Echoes from the Bell Tower

“For nothing is so inconsistent with the life of any Christian as overindulgence.”
Rule of Saint Benedict 39.8

To lend emphasis and authoritative weight to the above verse from his Rule, St. Benedict quotes Luke 21:34 – “Our Lord says, ‘Take care that your hearts are not weighed down with overindulgence.’” The context for Jesus’ saying this was to forewarn his disciples about the “end times,” since we know not the day, we must always be ready for the coming of the Lord. For St. Benedict, being ready, “staying awake at all times” (Lk. 21:35), is the proper disposition of any serious Christian.

The immediate context for this verse in Benedict’s Rule is his chapter on food. Apparently in the ancient monastery of Monte Cassino - the Abbey where St. Benedict wrote his Rule around the year 530 - the amount of food distributed to the monks daily had to be closely regulated. For at least two reasons: to make sure they were getting enough food to do the heavy work of farming and physical labor around the monastery; and secondly, to avoid overindulgence. We no longer operate a farm here at St. Meinrad, so it’s easier, in a sense, for monks to focus on the principle of moderation with respect to food since getting enough food is not the issue, but avoiding overindulgence, and, given the abundance of food available to us, this can be far more challenging personally.

The principle of moderation, which Benedict employs throughout his Rule, is a deeply spiritual one. It goes back to the early Christian centuries when monastic life was just beginning to take shape. Moderation requires self-control, which St. Paul lists as a “fruit of the Spirit” in Galatians 5:23, a sign that one is living ‘in step” with the Spirit of the Lord. In Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (3:17) he comments that where the Spirit of the Lord, there is freedom. To be “spiritually free” is necessary if one is to be disposed to truly loving others, especially those who are “difficult people!” We must be free from clinging to various things that inhibit our ability, and our freedom, to love – things like one’s real or perceived social status, esteem, control, being right all the time, the need for power, privilege, or influence. These are hard things to let go of, so we must start with smaller things and practice “dying” to attachments of a lesser kind - attachments to things like food, drink, “having it our way” (this has to do with obedience), and I would add, attachments to gadgets and technology, the internet and social media.

Clinging to such things as these sustains the habit of clinging to more deleterious attachments, like those I mention above – power, privilege, prestige, being right, being in control, and suchlike. Our life of prayer and stability in the community – just living with others who are different than me - is how we grow to become aware of our attachments and the problems they can cause us, especially in terms of inhibiting one’s freedom to genuinely love others. Moderation is a way to train us in self-control, so our hearts aren’t weighed down with “dissipation and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap” (Lk. 21:34).