A reflection by our Abbess, Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB
Photo by André Escaleira, Jr. / Denver Catholic
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love” (2 Peter 1:5-7).
You see the progression of good. Virtue is a progression. Throughout our lives, we strive to develop virtue, we develop to be faithful, we develop love. That’s why we take time every day to make an examination of conscience. “Where am I going? What am I doing? How am I treating things? Am I being faithful? Am I being obedient? Am I steadfast in the community?” Otherwise, we might progress in the opposite direction: downhill. “Well, I don’t want to do that today. Maybe not tomorrow either.” And then it becomes, “I am just not going to do that.” We can grow in an acceptance of doing less.
In the back of my copy of St. Benedict’s Holy Rule, it has the whole rule in a nutshell. I always go back to this and read it. It’s a great aid to making a good examination of conscience.
1. My son, willingly receive the admonitions of a loving father and put them into efficacious practice.
2. When you begin anything good, ask God by importune prayer to perfect it for you.
3. So live so that your actions profit you eternally.
4. By a life of patient self-denial we participate in the passion of Christ, hence also in his eternal kingdom.
5. We are all one in Christ.
6. Love the works of charity.
7. Obey for the following motives: because Christ is in your lawfully appointed superiors, because you belong to the service of Christ, because punishment awaits the self-willed, because a great reward is promised to the obedient.
8. Obey in the following manner: not for servile motives, not heartily, not negligently, not with dislike, not with unbecoming words.
9. An unguarded tongue leads to sin.
10. Humility consists in avoiding sin, not loving one’s own will, obeying one’s lawful superiors for the love of God, patiently bearing hardships, acknowledging one’s faults, being content with circumstances, not esteeming oneself more than others, avoiding singularity, curbing boisterousness, being aware of forwardness in conversation, speaking well, modestly, and humbly, shaping our exterior according to the exterior of Christ.
11. Prayer to be efficacious need not be long or wordy; it should however be contrite and fervent.
12. Be ready to pray when it is time.
13. If you care not to amend your evil ways, you are not worthy to remain with Christ’s disciples.
14. Be neither sordid nor negligent.
15. Be not inordinately attached to your possessions.
16: Never murmur against authority.
17. See Christ in the sick and act accordingly; and if you are sick yourself do not grow peevish.
18. Be aware of excess in food and drink.
19. Place God’s things always first.
20: Do everything at its proper time.
21. Idleness is the enemy of the soul.
22. Spend Sunday with profit for the soul.
23. Never do anything unbecoming in Church.
24. Do not be a slave to clothing.
25. Do your work carefully, always intending the honor and glory of God.
26. Beware of ever cheating others.
27. The greater the dignity, the greater the obligation of virtue.
28. Always aim for some spiritual progress.
29. Be polite to others.
30. Read this rule frequently.
31. Confide in God for help in your occupations.
32. Gladly do favors for others and take correction in the right spirit.
33. Let your zeal always be such as leads to a good and profitable end.
34. Read diligently the Holy Scriptures, the lives of the saints, and other spiritual books.
So, this gives us something to work on every day. There’s always something we can do a little better. And if we start heading in the wrong direction, we can count on God to send us warnings. God sends us encouragement. He knows we need a touch of encouragement. He knows what will make us laugh a little. You can see those who can laugh at themselves, and there’s such a tenderness—There’s a tenderness of heart even towards themselves. There’s not that harshness. If we can laugh a little bit at ourselves, all of a sudden there’s a lightness and we aren’t so hard on others, either. As we grow holier, we should become lighter of heart, because we forget ourselves. The heaviest person to carry is ourselves, and so try to remember that God wills for us to grow in holiness with a smile. We will become lighter if we let Him carry us.
On October 8, 2023, we gathered to celebrate the final oblations of three of our oblates. During the ceremony, Mother Maria-Michael delivered an inspiring address, emphasizing our Benedictine call to stability, obedience, silence, humility and prayer. Below is an abridged form of her address to the community of oblates and nuns of the Abbey of St. Walburga.
I welcome each one of you, and I am so happy for this day, and for our new oblates! I want to thank all of our oblates for pursuing the Benedictine way. I thank you because you are living in the world what we are living here, showing a glimpse of our Abbey to those who may never come here. It is you who bring us out into the world by living the Benedictine spirituality. That is no small thing! We are so grateful that you are doing that important work of living in the world amongst God’s people (and they are God’s people, whether they like it or not!) and being a witness to Christ for them.
