The retreat I went on last weekend was on humility, as St. Benedict presents it in his Rule. One comment a monk made, which I found very interesting, is that St. Benedict never uses the word "wisdom" in the Rule, but he always uses "humility" as basically a synonym for wisdom. For St. Benedict, humility is the root of all virtue, the root of all knowledge, the root of all healthy relationships, including our relationships with God and ourselves. In a way, humility is wisdom, though this was a wisdom that needed to be revealed by God, who took on the greatest humility possible. Such wisdom is not the wisdom of natural man; indeed, it appears like foolishness to him.
Another point that I got from the retreat was that the most effective way of growing in humility is by being humiliated (and this, the Abbot demonstrated by Mother Teresa's example). We should not actively seek out humiliation, or humiliate ourselves purposely, but when humiliation comes (and it inevitably will), this is the time to grow in humility.
Since the retreat, I have been reading over the Rule, reading other sections besides the one on humility. What strikes me with the rule is its extreme practicality, and its deep understanding of human nature. The essence of the rule is that it is not good to go alone, because we do not know what is good for ourselves, or, even when we do, were are not effective at carrying it out. It is better to be under someone, than to govern ourselves. Human nature is broken, and we are prone to weakness, contradictions, mistakes, and we need an environment that cultivates in us our best qualities so that we can become the persons God wills us to be. And this is what the Rule is for, for the creating of such an environment.
I am also struck by how "modern" the Rule is. We are entering a new Dark Age, where the very foundations of our civilization are crumbling, and every man is retreating to his own quarters and his own way of doing things, a (sub)urban feudalism, though this is masked by the pseudo-connectivity of the digital age. We need the wisdom of St. Benedict more than ever, that intentional community and friendships will form and carry our civilization forward to more happy and spiritually-thriving times. And, we need a new chivalry, a new class of men with a code of Christian honor, to rise to the needs of the poor and the weak, for we no longer can count on a government to provide these things, nor, sadly, our many broken families. These men must lay down their lives for Truth, as the knights of old, that it may everywhere be known and honored.
St. Benedict, pray for us.
