If I were a member of a religious order, I would be a Benedictine. Since my days as a missionary, I have loved Benedict’s practical rule of life. Today on Benedict’s feast day, I have been re-reading Saint Benedict for Busy Parents by Fr. Dwight Longenecker and meditating on how the three Benedictine vows to obedience, stability, and conversion of life apply to my own motherhood. I highly encourage reading the whole thing (it’s so short), but thought I’d share with you a few of the passages that struck my heart in particular along with a little bit about why
Obedience
“The command of the abbot (and therefore the commands of parents) should be there to help the monk (and the child) to be intrigued by their spiritual path, and to obey with a sense of adventure and discovery rather than with blind and dull obedience alone.”
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
My G has a will of steel, which is an incredible gift. But teaching her and guiding her while trying not to break that will in an effort to get her to obey, well that is a tough needle to thread. Obedience is right and good, but it comes easier to some than others. I think St. Benedict found a balance in that he expected not blind obedience, but rather that his monks would seek to understand the whys behind the command. This obedience was to be a lively obedience.
I ruminate on this quote a lot, mostly because I’m still working on figuring out how to bring it to life in our home. One thing I do know though, is that G responds so much better to a request when she is allowed to question it. I don’t mean that she’s allowed to say no, or that she’s allowed to negotiate, or even that I give her an explanation then and there. My general rule is that I try to offer as much of an explanation accompanying my command as is practical and possible, and that if she has more questions, she is welcome to ask them after she has obeyed. The fact that she knows she can get an explanation after helps her to be more willing to obey in the moment.
Do I sometimes wish she were the type of kid who was a rule follower and naturally deferential to authority? Absolutely. It would be so much easier! But that’s not who God made her to be. She is in the line of Teresa of Avila and Catherine of Sienna, and she will do great things for God if I can help her to line her will up with His. St. Benedict’s style of obedience is a tool to help me in that process.
Stability
By taking a vow of stability, the monk is deciding that the path to heaven will begin exactly where he is and nowhere else.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
A Benedictine monk joins a community and remains there, in that location, with those same monks his entire life. To be planted in one place appeals to me greatly as I absolutely loathe to move, but the more important lesson for me from this vow is found in this quote from Fr. Dwight. It would be easy for me to put off sanctity for another season of life, one that is filled with more sleep and less responsibilities. I can long for the days when I had a daily holy hour or look forward to being able to go to hear an entire homily at mass, but the truth is, that I need to decide, like the monk, that my path to heaven begins exactly here and now, while I am knee deep in diapers and 30 hour shifts.
This season of life is so full of grace. Remembering the Benedictine vow to stability I remember to root myself in the present, to cultivate my prayer life as much as I am able, to be contented in what is before me.
Conversion of Life
Conversion of life is the third vow because it is the aim and the goal of the other two. Obedience on its own is simply a dull way of life that follows the rules. Stability on its own is a life that never goes anywhere or does anything knew. Conversion of life gives a positive purpose and meaning to the other two vows. Why should one obey? So that one’s whole life may finally be converted into the image of Christ. Why should one seek happiness her and now? So that one may be entirely conformed to the image of Christ. . . The vow to conversion of life gives meaning and purpose to everything that we do.
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
I love this. I love everything about this vow. How often do I forget that I am called to constant conversion? More than I care to admit. It’s easy to become complacent. I don’t want to ever take my relationship with Jesus for granted, to lose track of where my treasure really lies. Remembering this last of the Benedictine vows helps me to remember to keep growing.
If I’ve piqued your interest about St. Benedict and his order, here are a few of my favorite Benedictine books and saints.
Radical Hospitality is a fabulous book about the way that Benedictines welcome others into their lives and their abbeys.
In ISinu Jesu is the prayer journal of a Benedictine priest, his conversations with Jesus. It is a particularly moving read in the midst of the current scandals of the Church.
Scivias are the visions of St. Hildegard von Bingen, a Benedictine Sister and one of four female doctors of the Church. I have only just encountered her, but I love her already.