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Catholic Saints
St. Benedict
00:30:43
Dr. Tim Gray & Dr. Ben Akers discuss the Rule of St. Benedict as it applies to daily life.
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Host
You're listening to a podcast on Catholic saints. This podcast is produced by the Augustine Institute, an apostolate helping Catholics understand, live, and share their faith.
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Tim Gray
Welcome. I'm Tim Gray, president of the Augustine Institute. And Joining me is Dr. Ben Akers, who is a professor of theology here at the Augusta Institute. And we're going to be discussing St. Benedict. And St. Benedict has captured the imagination of a lot of people in contemporary Catholicism, especially the pope. Who took the name after Saint Benedict, Pope Benedict xvi. He saw that Saint Benedict was the patron for Europe, and he saw that there was a need to re. Evangelize Europe with the new evangelization that St. John Paul II called for. And he saw that what happened with Benedict and his movement to kind of reinspire civilization in Europe and to keep the faith in the midst of the collapse of civilization and to help spread that faith, Benedict was a model. And so Pope Benedict really took that name, I think inspired by and with an aspiration, wouldn't you say, Ben? He was kind of aspiring towards a renewal that Benedict brought about.
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Dr. Ben Akers
He did. Yes, he does. He did aspire for that renewal. He was pope. Sorry. Joseph Ratzinger. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was receiving an award in Subiaco the night before John Paul II died. And Subiaco is famous for being known as the sacred cave, the holy cave that St. Benedict spent three years praying in before he was called to be the head of all these other monasteries. And so Pope Benedict really chose his name thinking of St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism.
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Tim Gray
So right before John Paul dies, I mean, literally right before Benedict is giving a speech in Subiaco, and, you know, he knows that that's the origins of the Benedictine movement are right there. So in preparation, I know Joseph Ratzinger was a very prayerful, thoughtful scholar. He's probably poring over, thinking about the life of Benedict. So that whole week before John Paul dies, he's got Benedict in mind, and then John Paul dies. He has to oversee the cardinals. Gives the homily at St. John Paul II's funeral. And then to his surprise, he's elected by his fellow cardinals to be the next pope. And then he has to come up with a name, and he comes up with Benedict.
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Dr. Ben Akers
He does. And I think he had two Benedicts in mind. I think he actually did have Pope Benedict XV in mind as well, who was a famous peacetime pope or was, sorry, during World War I, was preaching for peace in the world. And I think that that's really what he was also thinking about. And in that Address, and I encourage you to go and look it up online. This address@subiaco, April 1, 2005. And what he says in that address is incredible. He says that what the world needs now, whenever someone who's a deep thinker and a holy person starts a sentence, what the world needs now, you perk up, you listen. He said, what the world needs now are people that render God credible in the world. We need men and women that have their minds open to God and their hearts open to people, to other people. And by allowing God to enlighten their minds and having their hearts open to other people, they'll be able to be ministers and apostles of peace, of mercy, of evangelization and formation of the faith.
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Tim Gray
I love that image of having their minds open to the truth and to God and their hearts open to people. Now, what is it about St. Benedict that would lead Pope Benedict, as then Joseph Carnevarziger, to, you know, kind of synthesize speech in Subiaco about this Benedictine spirituality? What is it about Benedict that brought those two threads together for Joseph Ratzinger?
