Benedictine monasticism: an ecclesial spirituality1

Luigi Gioia
A well-know feature of religious life in the Western Churches is the tendency to define the
identity of the multitude of religious orders that have flourished in it since the end of the Middle
Ages in terms of specialization. The so-called charism, that is the identity of a religious order, is
located in aspects of its mission or of its spirituality that are meant to make it unique, to distinguish
it from all other orders. Rather bland in the first main historical religious orders (Carthusians,
Dominicans, Franciscans), this rhetoric of specialization amplified more and more as the number
of these orders increased over the past few centuries. New distinctions were introduced that were
unknown during the first millennium of the history of the undivided Church, such as the division
between contemplative and active life, between monks and friars, sisters and nuns.
The charisms of these new orders has been located in increasingly demarcated aspects of the
mission of the Church (order devoted to the redemption of slaves, orders dedicated to the pastoral
care of migrants etc ...) or in forms of piety in line with the spirituality of the time in which these
orders were born (orders devoted to prayer for the souls in purgatory, or to perpetual Eucharistic
adoration, or to the worship of the Sacred Heart ... etc.) or in particular hierarchical structures
(whether, for example, these orders were more or less centralised).
Leaving aside a critical evaluation of this logic we can observe that sometimes this specialization
has gone to the expenses of the ecclesial sense of these religious orders. Moreover, it has estranged
them from liturgical life which is the spirituality of the Church; it has fostered a self-referential
attitude, an isolation from the Church and a progressive inability to recognize the signs of the
times; finally, in many cases it has resulted in abuses especially with regards to authority and in a
crisis of vocations.

Cistercian Studies Quarterly 51.2 (2016), 147-56.

From a theological point of view, the crucial standard to evaluate the charism of a religious
order is its reference to the Church, not only at a universal level, but first of all where the Church
actually is embodied and visible, that is in the local Church, i.e. the community where we actually
are in contact with our neighbours. But more fundamentally the validity of the charism and of the
spirituality of any Christian community and religious order must be determined in accordance with
the following criterion: how much does this spirituality or this charism sees itself as a doorway into
an ecclesial spirituality? In the Creed we confess that the Church is one, holy, catholic and
apostolic. And in a sense, every community which claims to be the Church, to be a sign of the
Church, must also be catholic i.e. universal, open to all, open to the whole.
Therefore it is crucial to find the right way of addressing the issue of the spirituality of
Benedictine monasticism. Especially in the case of monasticism, wondering about spirituality in
terms of specialization, i.e. looking for the way in which it would be fundamentally different from
any other Western religious order would be a mistake. To give just one example, there have been
attempts to classify Benedictine monasticism as contemplative without realizing how
anachronistic this categorization is for a form of common life born several centuries before the
introduction of the distinction between contemplative and active life, i.e. between orders who are
exclusively dedicated to prayer and orders mainly devoted to pastoral activities.
This explains our attempt to ascertain how Benedictine monasticism is an ecclesial spirituality.
Our starting point shall be that which many consider the defining feature of Benedictine
monasticism, i.e. the Opus Dei, the celebration of liturgy. Beyond the variety of ways in which
Benedicts Rule is practiced by the dozens of monastic families existing today, the organization of
the day around the liturgical celebration is the most noticeable unifying factor, easily recognizable
also by those who do not know anything about Benedictine life. According to the perspective
outlined above, we will try to understand how the Opus Dei makes Benedictine spirituality an
ecclesial spirituality, exploring its depth from the viewpoint of both theology and of the so called
theological virtues. The viewpoint of theology focuses on the content of the Christian faith i.e. what
we believe; the viewpoint of theological virtues focuses on the act of faith, on the living relationship
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with the God of Jesus Christ, the way we adhere to the Lord, i.e. how we believe.
Benedicts Rule ascribes the same primacy to the love of Christ and to the opus Dei conveyed in
both cases through the Latin adverb nihil: "Do not prefer anything to the love of Christ"2 and "Do
not prefer anything to God's work".3 This parallel, especially if it is not intentional, betrays
something crucial about the meaning of the expression Opus Dei: Opus Dei and love of Christ are
the same reality and therefore involve the same primacy.
Of course love of Christ here means first of all Christ's love for us and only secondarily our love
for him. We are thus invited to look in the same direction for the meaning of the expression Opus
Dei by asking ourselves the following question: why call the communal celebration of liturgy Opus
Dei, that is the work not of human persons but of God? From a theological point of view the
answer is simple: because the liturgy is the welcoming and the celebration of what God alone does,
God alone gives and to which we can only correspond thanks to a gift from God, thanks to the grace
of God.
The Gospel of John speaks both of works of God in the plural4 and of the work of God in the
singular.5 To the disciples who ask what are the works of God, that is, the works that people have
to do for God, to fulfil their duties in relation to God, Jesus answers in an unexpected way by
turning the viewpoint upside down: before talking about works we should do for God we must
welcome the work of God for us", the Opus Dei, what God works in us, that is the gift of faith. And
the gift of faith both for John and for the whole of the New Testament not only indicates the

