Today we celebrate the Feast Day of St. Benedict, the Father of Western Monasticism and a great saint and miracle worker. To this day, His Rule still guides many thousands of religious and lay people affiliated or vowed in his order and has influenced countless other early religious orders including the Carmelites. Carmelites would be inspired by His Benedictine Rule in which the rhythm of the day and prayer was scheduled around the recitation of the Divine Office. This would remain a central component of the much shorter Rule of St. Albert which was fashioned for the Carmelites particular spirituality and call to contemplative prayer.
Chapter Seven of St. Benedict's Rule is devoted to the topic of humility- something every Christian continuously strives for on the journey of life. He outlined 12 degrees of humility, which can be used as guideposts for all Christians as we heed the call of Jesus to, "take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart." [Mt 11:29]
The twelve degrees are as follows:
1. Fear of God and remembrance of Him in all things;
2. One must seek not to do his own will, but instead to do the Will of the Father as Jesus did
3. One must be obedient to God and His Church in all things great and small;
4. One must be patient, enduring everything that comes to him in silence;
5. One must not hide our sins, but eagerly confess them;
6. One who seeks humility must be content with the poorest and worst of everything;
7. One must consider oneself lower than anyone else;
8. One must not seek to stand out, but instead do only what is required and needful, following the example of the saints;
9. One must restrain the tongue and keep silence when tempted to sin with sword of the tongue;
10. One must be serious-minded, not frivolous, loud or silly - drawing attention to ourselves
11. Our words to others should be measured, and covered with gentleness;
12. Humility will then be manifest in one's inner heart and outward behaviors, and permeate one's entire life whether in activity or silence and prayer.
He ends this chapter of the Rule by setting forth the fruits of such efforts:
Having climbed all these steps of humility, therefore,
the monk will presently come to that perfect love of God
which casts out fear.
And all those precepts
which formerly he had not observed without fear,
he will now begin to keep by reason of that love,
without any effort,
as though naturally and by habit.
No longer will his motive be the fear of hell,
but rather the love of Christ,
good habit
and delight in the virtues
which the Lord will deign to show forth by the Holy Spirit in His servant now cleansed from vice and sin. [see http://www.osb.org/rb/text/rbefjo1.html]
For most of us [at least myself], this can seem to be an overwhelming list of degrees, one in which I might just be in negative territory at times. BUT, that should not discourage any of us from using these degrees to guide our behaviors, and help us to be more aware of our need for the meekness displayed by Our Lord Jesus Christ, Our Lady, and the community of the saints. I can ask myself, "Do I really need to chime in with my opinion on this subject at this moment?" "Am I drawing too much attention to myself or not maintaining proper decorum in Church or out with others?" "Am I being obedient to the Church, to my Carmelite rule, to my husband, to my parents, my boss, or those who have some authority over me?"
Although the Rule of St. Albert does not mention the word 'humility' even once surprisingly, it does clearly state and underscore that we are to strive to live in allegiance to Jesus Christ, which entails the following initiatives in our daily lives:
- to develop the contemplative dimension of their life, in an open dialogue with God
- to live full of charity
- to meditate day and night on the Word of the Lord
- to pray together or alone several times a day
- to celebrate the Eucharist every day
- to do manual work, as Paul the Apostle did
- to purify themselves of every trace of evil
- to live in poverty, placing in common what little they may have
- to love the Church and all people
- to conform their will to that of God, seeking the will of God in faith, in dialogue and through discernment.
It is easy to see how central the virtue of humility is to attaining these ways of life and virtues. St. Teresa of Avila, sees humility as a cornerstone of prayer and progress in the contemplative life. Humility must always be doing its work like a bee making its honey in the hive: without humility all will be lost […] As I see it, we shall never succeed in knowing ourselves unless we seek to know God: let us think of His greatness and then come back to our own baseness; by looking at His purity we shall see our foulness; by meditating upon His humility, we shall see how far we are from being humble. There are two advantages to this. First, it is clear that anything white looks very much whiter against something black, just as the black looks blacker against the white. Secondly, if we turn from self toward God, our understanding and our will become nobler and readier to embrace all that is good: if we never rise above the slough our own miseries we do ourselves a great disservice. [The Interior Castle]
She also discusses humility at length in The Way of Perfection and advises as follows to avoid false humility:
Humility, however deep it be, neither disquiets nor troubles nor disturbs the soul; it is accompanied by peace, joy and tranquility. Although, on realizing how wicked we are, we can see clearly that we deserve to be in hell, and are distressed by our sinfulness, and rightly think that everyone should hate us, yet, if our humility is true, this distress is accompanied by an interior peace and joy of which we should not like to be deprived. Far from disturbing or depressing the soul, it enlarges it and makes it fit to serve God better. The other kind of distress only disturbs and upsets the mind and troubles the soul, so grievous is it. I think the devil is anxious for us to believe that we are humble, and, if he can, to lead us to distrust God.When you find yourselves in this state, cease thinking, so far as you can, of your own wretchedness, and think of the mercy of God and of His love and His sufferings for us. If your state of mind is the result of temptation, you will be unable to do even this, for it will not allow you to quiet your thoughts or to fix them on anything but will only weary you the more: it will be a great thing if you can recognize it as a temptation. This is what happens when we perform excessive penances in order to make ourselves believe that, because of what we are doing, we are more penitent than others. If we conceal our penances from our confessor or superior, or if we are told to give them up and do not obey, that is a clear case of temptation. Always try to obey, however much it may hurt you to do so, for that is the greatest possible perfection.” (Way of Perfection, Ch. 39, para. 3).
May these great saints and their prescriptions in attaining humility be there to light our paths towards union and perfection in Christ Jesus, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for the Glory of God the Father. Amen.
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel...Pray for us.
St. Benedict...Pray for us.
St. Albert...Pray for us.
St. Teresa of Avila...Pray for us.
