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Benedict of Nursia (480–547) is a central figure in the founding of Western monasticism. In the spring issue of ONEING, CAC affiliate faculty Carmen Acevedo Butcher describes how Benedict’s prayerful life in the desert became a chosen and holy exile from a world in crisis:
A stirring in Benedict moved him to choose the uncertainty of self-exile and contemplation in a world of collective exile and traumatization…. Benedict’s monasteries were “the bomb shelters, time capsules, laboratories, and protected cultivators of the contemplative tradition in a world falling apart.” [1] They preserved the wisdom of the desert ammas and abbas and were communities of healing in a time of chaos.… We can learn much from Benedict. During societal disorder and crushing need, how did he sustain both his own and communal peace and compassionate activity?…
Richard Rohr’s allegorical adaptation of Archimedes’ law of the lever, in A Lever and a Place to Stand, can be applied to and can deepen our appreciation of Benedict, who repeatedly chose to live in and from the “fixed point” of a contemplative stance. In this calm place of daily ora [prayer]—Psalm-chanting and Scripture-steeping lectio divina—Benedict stood “steady, centered, poised, and rooted,” gaining “a slight distance from the world” even as his heart or fulcrum of engagement was “quite close to the world, … loving it, feeling its pains and its joys” as his own. In prayer, Benedict experienced a “detachment from the … useless distractions, and the daily delusions of the false self” that gave his fulcrum, set in the suffering of wrecked empire, the capacity to “move the world” through various “levers” of compassionate action, or labora [work]. [2]
A communal rhythm of prayer focused on the Psalms permeated the lives of Benedict and his monastic brothers:
Focused daily on doing the ordinary, Benedict’s life was a series of risings in the dark. Most Italians, even bakers, were sound asleep when lights fired up in his monasteries before 2 a.m. in winter, as Benedict’s community woke and walked to chapel for Vigils. They sang Psalm 51:17: “Domine, labia mea aperies, et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam” / “Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.”…
Benedict prioritized this chanting through the 150 Psalms each week as a community, as his communities and descendants, Cistercians and Trappist monks, do today. The Desert Elder Athanasius (c. 300–373) described the daily hours spent singing Psalms as beneficial in teaching biblical history and prophecy, nurturing and maturing the emotions, and transforming how the chanter understands the Bible’s words and even God:
The person who hears the Psalms as they sing them is deeply moved and changed by their words. They become a mirror where you see your soul. Whatever causes us grief is healed when we sing Psalms, and whatever causes us stumbling will be discovered. It’s like the Psalms were written by you yourself. They become your own songs. [3]
References:
[1] Rev. Dr. Michael Petrow, Director of Formation, Faculty, and Foundations, Center for Action and Contemplation, February 29, 2024. Unavailable.
[2] Richard Rohr, A Lever and a Place to Stand (Paulist Press, 2011), 1–4.
[3] This quotation is translated (sans ellipses) by Carmen Acevedo Butcher from a letter to Marcellinus. See Athanasius, On the Interpretation of the Psalms, chap. 12.
Carmen Acevedo Butcher, “A Hospitable Soul and a Well-Said Word in a Hostile Time,” ONEING 13, no. 1, Loving in a Time of Exile (2025): 17, 18, 19–20. Available in print or PDF download.
Image credit and inspiration: Kryuchka Yaroslav, Untitled (detail), photo, USA, Adobe Stock. Click here to enlarge image. Things will break, and we are invited, when ready, to put the pieces back together again.
Story from Our Community:
“A Prayer for the Exiles”
Holy One, have mercy on your exiles, / those of us who no longer fit / within the traditional teachings of the church. / Those whose voice falters in the songs, / who cannot say “Amen,” / who desperately think of something else during the sermon…. / Have mercy on us, Holy God, / those exiles who cling to faith / and yearn for a bigger, wider story, / a bigger, wider community. / A story that embraces the vast expanses of time and space, /and the enormous complexity of the cosmos. / A community in which everything and everyone is connected / and embraced. /Holy God, … / be born again in us, your exiles, / Tell your story in words that we can understand.
—Janet D.