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Dr. Ben Akers
I think we see Benedict as a model, as all those saints, as models of this. If you look at Benedict's life, he was born about 480 AD, and he was raised Catholic. He was in a Roman noble family. And his family sends him to Rome, the big city, for education and for formation. And there he is. He's shocked by the dissolute living. So he's probably ages somewhere between 14 and 20. We speculate he's in Rome, and he just sees that the studies that are before him are not worth his salvation. He's being tested and tempted away from the faith. And so he abandons the studies to go and pray, to work on his own spiritual life. And so he goes to this cave in Subiaco, Italy, and it's beautiful. You can visit there today. It's a beautifully decorated and ornate cave. And in this cave, he spends three years of disciplining himself, of fasting, of praying, eating bread and water. A monk nearby, Romanus, would bring him food, and it's in this cave where he encounters God. So his mind is opened up to God. And we have an account of his life from St. Gregory the Great, and that'd be interesting to talk about as well, some of these stories from his life. But Pope St. Gregory the Great describes St. Benedict's life as, even though he was uneducated, he was wise. So he didn't need the studies in Rome, a secular studies. He needed an encounter with God. And from that encounter with God, he then becomes open to forming other men, other men in monasteries. There's an interesting scene in the account that we have of St. Benedict's life. Only the stories that we have only come from Pope St. Gregory the Great. And he describes this three years in the cave that Benedict is, is willing to give up everything. After these three years of fasting and prayer for some, somebody, he remembers this unchaste thought that he has from his time when he was young in Rome. And he thinks that he's going to give it all up and leave and abandon and just give up on his relationship with God. And he overcomes this temptation with the grace of God. And once he masters himself, then other men start to come to him and ask him to be abbot. And the way that Pope St. Gregory puts this in his Latin text, he says, before he was a puer in Latin, which is Latin for bo. And then now after this transition, this overcoming this key temptation, he becomes a vir day, a man of God. There's this beautiful transformation. And once he's mastered himself in his own life, then he can help other people and grow in their relationship with God. So I think that that's what part of what Pope Benedict XVI had in mind by choosing the name is. He had opened himself up to God. By being open to God and being formed by God, then he was able to form others.
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Tim Gray
You know, one of the things we'll talk about with Benedict is his form of prayer, which I love the Benedictine style. It's in his rule, this idea of Alexio Divina reflecting on the word of God. And I know Pope Benedict had a great affinity to that kind of prayer to Alexio Divina. And he even said that if Lectio Divino was to be practiced by the Church, it would bring about a new springtime for the Church. Do you think he was thinking of that aspect of Benedict's life as well as taking that name and kind of where he wanted to take his pontificate?
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Dr. Ben Akers
He was, because as you mentioned, that wonderful quotation, this great love of the Word of God, that likely Joseph Ratzinger, as a paratus, as an expert at the Second Vatican Council, helped draft part of DEI Verba, one of the four major constitutions of the Second Vatican Council on the Word of God and the life of the Church. And one of the key parts of that document encourages the lay faithful, the clergy as well everyone in the church, to return to this ancient, time tested, trusted practice of a prayerful meditation of the Word of God. And Pope Beneath XVI was very keen. He oversaw a synod of bishops, a world synod, international synod on the word of God and the life of the church to celebrate the anniversary of DEI Verboam. So I think that also was a key part of his choosing the name.
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Tim Gray
Now, you know, St. Benedict is famous, obviously, as a monk in starting the Benedictine order. And his rule is known for being extraordinarily pragmatic, flexible. It's not impossible to live. And that rule is embraced by literally tens of thousands of monks in a short period of time. I mean, his monastery grows, and it just keeps. You talk about incredible growth. I mean, there's literally thousands of Benedictine monasteries throughout Christendom that really shape the early church in that time, in the early medieval period. Right.
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Dr. Ben Akers
I think what Benedict is able to do is he's able to synthesize wisdom from the Eastern tradition of the church with the desert fathers and the men forming in monasteries. They will take the wisdom of that along with some of his Roman formation and the simplicity, ascetical. It's not too difficult, but it does involve sacrifice. It's ordered. It's a rule of life. And that's something that I think we should all have, is a rule of life, the Rule of St. Benedict, the Rule of St. Benjamin, the Rule of St. Timothy, of rules that help us live our life. And I think that this genius and this wisdom that is on display here is what helps it grow so much. And one of the things that Pope St. Gregory says in his dialogues where he describes the life of St. Benedict, he. He said, I'm going to tell you the stories of St. Benedict, some miraculous stories about his life. But if you want to know how he taught, read his rule and you see a perfect conformity, Gregory says, between his words and his deeds. And that's the secret sauce to sanctity, is a perfect conformity of words to deeds, all based on the Gospel.
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Tim Gray
I love the idea that we should all have a rule of life, as you suggest, Ben, because I think that's part of the genius of Benedict is he learned, as you said, beautifully those first few years. He learned to master himself. And so he had to have his own internal rule to measure his life and to create the right daily format. And then he starts to mentor other young men. And it's at that time he's experimenting and learning what they need, reflecting on what he needed. And then when he formalizes this as an abbot, he creates the rule for these monks. And that rule is so effective at leading communities to sustain community life. And to build life of holiness. And I get how that works in a monastery because you adopt the rule of life, and every order modifies and has their own rule for their particular religious order. But you're suggesting that every individual should have a rule of life, right? So let's just talk about what does that mean for people in our audience when they hear you say, I should have a rule? What does that mean practically?
