.
O morning blackbird
Come to your broken world, Jesus.
I’ve also written some short prayers to accompany the traditional Os. Here they are.
