Daily Reading for June 26
“Too often in the past, the appointment of a prior has been the source of serious contention in monasteries. Some priors, puffed up by the evil spirit of pride and thinking of themselves as second abbots, usurp tyrannical power and foster contention and discord in their communities.” . . . (The Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 65)
This is the least prayerful chapter in the Rule. It is fairly bristling with tension. Perhaps because of his own personal experience, Benedict is wary of the office of prior, probably because of the problems arising from the appointment by an outside authority and the dangers of a power struggle that it carries. The ideal, of course, is what we have been given in the previous chapter, a community of “peace and love.” But Benedict is completely realistic about human nature and its weaknesses and what happens when the spirit of pride enters in. . . .
When there is a split between the head and one of the responsible members, it leads to a state of confusion in the whole community, becomes an open invitation to faction and disorder of every kind and to the envy, quarrels, slander, and rivalry that he lists in verse 7. He is worried that the abbot may get drawn into this maelstrom of violence and fears how destructive such conflicting aims and goals will become. This is the price that is paid for anyone putting his or her personal ends above the interests of the group. It is a dark warning against exploiting a position of power or authority for self-advancement to the detriment of the whole. . . .
A split personality can be as dangerous to the corporate situation as to the individual. It is something that we can all be only too aware of around us. We can see it at work in a marriage where husband and wife are deeply at odds and damage the whole family, in a parish where people split into factions and tear apart the tissue of the congregation, and in a community caught in a power struggle and living off negative energy because it fails to deal with the underlying issues. But if Benedict knows how destructive divergent and centrifugal elements can be, he also knows the importance of accepting the wide range and variety of human nature and human experience. The question is how to hold these elements together and integrate them so that the whole body becomes life-giving rather than life-denying. In the previous chapter Benedict has been showing us the role of the abbot holding the center with loving firmness. So that is what I now ask myself: Can the center hold? Where is the axis on which everything turns? If the abbot points me to Christ, it will be there that I shall find the creative force and power to make my relationships meaningful and life-giving.
From A Life-Giving Way: A Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict by Esther de Waal (Liturgical Press, 1995).