The Benefits of Repeated Reading of Each Entry of The Rule of St. Benedict Throughout the Year
We continue to look to the Rule of St. Benedict to help us build stability in our work lives. Today, we'll consider the benefits of repeatedly reading each entry of the Rule throughout the year. As we've noted many times, the custom in a Benedictine monastery has traditionally been to follow the Rule as St. Benedict laid it out for us. If we do so, we wind up reading the entire Rule three times through during the calendar year.
Now, add to this the fact that monks basically spend their entire lives in their monastery, that is, until the day they die. So if they enter the monastery at, let's say age 25 and live to the age of 85, that around 60 years. Multiply 60x3 and they've heard (or read) the Rule 180 times.
When I first started reading the Rule, I wondered about this. My first thought was that it was done because that's how St. Benedict wanted it done. Not a bad reason, to be sure. But St. Benedict didn't just decide the Rule should be continually read because he thought it wasn't a bad idea. The fact is, it's a good idea.
We could look at it this way: Anything worthwhile is worth repeating. The Rule, certainly worthwhile, therefore is worth repeating.
So what are the specific benefits of this constant repetition, besides reinforcing that the Rule is worthwhile? For that, we can scroll back to last week's posts. If you remember, we discussed how the Psalms can and should "come alive" for us. And we suggested they could and would if we read the Psalms each day, at minimum one per day.
The same holds for the Rule.
Now, I think St. Benedict would be the first to say that the Psalms hold and offer more benefits to each of us than his Rule. After all, God, our Creator "wrote" the Psalms; St. Benedict, like us one of His creatures, wrote the rule.
But conceding this, the Rule has to be one of the top man-written documents worth reading and studying - as we've asserted and seen many times in the past. And repetition will be one of the key components to our reading and studying.
For one thing, as with the Psalms, there are a lot of them. The Psalms are typically divided into 150 parts; the Rule a bit north of 121 (1 per each of 365 days of the year, divided by 3 - with an adjustment for Leap Year).
Consider too that the point of the Rule isn't to "memorize" each as a kind of formal exercise. The point is to seek guidance or feast on the rich nuggets laced throughout the Rule. Add in the fact that each of us comes to the Rule with our individual character and personality. Assuming we all share a proclivity to get as much as we can out of the Rule, what we absorb and how we absorb it will vary from one individual to the next.
Just look at the difference between monks vs. us men working in the world and add in the sometimes vast differences between one person and the other, and we can see how what strikes one person may not necessarily strike another at the same time in the same way.
So each of us brings his individual character and temperament to our reading of the Rule each day. In addition, one day may find us especially attentive, another distracted. One day we wake up feeling like we can conquer the world; the next we may feel down in the dumps. No matter how we feel on any given day, repetition steps in and allows individuals to absorb entries at different times in different ways.
So if we Catholic men at work can develop the habit of reading the Rule each day, despite how you may feel on any given day, you're guaranteed to come away with both spiritual and practical benefits that will improve both your soul and your business. I speak from personal experience.
Even the most arcane entries, that may, at first or many times thereafter, not seem to apply to us in any way we can imagine, can reveal their secrets after repeated readings. We saw an example of this recently when we discussed those entries in the Rule regarding the praying of the Divine Office. These entries were quite specific and specialized. At first blush it seemed difficult to derive anything of benefit from a discussion how monks pray the Divine Office each throughout the year. However, with repeated readings of these entries over the course of many years, even these seemingly arcane entries provided meaty nuggets of wisdom and practical guidance that we can apply to our work life as well as our spiritual life.
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