The Rule of St Benedict Chapter 54
Whether a monk ought to receive letters or tokens
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Text
On no account is it permitted for a monk to receive from his parents, or from anyone, or from his brothers, either letters, tokens or any small gifts whatsoever, or to give any such thing without the permission of his Abbot.
Nullatenus liceat monacho nec a parentibus suis, nec a quoquam hominum, nec sibi invicem litteras, aut eulogias vel quaelibet munuscula accipere aut dare, sine praecepto Abbatis sui.
And even if anything be sent to him by his parents, he should not presume to receive it, without first having disclosed it to the Abbot.
Quod si etiam a parentibus suis ei quicquam directum fuerit, non praesumat suscipere illud, nisi prius indicatum fuerit Abbati.
If it is to be received, it is in the Abbot’s power to decide on who should receive it; and the brother to whom it happened to have been sent should not be saddened, so that he does not give opportunity to the devil.
Quod si jusserit suscipi, in Abbatis sit potestate, cui illud jubeat dari; et non contristetur frater, cui forte directum fuerat, ut non detur occasio diabolo.
Anyone who presumes to do otherwise should be subjected to the discipline of the Rule.
Qui autem aliter praesumpserit, disciplinae regulari subiaceat.
Comment
I have read the Rule many times, and never quite understood the reference to a “token” in this chapter. I thought it was some kind of small thing. Dom Delatte explains it in his Commentary:
The practice of sending a friend something from your table existed among the pagans of antiquity and survived in Christian times. The morsel of blessed bread which is distributed (in France) to the faithful in the course of High Mass, as a token of communion between them, is the eulogia par excellence. In the fourth century we find St. Paulinus of Nola sending little loaves of bread to his friends - to St.Augustine, for instance. Presents were also made of fruit, images, medals, relics; and all these things received the generic name of eulogiae.
If you’re not familiar with blessed bread, this was a practice from the days when people did not receive communion regularly; it was common, certainly in France and England, for loaves of bread (usually made by a member of the congregation) to be blessed during the Mass and distributed at the end or after the Mass.
So a family member sending or giving a monk a portion of this bread expressed their communion and relationship. Sending letters to their monastic relative, if far away, is also mentioned in this chapter. Both of these things are a reminder of relationships outside the cloister. A monk has now adopted a new family by entering the monastery and his enclosure walls are the bounds of his life. Outside contact is therefore not an assumed right. As Dom Delatte explains:
Our separation from the world, to be effective, must be external: such as is produced by our leaving it, by enclosure, by our habit, by silence; but it should be internal also: and if intercourse is assiduously maintained by visits and letters, it is clear that our thoughts remain with the world.
He then refers to 2 Timothy 2:4:
No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier’s aim is to please the enlisting officer.
He then goes on:
Perhaps we write too many letters. Why can we not confine ourselves to those demanded by politeness, charity and real utility? Would it not be rather strange that more letters should go out of a monastery than come in? We should drop not only all frivolous, trivial correspondence, but also such as is of a purely “worldly” character. Let us also remember the dangers of letters of “direction.” And when we write, let it always be with sobriety, and moderation, and in a supernatural spirit.
So this chapter reminds monks about their separation from the world. For us, living in this secular world, perhaps this chapter can apply to social media, text and even (God forbid!) Substack! Do we need to share every thought, every image we like or dislike? Of course, moderation is key here and I’m not (obviously) suggesting that we all give up on Substack. I personally have found so much to encourage my faith and practice here. But if any activity takes us away from our primary purpose in life – seeking to live according to God’s law and obtain eternal life as a result – then it is a distraction, as St Benedict makes clear in this chapter.
In some monastic communities and in the medieval rites for anchorites, often the entering of the monastery or cell involved a symbolic rite of death. Sometimes anchorites were to dig their own grave in their anchorhold; sometimes there was a kind of “funeral” as the person died to the world. It’s not generally done now and family relationships are of course preserved, but a monk is never free to just drop everything and visit his family at the weekend if he wishes. There is a rupture, which can be painful, especially if the parents do not understand or support their vocation. This is the price of a monastic life, as Jesus states in the Gospels:
And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields, for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold, and will inherit eternal life.1
And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”2
The other side of this is that monks do not own anything. So even one monk cannot “give” something to another one but must seek permission first. This could be as small a thing as a prayer card, or a holy image.
Likewise, anything that comes into the monastery goes to the Abbot first. He decides who it shall go to. In practice, small things may be given to the monk – family photos, for example, are of no use to anyone else. But a box of chocolates will be shared with everyone and not be given to the monk to guzzle in private. This is all a reminder of the precept of poverty, of shared ownership, in accordance with the principles of the early Christians, in Acts of the Apostles:
All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need.3
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Matthew 19:29
Mark 3:33-35
Acts 2:44-45