All That is Needed Will be Given

Today the solemnity of St Benedict falls on the fifteenth Sunday of the year.  We replace the gospel reading of the Sunday – the mission of the disciples – with another chosen to express the spirit of the solemnity – the Beatitudes.  Pondering these texts in the context of Benedict’s Rule has brought me to a common message for today: all that is needed will be given.

The beatitude of beatitudes is for the poor in spirit.  As Fr Bernard Bonowitz once pointed out, our monastic life is oriented toward purity of heart and the desire to see God’s face, but experientially we most readily identify with poverty of spirit.  Our own lack of resources and radical need for support is met by reassurance that in our very empty handedness we are blessed, happy, just where we should be, “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 5:3).  As he sends out his disciples to proclaim the good news of the kingdom, Jesus instructs them to embody the message by embracing material poverty to a hyperbolic degree – no bread, bag, money, spare clothes, or shoes.  St Benedict’s vision of evangelical poverty expressed in his Rule shares in the hyperbole of the gospel.  He speaks sternly of the evil of private ownership.  “We mean that without an order from the abbot, no-one may presume to give, receive, or retain anything as his own, nothing at all—not a book, writing tablet or stylus—in short, not a single item” (RB 33.2-3).

Does this imply an identification of spiritual poverty with material?  Is our ideal “not having” as a good in its own right?  Is this what makes one holy?  Radical as it is, Benedict’s teaching does not convey a minimalist ideal.  While non-superfluity is encouraged, great importance is placed on meeting the genuine needs of individuals, without expecting that “one size fits all.”  The most important thing is that souls may be saved.  The gospel message carries this implication too.  The disciples are not sent out to starve and expire through exposure.  They are sent to witness to the God of Jesus Christ.  If they lack anything they need to carry out their assignment, it will be given them.  The Father will not let his sparrows fall to the ground.  They will be fed, clothed and housed, not necessarily by an angel or a bird, through this may have been the way for some.  Do you remember those desert stories of hermits sustained by bread and meat carried to them by a raven?  There are also chastening stories of presumption ending in disaster.  Such is the tale of the two monks who went on a journey without supplies, telling one another that God would provide.  When, lo and behold, a group of pagan nomads came to their aid, one monk rejoiced to receive God’s mercy by the hands of a pagan.  His brother refused to accept what was offered because he was waiting to be fed by the hand of God.  The second monk died and is held up as an example of unholy folly.  This is exactly what is implied in this gospel passage.  The expectation is that those who go out with nothing but the essential lay themselves open to the free assistance of other people, of those they meet.  The laborer deserves his wages.  Those who recognize the laborers of God’s harvest provide all that is needed, just as Jesus’ women friends provided for his needs.  This is in some sense the essence of the proclamation.  The gospel message calls forth the laying down of one’s life and resources.  Those who do so find themselves sustained a hundredfold.

We must acknowledge that material poverty does not necessarily lead to spiritual poverty.  That is, a simple lack of material things does not always bring about the freedom and detachment that places us before God in simplicity of heart.  We know that acute deprivation, whether material, emotional or spiritual, can lead a person to hoard, to grasp and to cling and surround themselves with palpable reassurance that they will never again be left in want.  Any of us can fall into the habit of allowing things to accumulate and fill the space in our lives, saying: “Maybe someday this will come in handy.”  The evil of private ownership that Benedict alludes to does not lie in possessing the things that we need, but rather in being possessed by our things.  Coming from a culture of “the more the better,” we really struggle to have eyes to see what is genuine need, and what is a matter of privilege.  We take our comfort for granted and do not even see the want in which others struggle for survival.  Cutting back to a place of moderation expresses a concern for justice, not just an embrace of fashionable minimalism, that my excesses may not contribute to another person’s want.  But spiritual poverty is at root a matter of standing before God as creature, as beloved child.

St Benedict sets out to create a stable community to live out this vision.  He cuts to the quick of evangelical poverty.  It is not so much a matter of being without, as of being ready to receive all that is needed as a gift, without worry.  Benedict instructs the abbot not to use lack of resources as an excuse, but instead to “Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Mt 6:33; RB 2.35).  Like God’s people in the desert, we live on the daily sustenance of God’s bread, just enough for the day.  Radical personal dispossession is made livable by the community setting.  We do not live in destitution.  That is not the intention of monastic life, although historical circumstances have sometimes asked it for a time.  We make prudent provision for the needs of all.  What is needed is asked for and given at the appropriate time.  We place ourselves in the hands of God by allowing ourselves to fall into the hands of the community.  An act of holy folly.  An act of trust in the Spirit of God active in the people around us.  To sustain such foolishness, two attitudes are needed.  The attitude of the one who asks must be to first discern true need, with a heart open to the discernment of the other party.  On the other hand, those responsible for providing for the needs of others have a serious obligation to reflect on what they stand for.  The abbot, primarily, but also the cellarer and other officers, and ultimately each person is responsible for placing whatever gift they have at the feet of the community.  In so doing, each must reflect on how as a ‘giver’ one stands for God the Father, sending down life-giving sun and rain on the just and the unjust alike.  This does not imply a facile “yes to all” attitude, but a real discernment of what is needed in the moment.  Each one of us by our attitude and choices can either build up or tear down the miracle of evangelical life in community.

I would like to conclude with a scriptural text very precious to me from Psalm 130: “A weaned child on its mother’s breast, even so is my soul.”  You may remember Benedict uses this image at the beginning of his chapter on humility, interpreting the psalm to mean that: “If I had not a humble spirit, but were exalted instead, then you would treat me like a weaned child on its mother’s lap” (RB 7.4).  Have you ever felt that way?  Probably most of us have lived through moments when our accustomed source of sustenance, whether emotional, spiritual, or otherwise, is unceremoniously cut off by some circumstance beyond our control.  We do not have what we need.  The removal of the breast leaves us confused: an ablactum and angry about it.  But the psalm invites us to a deeper level, the level of “silence and peace” of trust and contentment.  What the weaned child learns is that the visible ever-present abundance may be gone, no longer accessible to every whim, and yet an invisible source of sustenance remains.  Whatever is needed is given at the proper time.  The child will be fed.  Gradually this allows us to move from the feeling that we are in a risky, dangerous kind of situation, breeding anxiety and a tendency to grasp and cling, into one in which we can lean back in security, saying: “Truly, I have set my soul in silence and peace, a weaned child on its mother’s breast.”  All that is needed will be given.  "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." (Mt 5:3)