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Dr. Ben Akers
Right. And just to admit that when just as inborn in us, because of our fallen human nature, when we hear rules, we automatically rebel and we want to be free. And a rule is really a standard by which we're going to measure ourselves. And of course, the standard is Christ. And the standard by which we measure ourselves is Christ. And what we describe in the spiritual life as a rule of life. It's a certain set of practices, devotions, that we want to do on a daily basis, basis, a weekly basis, monthly basis, by which we can keep ourselves on track in the spiritual life. So, for example, we might want to begin the day with a morning offering. This is where we just open our set formulas. You can say, my kids and I, we say a little rhyme, a little short poem in the morning. That's easy for little kids to remember and for me, remember as well. But just offering your day to the Lord and then closing the day with an examination of conscience. How did I do today, Lord? What are the times that I accepted your grace? What are the times I failed to accept your grace? And I asked forgiveness for those times. So that's just a basic formation of the day to start and end with giving it to the Lord at the beginning and giving it back to him at the end. But there are other practices that Christian faithful enjoy and that have been encouraged by the saints. Daily mental prayer, 5 to 15 minutes, 30 minutes of daily mental prayer, 5 to 10 minutes of reading the Gospels or Scripture, saying your rosary, a divine mercy chaplet, attending Mass, if you can. These are kind of things that people put on the rules. Now the temptation to this is. Is to overload your list, to make your list. Oh, I'm going to do this and this and this. And you read a saint's life, and I'm going to put pebbles in my shoe. I'm going to kneel on grains of sand. And those are good things to aspire to. But that's not where you begin with. You begin with small baby steps. And this is the wisdom of Benedict's rule is this is just, he says at the very end of his rule, this is just the beginning, this is just the sine qua non. This is what you need to do to start to be a good monk. And then there's so much room to expand. But start with the basics.
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Tim Gray
I love that. And starting with the basics is something we all should do. And I think taking this idea of a rule of life is something for us to reflect on. You know, I like, Ben, what you said about, you know, commitment to prayer. So if I'm going to make a rule of life, I'm going to commit to a certain amount of time for daily prayer. So the first, I think, key ingredient in a good rule of life, a good Catholic rule of life for everybody, is to say, okay, what am I going to commit to every day for prayer? And then to your point, the temptation is to say, okay, I want to do Mass every day, going to do the rosary. I'm going to do divine chaplet. And you try to go after all those things at once, and you pursue different things at once, and you're going to catch nothing. There's the old adage, try to catch three birds and you'll end up with none. So the idea, I think, is that you've got to start the rule up as a baby rule and let it mature. As you go after other things.
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Dr. Ben Akers
It.
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Tim Gray
Might have you in your rule of life again. It's for all of life. It's not just about prayer. It could be, I'm not going to get into debt. It could be how I use my money, how I spend my money, how I spend my time in my rule, you might say, and I like to have it for the Lord's day, that I'm not going to do certain things. I'm not going to explore the Internet and get. And I'm going to have a Sabbath rest from screens, you know, so you have your. Your certain rule of life. And maybe part of the rule of life is like, well, I don't do anything for the Lord's Day on Sunday, right? So honoring the Lord's day was a good part of a rule of life, right. I try to do a retreat. I know a lot of people recommend that once a year. And so that's part of my rule of life, is to have a silent retreat. But those are the little things you can put in. And again, it goes back to the genius of St. Benedict, who had this practical wisdom on how to guide people to pursue holiness and grow in holiness.
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Dr. Ben Akers
Consistency is the key to anything that we do in life. And so just be consistent, right? There's the since you mentioned the adage, I like one of my own that says those who say that they'll pray sometime during the day only pray sometimes because we need to order our time and our space according to the higher goods. This is part of the genius of the Rule of St. Benedictus. He had the monks pray for several times throughout the day. And he said, this is what you're going to pray at these times, these hours. These hours. So the liturgy of the Hours that we're familiar with, you have their origin here of structuring your day according to certain psalms and psalms that talk about awakening the dawn, you say in the morning, Psalms that talk about giving the Lord rest, you pray at the evening. So he really saw the Scripture as a way of forming his imaginative vision for his monks, and we're grateful for him for that.
