Promises

Every day, I read a chapter (or part of a chapter) from the Holy Rule of Saint Benedict. This is done on a specific cadence, so that in a year I read through the entirety of the Rule three times.

Today’s reading discusses the three promises a new monk makes upon entering the monastery. These are not, as you would probably suspect, the traditional “poverty, chastity, and obedience”. While there are sections or whole chapters of the rule devoted to these topics, they are not the promises that a monk makes. At least not entirely.

No, a new monk vows stability, constant conversion of heart, and obedience.

As Benedictine oblates, Francine and I attempted to live out these promises, which we solemnly made at our oblation. Obviously, how those promises are fulfilled is a little different when you aren’t living in the monastery.

To take the last one first, “obedience” in the context of the Rule means obedience to the abbot. This is often couched in the language of “lawful authority”, but the Rule envisions obedience as prompt and without hesitation. There’s even a chapter that talks about what to do if you are asked to do impossible things.

In the context of Pistachio House, Francine and I were each of us abbot for the other. 

What does “stability” mean? For a monk, it means that the monastery they enter will be the same monastery in which they die. There’s no monastery shopping or hopping – if you were going to do those things, you did them before you made your vows.

For us, this meant fidelity to a parish and building Pistachio House into our permanent home. 

Now, circumstances led us to move parishes a few times, but I think it’s instructive that we both ended up back where we started, at Saint Patrick in Tacoma. 

And of course Pistachio House was our home, and it will remain my home, God willing. We built a chapel, and I’m in the process of bringing our plans for the garage to fruition. We always conceived of Pistachio House as a little village or monastery of its own. The only thing it lacks is a dedicated library, and I’m working on that in the attic.

Whole books have been written on the second monastic promise. 

The Latin is Conversatio Morum, and it’s a difficult phrase to translate. One possible translation – the one I’ve used here – is “constant conversion of heart”, but I have also seen it translated as “fidelity to the monastic life” or “daily conversion” or even “conversion of morals”. 

This is the idea that “conversion” is never an event but a process, and the monk commits to continuing that process every day. In a sense, it is also the idea of finding the divine in otherwise ordinary things, what I sometimes call living a sacramental life. 

Our work on ourselves is never done. Our ego or our pride or our indifference blinds us to the constant graces and little miracles that the Lord showers upon us.

So pay attention!

After Francine’s death, I struggled with one of the promises she insisted I make to her: the promise to live.

On my Camino, and in the weeks since I returned home to Pistachio House, I have been reminded again and again that this is a promise to live out a promise I already made at my oblation – Conversatio Morum. 

And this is not the work of a moment, but the work of a lifetime. Indeed, it is the how of living.

Recently, I’ve been doing a lot of writing. It is my craft. There was a long period in my life where, due to burnout and other factors, I turned away from it. Francine never stopped encouraging me to return to it. She encourages me still.

But of course, there is more to living than this. This morning, I found myself writing down some advice to myself. I share it here because it dovetails neatly with today’s reading from the Rule, but also so that I don’t lose sight of it.

Advice to myself: a reminder

You want to practice your craft every day. That’s how you know that it is your craft. Pour yourself into it.

But also. Wear out your shoes. Get dirt under your fingernails. Build something. Read widely and deeply. Love with all your heart and from the depths of your being. Thank God and praise Him every day for every breath and every moment and every person. Forgive others, and remember also to forgive yourself.

There’s more, but this will do for a start.

Somebody much wiser than me once said that it is an act of faith to tend a garden. Just so.