Saint Benedict, and Getting Things Done

Today, July 11, is the Feast of St. Benedict.

Listen carefully, my son, to the master's instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart... The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience. (Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict)

Benedict's thoroughly sensible Rule laid a foundation for Christian life in community in the Western Church. Much of it deals with the Opus Dei, the daily cycle of Psalmody, Scripture, and Prayer. As I wrote in the previous essay, nothing is more important: Operi Dei nihil praeponatur. The Rule gives down-to-earth advice on becoming more humble and more obedient. And it covers the administrative aspects of living in community with unsurpassed wisdom.

Some of it might require a grain of salt nowadays:

Should anyone make a mistake in a psalm, responsory, refrain or reading, he must make satisfaction there before all.... Children, however, are to be whipped for such a fault. (Chapter 45, “Mistakes in the oratory,” sentences 1 and 3)

That might not go over so well in our youth choir rehearsals.

Much has been written and said about this Saint. I will content myself with one link, a sermon by the Holy Father who took his name, Benedict XVI: General Audience, 9 April 2008

… the Saint's work and particularly his Rule were to prove heralds of an authentic spiritual leaven which, in the course of the centuries, far beyond the boundaries of his country and time, changed the face of Europe following the fall of the political unity created by the Roman Empire, inspiring a new spiritual and cultural unity, that of the Christian faith shared by the peoples of the Continent. This is how the reality we call "Europe" came into being....

Without prayer there is no experience of God. Yet Benedict's spirituality was not an interiority removed from reality. In the anxiety and confusion of his day, he lived under God's gaze and in this very way never lost sight of the duties of daily life and of man with his practical needs.

A Rule of life is not just for monks and nuns. It is a helpful practice for anyone to develop some manner of Rule. I first started such a document many years ago as a way to organize my work on Sundays, a complex and challenging day for church musicians and others, such as clergy. At first, I simply wanted a task list so that others could fill in for me, but it quickly grew beyond that, and beyond Sundays into the rest of the week. Over years, it grew larger and more detailed, and then simpler. Changes to the Rule are made with thought and prayer, and the result is that, when I am disciplined by it (which is not always) I am not living my life by whim, but by reason and faith. I do not always live up to it.

As one of my colleagues, a youth director, often said, “Transitions are important.” If I am on task, I am all right – as I wrote the other day in regard to the Daily Office: once I begin, I can almost always carry it through. The point of danger arises when one task is laid aside and it is time to do Something Else. What might that be? Countless times the Rule has helped me; when in doubt, I do what is next. If necessary, I open my computer file and look at the Rule, and it reminds me. But over time, the sequence of the day's work becomes habitual, and that is good.

There must be enough flexibility to lay aside the order of things in the Rule to take care of what Stephen Covey would call “Quadrant One” tasks – “important and urgent.” But one of the defining qualities of such a task is that when it arises, there is no question as to what to do next, though the question of how to address the task may be less clear. As soon as possible, I return to the Rule.

My recent tweaks have mostly had to do with my growing recognition of larger cycles in my life, especially the monthly cycle that culminates in Choral Evensong, and the weekly cycles that center on Choral Rehearsals and Sunday Eucharist. How can my work be best arranged so that the things that matter get done?

I have said enough. You must make your own Rule, informed by the work of others, including Benedict most of all.