Echoes from the Bell Tower

"If a brother leaves the monastery but then wishes to return...he should be received back.”
Rule of Saint Benedict 29:1-2

I marvel at how St. Benedict tempered his “all or nothing” spiritual fervor with the concern of a father. He was a man of his times, to be sure, a time when, if one chose to follow Christ as a monk or nun, there was no going back. In fact, to turn back, for Benedict, was only explicable as a caving to the promptings of an evil will.

In our times, we tend to have a more nuanced understanding of the complex workings of a person’s interior struggles. God works within to shape our desires by helping us attend to interior movements, opening us to an awareness of what limits our freedom to love, and to rely on grace when troubled by doubt and fear. Nonetheless, legion are the ways human frailties and sinful inclinations can deter God’s grace and undermine one’s ability to “deny self” and seek the good of others instead of pursuing what we judge better for ourselves (RB 72:7).

Lifelong commitments are not easy—they aren’t supposed to be. They are also becoming rare, but they really aren’t meant to be. In our world today young people seem to have more difficulty than previous generations making “forever commitments,” whether to one other person in marriage, to a community in religious vows, or the church as an ordained servant-leader. We live in a highly mobile society with more opportunities and options than ever before. Fewer people choose to work for the same company over their whole career or live in the same town their whole lives. But solemn commitments are not impossible. Monks and nuns continue to make lifelong commitments by trusting God’s assistance (faith), relying on God’s goodness (hope), and pouring themselves out in a life of serving God and others (charity), toiling in good works in the “workshop” of religious obedience and monastic stability.

But when a monk decides, for whatever reason, to back out of his commitment and leave the monastery, his brothers cannot presume to have a full and complete understanding as to why he would do that. People are complex and modern life is complicated. As “all or nothing” as his Rule seems in certain ways, Benedict allows for a monk’s return should he judge his departure to be the hasty outcome of poor judgement. Benedict instructs that a returning monk must take the “last place” in community as humble acknowledgement that he was wrong to leave, and he must promise to make amends for leaving. After due time, the abbot has the authority to return him to the rank he had in community before he left.

Benedict legislates that even when a monk decides to leave a second time, he ought to be received back again should he desire to return. And even a third time! After that, however, “he must understand that he will be denied all prospect of return” (RM 29:3). This demonstrates more than just moderation; the Rule allows ample latitude for a change of heart (conversion). St. Benedict was a truly holy man; he refused to be hard and rigid when it comes to the personal struggles of his monks. Instead, the saintly chooses compassion and mercy over harsh judgment—after all, to show mercy for another today gives access to God’s mercy for the times we’ll need it ourselves. And we will need God’s mercy: today, tomorrow, and especially at the end of this life’s journey, standing before the throne of the One who will judge justly, according to the deeds we’ve done. Why not support your case for mercy? Be merciful as our Father in Heaven is merciful!