RB 4:21: Nihil amori Christi praeponere. Cf. 72,11: Christo omnino nihil preponant e 5,2: Haec convenit his qui

nihil sibi a Christo carius aliquid existimant.

3

RB 43:3: Nihil operi Dei praeponatur.

Jn 14:10-12: Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not

speak on my own; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in
me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me
will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.
5

Jn 6:28-29: The crowd said to him, What must we do to perform the works of God? Jesus answered them, This is the

work of God (i.e. the Opus Dei), that you believe in him whom he has sent.

content of belief (what I believe), but above all the gift of relationship with God, the gift of
communion with God (how I believe).6 Faith is fellowship with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ
in the Holy Spirit. Hence a key theological principle: the Opus Dei is that which God works in us, it
is the grace, the gift of God, and therefore it is communion, it is covenant, it is reconciliation. Faith
understood as adhesion to God is the bestowal of a gift, of a grace which is essentially communal.
In turn, such a gift, such a grace turns into thanks-giving (which is the meaning of the word
Eucharist) which is essentially communal too, both as a form of prayer and as a form of life.
The expression of the Rule of St. Benedict "Do not prefer anything to the work of God" does not
mean therefore do not prefer anything to the works that we must do for God, but do not prefer
anything to the welcoming and the celebration of what God does for us, that is to the welcoming
and celebration of the saving work of God in us, i.e. of the covenant, of reconciliation, of
communion with God.
From this viewpoint, our perception of the Opus Dei is radically transformed because it reestablishes the primacy of the initiative and of the action of the Lord. The emphasis is no longer on
how we celebrate the liturgy, that is, on the forms, on the rubrics, with all the deviations that this
approach may foster, but on what the Lord does through the liturgy.
Do not prefer anything to the welcoming and the celebration of what God does for us means
first of all letting ourselves to be continually convened (con-vene, comes from cum-venio: coming
together, gathering together) in this covenant thanks to the Word of God, that is letting ourselves
to be more and more deeply reconciled with the Father and with our brothers and sisters. Then it
means continually responding to this grace through the sacrifice of thanksgiving of the Eucharistic
celebration and through its extension which is the chanting of psalms, both communal activities
too. In the liturgy we celebrate the grace, the gift of God, we gives thanks (eucharistein) for the

Cf. 1 Jn 1:1-3: We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes,

what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life this life was revealed, and we have
seen it and testify to it, and declare to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us we declare to
you what we have seen and heard so that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the
Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete.

grace (charis), that is, we give back a gift for a gift and in this way we become a sacrifice pleasing to
God thanks to our union with Christ. Then it means letting this covenant, this reconciliation, this
communion manifesting itself in a life that actually becomes a sign of this grace whose nature is
essentially communal: if this is the grace we receive, if indeed we welcome it with an open and
sincere heart, then it will become visible in the quality (and fruitfulness) of our community life.
Benedict had a clear awareness of all this. Indeed, the two sentences quoted above are
embedded in passages dealing with issues related to community life precisely because he meant to
convey the communal aspect of salvation through them.
The celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours is inherently a common action and the Rule requires
that the whole community should fully take part to it from beginning to end. Only the abbot can
exempt a monk from participation to the office and this only for serious reasons. Even when the
monks are far from the monastery, they have to pray the office at the appointed times wherever
they happen to be.7 The main place where the community is visible as such is the common
celebration of the liturgy.
Other provisions in Benedicts Rule express this same understanding, for example in the
chapters devoted to the excommunication of the monks who have done something wrong, whether
in small or in serious matters.8 We are right today in considering these practices anachronistic and
yet this should not prevent us from reflecting on their underlying theological meaning.
For us today the word 'excommunication' has lost much of the ecclesial depth of its original
meaning. In Benedicts Rule it is a visible exclusion from the community with a medicinal purpose,
i.e. a means of healing, a way of helping the guilty monk to understand that his faults have an effect
on the whole community life, introduce divisions, especially in the case of pride, murmuring and
disobedience.9 Excommunication aims at leading the reluctant monk to become aware of the

RB 50.