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Tim Gray
So you're saying that when we take on a practical rule, a resolution for a rule, that rule needs to be concrete and specific. The more concrete and specific, the better it is. Rather than saying, I'm going to pray every day, you say, I'm going to pray at 6:30 in the morning and I'm going to pray for 20 minutes, a half hour, an hour, whatever that is. But don't start with an hour. It's just like you don't start running a marathon by running, you know, 20 plus miles. You start by running a mile or then two miles, you build up. Right?
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Dr. Ben Akers
Yeah. The spiritual version of the couch to 5K. The couch to 5K. You're right. So start slow, start close to home.
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Tim Gray
But it's important to have a specific time. Time was important to Benedict. I mean, he set certain hours for prayer. You set that time that you're going to pray, and then you go ahead of time prepared for how you're going to pray.
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Dr. Ben Akers
Right, Right. So you are. And to make it easiest, right. This is turn key. This is the key to the spiritual life. So a common practice, but done by many saints is to pick what they're going to meditate on the night before so they're ready for the next day. And this is just good for life. If going to the gym is daunting because you have to get up, you have to get dressed, you have to do all these things to get ready. Sleep in your workout clothes. Right. So cut out the things that may that will become obstacles, and in your mind to living your physical life, the things that are important, but also your spiritual life that I know that I'm just going to read the Gospel of Matthew for the next month. And so you know exactly the next day when you sit down, when you're going to open the Bible and you're not just playing, you know, flip the pages.
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Tim Gray
Right, right.
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Dr. Ben Akers
You know where to begin.
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Tim Gray
Have a plan.
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Dr. Ben Akers
Have a plan.
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Tim Gray
So not just when you pray, but what you're going to use to pray and how you're going to pray. Those are all key ingredients to be successful with the rule of life. So let's go back to St. Benedict in his life. You know, he establishes the rule, he establishes this first monastery. What else does Benedict do that is important for us? You know, I think of, you know, Pope Benedict xvi. He looks to Benedict as a model for us now. And why do you think Benedict sees Pope Benedict saw St. Benedict as a model for our times? What was it? What was going on in St. Benedict's time frame, in his time life?
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Dr. Ben Akers
The times in which Benedict lived mirror our times in a lot of ways. They're both turbulent times. And Benedict saw a monastery, a rule of life, a set way of living, and the safety of the walls was to give peace. And through that stability and peace, then the spiritual life can flourish. And I think what Pope Benedict saw, one of the things he saw in St. Benedict was we're living in turbulent times. We need to have the depth of prayer and encounter with God that Benedict worked on for three years in the cave of Subiaco. And from that depth, that spiritual depth, that will allow us to be missionaries in the time in which we live. One of the things that Pope Benedict, that led to the writing of St. Benedict's life. And I encourage you to read it. It's not too long. You can see I have a little copy here and how small it is. But you go to newadvent.org and it has many of the fathers of the Church online for free. And it's in the. It's called the dialogues of Pope St. Gregory the Great. And the reason that St. Gregory the Great wrote these dialogues, it's a conversation he has with someone called Peter the Deacon. So he's pope and he's talking to Peter the Deacon. And Peter the Deacon comes to him and says, gregory, we live in these turbulent times. Is there any way to be a saint? There's all these saints in the eastern part of the church, where the empire is. Is situated and headquartered. Are there any saints in our own time? And so St. Gregory the Great writes this book, these four books to describe. No, we can be. We have saints today. And the whole second book is dedicated to the life of St. Benedict. And so we're very grateful to Gregory that he wrote that. But I think that's for us, too, is, are there saints today? Can we be holy when the times are so bad? And I remember this wonderful quotation from St. Thomas More that inspires me is, the times are never so bad that a good person can't live in them.
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Tim Gray
It's such a great encouragement, isn't it? We forget that sometimes we think of the world is going in decline, things are getting worse and worse, and we think that what the world does limits us, but it doesn't limit us in our pursuit of holiness. It doesn't limit us in our pursuit of our rule of life. That's going to help us grow closer to Christ. Our pursuit of Christ cannot be hindered by anything that happens in the world. Right? It's what Paul says in Romans 8. What can separate us from the love of Christ?
