ST. BENEDICT, YESTERDAY AND TODAY (Under the Banner of Christ, Part 2)

This post is part of a series talking about my new book, "Under the Banner of Christ with Benedict: Ancient Lessons in Christian Leadership for Times Like These"

(PART 2) ST. BENEDICT, YESTERDAY AND TODAY

WHAT HAS ST. BENEDICT GOT TO DO WITH TODAY?

Benedict of Nursia, a Roman monk in sixth century Italy, wasn’t merely an ascetic who down some good thoughts about living a Christian life in community. Quite significantly, the path he chartered for Christian living very quickly became the enduring standard and formative influence that gave shape to how Christians live in the world for the next 1,000 years. When we look at what Benedict says in his Regula and examine the principles of how it looks in practice, we’re not just studying the quaint ideas of a sixth century monk—we’re cracking into the very DNA of western Christian culture that gave birth to European Christendom and continued as its principle shape and form until the 16th century.

So you see, we’re looking at Benedict’s thought because the particular way of being Christian in the world that he gave shape to is the very flesh and blood of western Christendom — the perennial deep roots that Christians living in the modern west can re-graft on to in order to rediscover how to live Christian in the midst of such a world as we’re now facing, with its crises confronting the Church from within and without, and so come to flourish anew.

OUR PRECARIOUS PREDICAMENT

Christopher Dawson, the eminent anthropologist of Christian history, rightly points out that Christianity is an all-embracing system, such that everything pertains to the presence of God and all aspects of human life and culture are called to be elevated to the divine life God has created us for. This truth shines forth very clearly in the writings of St. Benedict. Increasingly in competition with Christianity, as Dawson continues, the modern politico-socio-economic machine is by its very nature totalitarian, and this is why Christians find themselves faced not only with a society that is no longer conducive to Christian life, but one where it is increasingly difficult—often impossible—to live as a Christian at all while remaining embedded within these socio-economic structures of their very nature incompatible with living the Gospel. Moreover, many of the failures of leadership within the Church and betrayals of the Christian community by those entrusted with authority, stem from those individuals—and we as a whole people— allying ourselves more with the ways of the world than with the Gospel of Christ.

Such then, is our predicament. The individual Christian cannot survive as an individual, especially in conditions such as we face today. Each person needs community or they will perish spiritually. Many—maybe you experience this firsthand yourself—are already going through life in the continual agony of spiritually languishing, barely hold- ing onto faith, let alone any semblance of participating in a lived Christian community in regular practice in their day to day lives.