A Living Tradition

Issue 272 - A Living Tradition

July 2022

Tradition, by definition, comes to us from the past.

But traditions are also dynamic, living, and changing.

We reflect here on this truth, especially as it applies to the Benedictine tradition.

Into the River

Pattiann Rogers describes her baptism by immersion in a river, at the age of thirteen, in these evocative words:

"I don’t remember the words said as I balanced against the current, but I went down over my head into the river’s swath and taste, … the river sliding against my face, through my hair, … down into the force and time of the river’s body.

"And when I came up again and gasped the rash blaze and explosion of summer, I believed wholeheartedly in river belief. The river was here, tangible, soothing and biting, cresting and waning, not a gift but an ongoing giving and re-giving.… River was a verb, not a noun.… The river was being—swift, assertive, foresworn—moment by moment by moment. And I knew I was joined in that same being …, moment by moment by moment."

Tradition, also, is a verb, not a noun. Tradition is never really static or dead, but alive and moving: an ongoing flow, often swirling, sometimes carving new channels. And however we may have been baptized, we Christians are all immersed into the force and flow of the tradition.

In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about “reimagining church,” discovering new ways to be the church in our days. While the pandemic certainly accelerated these conversions, they began long before we ever heard of COVID. But reimagining church is not inventing something new. It is allowing the tradition to flow through us and around us, giving and re-giving, carrying us to new places.

Our church traditions, like the river, are both soothing and biting, sometimes constraining us, sometimes taking us where we never could have imagined. Fundamentalists – both Protestant and Catholic – may try to stop the flow, to dam up the spirit in some familiar configuration of the past, thought to be somehow holier than an untamed, flowing river.

But our traditions are not a gift, once given and unchanging. Our traditions are an ongoing giving and re-giving, moment by moment by moment.

--Bill

Change is a-comin'

In Phyllis Tickle’s book, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, she writes that this is “a time of dizzying upheaval and hopeful promise during which various sectors of today’s church swirl into a great confluence at the center.” We can’t deny that we are in the midst of a dizzying upheaval – culturally, politically, and socially – and the church is experiencing transitional shifts as well.

Almost as old as the church, generally speaking, is the institution of monasticism. Based on the writing of holy scripture and the early desert mothers and fathers, the Rule of Benedict has, since the 6^th century, formed Christians in a way of life dealing with the issues that face us now: “stewardship, relationships, authority, community, balance, work, simplicity, prayer, and spiritual and psychological development.” *

Benedictine spirituality has survived – and thrived, and is now experiencing an emerging swell among the women Benedictines. In July we were part of two movements of greater interaction among the religious orders and lay people. Both international conversations, Federation of St. Scholastica Benedictine Colloquium and the American Benedictine Academy point to an open stance of community while remaining tightly bound in the Rule of Benedict container; that is, the “Contemplative Stance” through the Spirit.

Benedictine Spirituality, as a living tradition, has existed throughout its 1500 -year history because each generation has changed to adapt to the times; however “being a place of prayer and community is non-negotiable.” These adaptations, worldwide, include non-professed “intentional communities” and lay-led Oblate (associates) programs. Among the Being Benedictine community, Nuns particularly reach out to the “Nones”.

Our local Boerne Benedictines at St. Scholastica Monastery are wisely putting into practice the Prologue to the Rule of Benedict:

Listen, my child. To the instructions of your master and incline the ear of your heart…. In the first place, pray most earnestly.… Obey at all times…. Rise from sleep…. Having opened our eyes to the divine light, let us hear with open ears what the divine voice cries out…. Run while you have the light of life…. What, dearest ones can be sweeter to us than this voice of God inviting us? See, in loving kindness, God shows us the way of life.**

--Jan

*Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages. NY: Crossroad, 2004. p 15.

** Judith Sutera, trans. St. Benedict's Rule: An Inclusive Translation and Daily Commentary. Collegeville, Liturgical Press, 2021. pp 11-15.

Monastery of the Heart

Lectio Divina