“Listen carefully, my son, to your master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice” (RB. Pro. 1). The Rule of St. Benedict is part of the Wisdom tradition of Christianity that is rooted in the Bible for its inspiration and its ultimate goal. Saint Benedict was aware of the importance of seeking guidance from a spiritual elder and of valuing the wisdom that was imparted. Following the lead of the wisdom writers, Saint Benedict encouraged his disciples to seek and value wisdom, to seek and ponder God’s word, and to incline their hearts towards understanding.
The Word of God is not a thing to be studied or parsed. It is an encounter with a Person, the Beloved Son of God, who became our companion on the road of life. Saint Benedict opened his Rule with the word “listen.” “Obsculta,” which is the Latin equivalent for the Hebrew “Shema.” The word is richly nuanced. It means more than hearing with one’s ears. It includes pondering every word and instruction of the Master. Benedict’s opening word finds a parallel in the prayer life of our Jewish brothers and sisters. “Listen, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might. ”
The Shema Prayer, like the Prologue to the Rule, is a call to action whereby the individual is to prefer nothing to the love of God in Christ. Disciples in the school of charity need to practice listening, understanding, and conforming their lives to the Word of God. The idea is to let nothing go by without listening to and learning from it. Every moment is filled with the grandeur of God; we have to allow ourselves to experience it. “Silence assures solitude for the monk in community. It fosters mindfulness of God and fraternal communion. It opens the mind to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit and favors attentiveness of heart and solitary prayer to God” (CST 24).
Gregory the Great shared an interesting comment: “Forsaking his books and his father’s house, wanting only to serve God, Saint Benedict sought a place for this holy purpose; and so he left Rome, taught by learned ignorance and possessing unlearned wisdom.” If we wish to listen with the ears of our heart, we need to separate ourselves from external noise and work at cultivating internal stillness. Silence safeguards a space for us to listen to God’s voice and experience his hidden presence. I remembered a cartoon in Family Circus. Dolly says: “If you are real quiet, you can hear God” (Bil Keane). God is not something we can see, but He is a voice we hear. The psalmist wrote: “Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). The listening Saint Benedict calls for requires the cultivation of internal and external stillness. “The silence around us becomes a silence within us, and the silence within meets and merges with the silence of God” (Charles Cummings).
When Saint Benedict calls upon us to listen with the ear of the heart. He is inviting us to embrace prayer, silence, and solitude. As students in the school of the Lord’s service, we must seek the Lord in all that we do and with all that we meet. Everything we do is an opportunity to encounter God. So, we listen to the voice of God speaking to us in Sacred Scripture and the traditions of the Church. We listen in our daily circumstances and relationships. We listen to the words of people we encounter. We listen to our hearts. By attentively listening, we can discern God’s will and put it into action. As monks, we are challenged to limit our curiosity, to stop browsing, and start paying attention. As silent monks, we need to stop talking and start listening. By using the Tools of Good Works, we can create a place of silence in our soul where we can still the chaos of desire, fear, and anger. In that silence, we can receive and ponder God’s Word and allow it to become flesh in us. We are called to be unencumbered by material things, to surrender our lives to the love and care of Christ, and allow God’s goodness to shape our lives, so that we can be open-handed and big-hearted to others. The Rule is a way of living the Scriptures; it proposes a way to recognize Christ and to relate this encounter to all we do, in worship, work, study, interpersonal relationships, and leisure. Saint Benedict’s Rule applies to every aspect of our life, whether we are “at the Work of God, in the oratory, the monastery or the garden, on a journey or in the field, or anywhere else” (RB 7.63).
“Gracious and Holy Father, give us the wisdom to discover You, the intelligence to understand You, the diligence to seek after You, the patience to wait for You, eyes to behold You, a heart to meditate upon You, and a life to proclaim You, through the power of the Spirit of Jesus, our Lord. Amen” (Saint Benedict).