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Dr. Ben Akers
Right? Nothing.
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Tim Gray
Nothing. I mean, basically, he goes to it, he says, famine, sword, I mean, persecution. These things can't separate us from the love of Christ, only our own sin.
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Dr. Ben Akers
One of the keys to living in these turbulent times, but living a life of peace is found in the very first words of the Rule of St. Benedict. Again, I brought my copy to show you how thin it is. It's just a great symbol. But the very first words are, listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart. Listen. That's the key. Listen well. Who are we going to listen to? Well, we need to listen to the word of God and allow the word of God to form us and to change us. And so that listen is key to the. To the spiritual life. And the Benedictines make three vows, so we're familiar with poverty, chastity, and obedience. Their vows are obedience, stability, and the conversion of life. The conversion of life. And these are important for us, so we might not be called to the monastery, but that we can put these into practice in our own daily, lay, Christian life.
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Tim Gray
Yeah, let's talk about those, because this is. People hear about Benedictine spirituality, and so how can we live a Benedictine spirituality in our own lives? And what lessons can we learn from Benedict? And so let's talk about these three in terms of a practical spirituality for each of us.
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Dr. Ben Akers
So the first virtue is obedience. And obedience comes from the Latin words ab audire. And the reason I say that is ab audire means to listen to. You can't be obedient unless you first listen. I don't know if my kids have done what I've asked them to do the chores, take out the trash, unless they see the trash taken out. And so the first lesson for us is obedience. And at first, we need to listen. And I've been blessed.
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Tim Gray
Yeah, I love that Benedict does that, because you just see his own reading of Scripture here. Because I think of two key things out of the Bible when I think about this idea of listening. He says, the first call in the rule is to listen in the wisdom tradition. You'll find it in Proverbs and the Book of Wisdom, the summons to listen. You know, Lady Wisdom cries out in the marketplace, listen, O sons of men. Right? Or the Father says in Proverbs, my son, listen to me, hearken to my voice, that you may gain wisdom. Right? So this idea of wisdom is perceived and pursued through listening. And of course, that goes back to the Torah of Israel, where Moses gives us the great prayer, the Shema, Hear, O Israel. So Moses calls upon Israel to listen, to hear. And you find that over and over again. Jeremiah, you know, throughout the prophet Jeremiah, he talks about using that word listen. And he says, you know, God complains, Israel has not listened to me. They do not hear my voice. And in their rebellion. So the first key rule is to listen, which I think that is threaded throughout the whole biblical narrative.
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Dr. Ben Akers
It is so he just. He is rooted in Scripture deeply. And think about the ordering time, as we discussed before, that the Shema ordered your day. You would say that several times about that. You began your day with it. And so listen. Listen to the Lord. And then the other tradition that I thought of in the New Testament with Paul in Rome is that faith comes by hearing. So we have to hear to be able to receive our faith. So listen. So obedience, how does that manifest in our own life? Obedience to the word of God, of listening to God's word in our life through the practice of lectio divina, also listening to the church's teaching and being obedient to what the Church asks us to do in things that we might find challenging, to be willing to go and find the answers to those teachings of the church that might be challenging to us, and then to be obedient to those. But first we have to listen. So that's the first virtue is obedience. The second vow that the Benedictines take that we can also put into practice is stability. And by stability, they mean that you're committed to that particular monastery for the rest of your life. So you don't enter in Atchison, Kansas, and then move to St. Louis, Missouri. You're in Atchison Kansas, for the rest of your life.
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Tim Gray
That's so counter to American culture, where I think it used to be that the average American moved once every five years. And that could be a big move across the country, you know, anywhere. And when I think about the average American moving, selling their house and moving to a new place every five years, you would say that Americans have a vow of instability, right? But how do we live this as laypeople? We're not monks. What does stability mean for us? How could we live that?
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Dr. Ben Akers
So stability, we may be called to move. We may have to move for a job or for other, you know, to care for someone that's sick in our life. And so that's not what. That's not how we would put that into practice. But what does stability do in the monastery situation is that you're rubbing shoulders with the same people over and over again. And so you see their flaws, they see your flaws. You challenge one another's. You have to work things out. This is like a marriage, you know, until death do us part. Do us part that. That you're in it for life, that none of us are getting out alive. And with stability in family life, it's. The husband and wife are committed to each other in this marriage, and the kids are committed to this family life that we have to work things out. And that means difficult things. That means having difficult conversations. That means discipline. That means asking forgiveness. And so stability allows you to bloom where you're planted, in a sense.