RB 23-30 et 43-44.

RB 23:1.

seriousness of the consequences of his attitude on the community.10 Physical isolation and the
loneliness that it entails make the monk aware of the moral isolation he has fallen into by
separating himself from his brothers and by his self-absorption. Now, in the Rule, the most severe
form of excommunication consists in the exclusion from the celebration of the liturgy. It can go
from the prohibition to exercise an active role in prayer (singing psalms or doing readings)11 to
barring the monk from the chapel altogether12. Our prayer is pleasing to God only if it is made in
union with Christ and his body which is the Church. The monk whose conduct has hurt community
life must become aware of the consequences of his actions through the exclusion from celebration
of the liturgy because liturgy is the highest embodiment of the community, it is the place where
communion becomes visible in its highest form.
The second sentence we referred to above, "Do not prefer anything to the love of Christ", also is
enshrined in the well-known chapter 72 of the Rule which is widely considered as one of the most
important pages of the Benedictine code13. This context clarifies the meaning of the preference for
the love of Christ required from monks: we truly give priority to the love of Christ only insofar as
we welcome grace, salvation, covenant, reconciliation, that is only insofar as we patiently bear one
anothers infirmities, only insofar as we are open towards each other, as we follow what is useful to
others more than to ourselves etc. The communal character of salvation is expressed especially in

10

This explains why excommunication can be inflicted only on the monks able to understand its seriousness, cf. RB 23:4

and 30:2.
11

RB 24:2 et 44:4-6.

12

RB 25:1 et 44.

13

RB 72: As there is a harsh and evil zeal which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a virtuous zeal which

separates from vice and leads to God and life everlasting. Let the monks, therefore, practice this zeal with most ardent
love; namely, that in honour they forerun one another. Let them bear their infirmities, whether of body or mind, with the
utmost patience; let them vie with one another in obedience. Let no one follow what he thinks useful to himself, but
rather to another. Let them practice fraternal charity with a chaste love. Let them fear God and love their Abbot with
sincere and humble affection; let them prefer nothing whatever to Christ, and may he lead us all together to life
everlasting.

the "all together" with which this chapter ends: Benedictine monks do not seek individual
salvation, but the salvation of the community; they want to reach eternal life pariter, all together.
Therefore, the answer to questions concerning the charism or spirituality of Benedictine
monasticism has to be looked for in this preference (nihil preponatur, nihil praeponere, pariter):
nothing can be preferred to the work of salvation of the Father in us, through Christ in the Holy
Spirit, which takes the form of covenant, of reconciliation, of communion; nothing can be preferred
to the welcoming of God's love, to the celebration of this love through the prayer and the fraternal
life in which this grace finds expression; nothing can be preferred to the communion, i.e. to this
community I belong to and to the local Church it is a part of, to the upbuilding of which we must
contribute with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength. Finally, nothing can be
preferred to this pariter: we must move forward all together; there is no real joy if we do not reach
the finish line all together.
So far, therefore, the implications of this double preference for the opus Dei and for Christ
correspond to the line of inquiry we have adopted at the beginning: defining what is specific to
Benedictine spirituality in terms of what makes it truly ecclesial, truly Catholic, that is, expression
of the whole, prophecy for and of the whole. We should now take a step further and pay attention
to the practical implications of these findings.
There is a major shortcoming resulting from the logic of specialization in the tradition of
religious life in the Western Church: religious orders born after the Middle Ages have generally
expressed their specific characteristics, their charism, not first of all in terms of communion, but in
terms of mission, that is, defining their identities on the basis of aspects of the mission of the
Church which required a special effort in the historical periods in which they were founded:
preaching, care for the sick, teaching, pastoral care of youth, evangelization of Media etc ... In these
new forms of religious life some basic form of community life more or less simplified still remained
in keeping with apostolic needs, but often the stress on mission relegated communion in the
background.
On the contrary, despite having performed and still performing almost all these same activities
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as other modern religious orders Benedictine monasticism has never defined itself through
identification with any of these activities. Despite all its vicissitudes and crisis, it has continued to
identify itself with the double nihil praeponatur of the work of God and the love of Christ, and with
the pariter, i.e. with the priority given to communion over mission, in the belief that the most
powerful form of mission is communion itself.
The priority Benedicts Rule gives to communion is not a form of collective egoism comparable
to the ethnic or social particularism which leads regions, races, nations or social classes to become
self-absorbed and self-referential. On the contrary, it is a preference for a love that comes from
somewhere else, that is not self-absorbed, but is prophetic or rather it is the prophecy par
excellence because it speaks for itself: when it is truly enacted, this love transforms the community
into a light placed on the chandelier. This is what Jesus declares: "By this all will know that you are
my disciples, if you have love for one another".14 Or, this is what the theologian Hans Urs von
Balthasar meant through the title of his well-known programmatic booklet: Love alone is worthy
of faith.15
The history of Benedictine monasticism is very eloquent in this regard: whenever this preference
has been side-lined, whenever community life has been sacrificed even for the sake of very worthy
purposes (for example ecumenical activity, schools of prayer, Catholic teaching etc ..), the
beginning may sometimes have been exciting, but almost invariably it eventually resulted in a
crisis. It is not the legitimacy of these works which is at issue here. During their 1500-year history
Benedictine monks and nuns have done almost all the activities that are now the prerogative of
modern religious orders; the decisive contribution of Benedictine monasteries to European
civilization and to American culture, for example, is universally recognized. Such apostolic, cultural
and social fruitfulness is an expression of the flexibility and of the genius of Benedictine
monasticism

