Seeking God
Seeking God in the way of St Benedict
"Is he truly seeking God"
St Benedict asks one thing of those seeking to join a monastery: “Is he truly seeking God?” (“Quaerere Deum”, Chapter 58 of the Rule)
This is worth remembering for anyone considering a call to the monastic way of life. Someone might wonder if he is good enough, strong enough or holy enough for the life. But Benedict does not expect the newcomer to arrive perfectly formed. He only expects a willingness to be humble and learn. He does not expect the newcomer to by already holy. He only expects him to want to become so and be open to learn from those more experienced in the monastic life.
Strangers to the World's Ways
St Benedict says that we must become “strangers to the world’s ways.” In other words, we have to learn, or relearn Christ’s way. This requires a certain separation from our previous ways, customs and habits to embrace a new way of living – as brothers in search of God in a community. We must be ready to leave behind those things that hold him back in our search for God.
"Seeking his workman in a multitude of people, the Lord calls out to him and lifts his voice again: Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days? If you hear this and your answer is 'I do,' God then directs these words to you: If you desire true and eternal life, keep your tongue free from vicious talk and your lips from all deceit; turn away from evil and do good; let peace be your quest and aim." (RB, Prologue, vs. 14-17)
Reflection: Being Salt and Light
Salt and Light work differently
St Benedict’s favourite Gospel is that of St Matthew and from that Gospel he quotes most from the Sermon on the Mount.
After speaking what the blessed life of a disciple looks like, in the Beatitudes, he turns to use two powerful images. He says: “You are the salt of the earth” and “you are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13-16). In each generations the followers of Christ have reflected on how they can be both salt and light.
Salt and light work differently. Salt works invisibly giving flavour to food. The community of Jesus’ disciples should preserve in itself its saltiness. If salt isn’t salty, says Jesus, it is worthless. Light by its nature is visible shines for all to see. The community of Jesus’s disciples should not hide their light under a bushel.
The Monastic Life
The monastic life came about because men felt called to live in a different way to what the culture of the day had to offer. They desired to conform their lives more closely to Christ. They wanted something different: truth, love and beauty. They discovered that they sought Christ himself and wanted to be more fully conformed to him in their hearts. They wanted to be “the salt of the earth” – humble, authentic and true. They wanted to become holy. They found the best way to maintain their saltiness was to live together in community and support each other in their search for God.
This was not a selfish thing. They moved apart from the world in order to seek God so that they could in turn share the fruits of their prayer, study and work with the rest of the Church and the world. They could become light. Monks became part of the mission of the Church.
The Desert and the Marketplace
We see this in the life of St Benedict. After his studies in Rome he withdrew to a hidden valley called Subiaco, yet soon others gathered around him to share that search for God. He ended his life at the monastery he founded Monte Cassino, high on a hill and established a monastic way of life that would make him the first Patron of Europe.
At Belmont, as in other monasteries, formation to be a monk today requires at first a certain separation in order to concentrate on what really matters. The noviciate is “a time apart” for learning, study and prayer. But through our pastoral works, our teaching and our prayer, we seek to radiate Christ’s light in the world. As we recover the saltiness of our own lives we can become light and love for others.
The Benedictine monk-Cardinal Basil Hume liked to describe the monastic life as the pull between the desert and the marketplace. The desert represented the place where he could be alone with God and pray; the market-place was the world in which he had to act in response to God’s command to love others. The relationship between the two places lay at the heart of his life. He prayed:
Cardinal Basil Hume prayed:
“I am caught between the desert and the marketplace — in the desert there is space, solitude, silence, stillness — a sense of your presence, nothing between You and me, just You and me — as indeed is the case now in this half hour, just You and me — sometimes a Gethsemane experience, a struggle with anxieties, fears, the sense of being overwhelmed by the problems of life, or just bored or distracted — sometimes a Mount Tabor experience when we can say: “It is good, Lord, to be here.” I love that desert. In the marketplace the world is present . . . Distractions abound and temptations too. Must I flee from the marketplace and go to the desert. . . and yet all those people are made to Your image and likeness — drawn to them, I am drawn to You, admiring them, I admire You, fond of them, I am fond of You.”
Two Benedicts: the Saint & the Pope
When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope, it was perhaps no surprise that he had taken the name “Benedict” because he had long been inspired by St Benedict of Nursia and saw the continuing importance of the monastic way of life for the Church.
Speaking just a week before his election as Pope, he went to Subiaco, where St Benedict had begun his monastic life and noted that the Saint had not founded a missionary order, rather he had set up communities with the sole objective of its members seeking God. He said that the renewal of the church and of the world can only come about through men and women who have learnt to direct their gaze upon God.
“Benedict . . . indicated to his followers that the fundamental, and even more, the sole objective of existence is the search for God: “Quaerere Deum”. He knew, however, that when the believer enters into a profound relationship with God he cannot be content with living in a mediocre way, with a minimalist ethic and superficial religiosity.”
“Only through men who have been touched by God, can God come near to men. We need men like Benedict of Norcia, who at a time of dissipation and decadence, plunged into the most profound solitude, succeeding, after all the purifications he had to suffer, to ascend again to the light, to return and to found Montecassino, the city on the mountain that, with so many ruins, gathered together the forces from which a new world was formed. “In this way Benedict, like Abraham, became the father of many nations. The recommendations to his monks presented at the end of his “Rule” are guidelines that show us also the way that leads on high, beyond the crisis and the ruins.”
Just a week or so later he was elected Pope, and in his first homily he spoke these words that also speak well of the monastic vocation and mission:
The purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men. And only where God is seen does life truly begin. Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is. We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary. There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ. There is nothing more beautiful than to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him. The task of the shepherd, the task of the fisher of men, can often seem wearisome. But it is beautiful and wonderful, because it is truly a service to joy, to God’s joy which longs to break into the world.