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Tim Gray
I like how you focus on stability here with relationships. Because, you know, I know one of the temptations in the early monasteries is monks would constantly monastery hop. They'd be in one place for a couple of years, then they'd hop to the next one, then they'd hop to the next one. And I think Benedict. Do you think Benedict saw that and saw that our nature, to get in an argument with somebody, to get someone who's really needy and just kind of get frustrated with people and move on to the next thing. But you couldn't really grow in holiness if you don't grow in relationships, right? And so I love this idea about stability in relationships. And that's something that I think you used marriage as the first. The stability of the husband and wife, their love, right? And their kind of vow of stability, of being with each other gives an anchor and stability to the children, right? And so then that becomes. These relationships become the anchor of our stability of who we are.
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Dr. Ben Akers
It does. And this is hard, right? There's no joke about it. This is a difficult task.
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Tim Gray
Yeah. The problem is the average American family moves every five years. But that's not the bigger problem. The bigger problem is the average American family blows up divorces.
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Dr. Ben Akers
Divorces, yeah. Right. Exactly.
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Tim Gray
And we trade out these relationships over and over again.
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Dr. Ben Akers
You know, it's hard to ask forgiveness of when you've offended somebody, even in family, but also your neighbors. And, you know, think of how the stability. Almost concentric circles outside of this. But that's what the world needs. We need stability. And blooming where you're planted might be a colloquial way of putting this, of commit to the relationships that you're in and to ask forgiveness and to give forgiveness. The third. The third vow that the Benedictines make is conversion of life. And this gives life to the other two that the conversion of life is, I'm going to commit. I'm going to renounce the things of the world, but I'm going to commit to being the best monk that I could be. How do we live this out in our own life would be renounce the things of the world that we shouldn't take part in. The things of the world that are meant to be rejected. We need to reject those. So do I. How would a monk do this? A monk gives up the world to go into the monastery. But if they get put in charge of the money or the donations, are they skimming off the top of the best meat that's. Or they don't eat meat, but the best fish that's donated, the best cheese that's donated? Am I. Do I regard money in the way that God wants me to regard money? Do I regard honors and prestige in the world the way the world regards it? So that's renunciation of the world, conversion of life. This is a constant thing, constant practice for everybody's life and even for the monks. When you go into the monastery, you just don't abandon your sinfulness. You take that sinfulness into the monastery with you. And so conversion of life for us would be, do I regard the things of the world as God wants me to regard them? Do I see the world as God sees the world? Wow.
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Tim Gray
Well, Ben, you've given us three great practical ways of how we can live out our Benedictine spirituality and this idea of to listen, this vow of obedience. But it comes from being obedient through listening to God's voice. So we want to listen to God's word. And I love that. St. Benedict practiced lectio divini. His prayer, his mental prayer, was always slowly, carefully, but constantly reflecting on the Word of God. And if we reflect on that Word of God and absorb that, that leads us to that next stage, which is stability, right? Stability of relationships. I'm stable with my relationship with God. I'm growing in that relationship even through dryness, even through spiritual ups and downs. But I'm also loving my neighbor with stability. And I think that's one of the things that the monks really anchored that idea of living in community and stability so that I just couldn't jump to the next monastery when I had fallen out with a brother. I have to work it through. I have to humble myself and apologize or I also have to grow in my charity and forgive and have empathy because I have to live with this person for the long run, right? And so we think about ways in which you need to listen to God's word. Think about ways in which you need to grow in stability. And especially a stability of being a marathon runner in your relationships that you're in, you know. Or are we just a sprinter with our relationships? Are we a marathon runner? That's what the Benedictine stability challenge is to. And then finally, this ongoing conversion of life, you know, the more we stay in relationships, the more we listen to God, the more we're going to recognize that our conversion isn't deep enough and it needs to be ongoing. And then this idea of ongoing conversion, ongoing transformation. And I think that St. Benedict is the person we should pray for for these things. So take these petitions that you have and ask Benedict to help inspire your own personal rule of life. And may Benedict inspire you to have deeper stability, deeper conversion of life, and to listen more deeply to God. God bless you.
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Host
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