14

Jn 13:35.

15

Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone Is Credible, trans. David L Schindler (W.B. Eerdmans Publ.: Grand Rapids, Mich.,

2008).

Never however have Benedictine communities fully identified themselves with the activities
they played at a given time in their history. Had this been the case, these same communities would
have lost their reason to exist when these activities were no longer needed. This happens to modern
religious orders who have identified themselves too closely to specific aspects of the mission of the
Church. For example, many female religious orders are dying today because the invaluable and
generous service in health care or education they were born to perform is now undertaken
effectively by civil society.
Several Benedictine monasteries run schools, universities, hospitals, work in mission territories,
but they always try to preserve the priority of communion over mission or rather the priority of
communion as the crucial form of mission. So monks and nuns devote themselves to their many
activities only to the extent that these do not interfere with the primacy (nihil praeponatur) for the
opus Dei understood not only liturgically but rather in the theological meaning explained so far,
namely the primacy to be given to the welcoming and celebration of reconciliation, of the covenant
and of communion in prayer and in common life.
Countless examples could illustrate this statement. In recent years, some British monasteries
closed well-known boarding schools, some French monasteries sacrificed successful cultural
magazines, some Italian monasteries left well-attended and vibrant parishes. In each of these cases,
the decision to give up these activities did not harm the community. On the contrary, the renewed
priority given to communion strengthened the identity of these communities and made them an
even more eloquent sign of evangelical life for the Church and for the world.
Such freedom is the ultimate expression of love and results in a characteristic joy: "Ecce quam
bonum et quam iucundum habitare fratres in unum", "Behold, how good and how joyful it is for
brothers and sisters to dwell in unity!". It is the joy John speaks of in the passage from his first
letter quoted above which results from communion and reconciliation.16

16

1 Jn, 1:1-3: We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen so that you also

may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. We are writing
these things so that our joy may be complete.

In conclusion, therefore, Benedictine spirituality is a spirituality of the Church, that is a sign

and a prophecy of what the Church is, precisely thanks to its dual preference for the Work of God
and for the love of Christ. This Benedictine spirituality is a God-given charism because it
contributes to the upbuilding of the Church. The fundamental contribution of Benedictine
monasticism to the life and mission of the Church lies in the zeal with which it manages to preserve
this priority in spite of all the misunderstandings all too common in todays society (and
unfortunately in todays Church) so dominated by the logic of result. This is what Jesus intended
for the whole Church: before being an instrument of salvation or rather to be able to be an
instrument of salvation, the Church must first and foremost be an ever more transparent sign of
this salvation. And since salvation is communion and reconciliation, it can be proclaimed in a
credible way only when it is embodied in communities where the love, the joy and the freedom of
the children of God is present and visible. This communion becomes the most important means of
evangelization because love alone is worthy of faith, love alone is credible.

Abstract
From a theological point of view, the parameter of verification of the charism of a religious
order is first of all its place in the Church, not only at the universal level, but above all where the
Church actually is embodied, i.e. in the local Church. Benedictine spirituality too is to be evaluated
on the basis of this criterion: to what extent and in how it is a gateway into the spirituality of the
Church.

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