What a joy and blessing it is to be united in our love for God and our desire to live lives of holiness by following the precepts of St. Benedict, as given in his Holy Rule. You notice it’s not just a “rule,” it’s not just a way to be; it’s a holy rule. It is a way of life hastening us toward our heavenly home by providing us with tools for the cultivation of virtues. In the Holy Rule of St. Benedict we learn about the great pillars of monastic life, the things that make monastics. One of these pillars is stability, and by this I do not mean that the vocation of oblates is to live with us in our monastery (we don’t have the room anyway!). The Holy Rule helps all of us with establishing stability in our lives, stability in the community in which we pray, stability in the Church, and most especially, stability in Christ. Stability in Christ is not to live in fear and worry about what will happen in the future, or constant regret over the past, but to embrace the sacrament of the present moment. Really, this is a wonderful mark of a Benedictine: If you wake up in the morning and say, “I get to do this again!” “I get to do it as I want, as I will…To follow God.” “I’m not going to hold on to the burdens of what went wrong yesterday; I’m going to wake up fresh, and with the desire for conversion, in order to live this day the best I can.” Because you never know what day will be your last, so try to live each day well. That is truly a Benedictine way of being.
Mother Maria-Michael addresses the oblates making their final vows: I want to thank you for coming forth to make your final oblation to our Benedictine Abbey of St. Walburga. Continue to get to know St. Walburga; she is an incredible saint. She truly loves God and everything He loves, so she has the holy oil flowing from her bones to this day, as she never ceases loving God’s people and interceding for them.
Another pillar is found in Chapter 5 of the Holy Rule, the chapter on obedience. “The first step of humility is obedience without delay, which comes naturally to those who prefer nothing to the love of Christ. Because of the holy service they have professed…they carry out the superior’s order as promptly as if the command came from God himself.” When you practice obedience in your life, what does it look like? As an oblate, paying attention to what the Abbess says is important, because it is a bond that unites us. It also means obeying the Church, reading the Holy Rule and doing the best you can to live it out. It means obeying your husband, obeying your wife, and not following your own will all the time. If you’ve been doing something a certain way for a really long time, would you be open to changing it? When you go about your day, don’t just do things because that’s what you’ve always done – think again why you do it, why you do the things you do, and maybe you will find that there is something that God wants to be perfected.
Then we have the pillar of silence: “I said I would guard my ways lest I should sin with my tongue” (Holy Rule, Ch. 6). We really should watch our words, because words are a mirror of the heart. What you say matters. St. Benedict also says in Chapter 6, “To speak and to teach is the province of the master, whereas that of the disciple is to be silent and listen.” This is especially true of our time spent in lectio divina (praying with Scripture). Through this, we receive food of our souls. On the Twenty-Sixth Thursday in Ordinary Time, we had a reading at Mass from book of Nehemiah that beautifully emphasized the importance of listening to the Word of God. We read, “The whole people gathered as one in the open pace before the Water Gate, an they called upon Ezra the scribe to bring forth the book of the law of Moses which the Lord prescribed for Israel” (Nehemian 8:1). I like that word “prescribed,” because it’s like a prescription, a medicine for our souls. It was what was prescribed by God. The Scriptures are like medicine for us. They heal, they enlighten, they show us the way…But we have to be silent and listen. We have to give time to God to speak. Nehemiah continues, “He read out of the book from daybreak until midday…and all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law…Then they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the Lord, their faces to the ground…Then Nehemiah [and Ezra and the Levites] said to all the people: ‘Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep’–for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law…Then all the people went to eat and drink, to distribute portions and to celebrate with great joy, for they understood the words that had been expounded to them” (Nehemian 8:3, 6, 9, 12). There you have a wonderful example of lectio divina, because the people listened, they understood, they cried, and they rejoiced. Sometimes there will be tears with our prayer, but we should never leave the experience without rejoicing, because it is such a gift of God to know and to understand His word to you. It is essential to allow God’s Word to form you, to confirm you, to convict you, and most especially to love you.
Anna-Marie, a niece of one of our Sisters, signs her oblation card
Then we have humility, another one of those great pillars. One aspect of humility is acknowledging one’s faults. How often do you say you’re sorry? It is so important to be able to apologize to people you have hurt and ask their forgiveness. Another of St. Benedict’s points in his chapter on humility is contentment with one’s circumstances (cf. Holy Rule, Ch. 7). Are we content with the circumstances we find ourselves in, or do we spend more time complaining about them than we do facing them and asking God to help us understand them? Do we ask Him what He might be trying to show us through them? Or if He doesn’t wish to reveal His reasoning to you when you ask, can you live with that, and be content anyway because you trust Him? St. Benedict talks about not laughing in Chapter 7 as well, and I believe what he means is that kind of boisterous laughter that prevents you from hearing anything else that’s going on. There is also the laughter that hurts others, which should certainly be avoided. Laughter should never tear another person down; it is good to have a good time and laugh about happy things, but never to laugh in a way that harms another.
The chapters between 8 and 20 of the Holy Rule are about prayer – private and communal – and I want to emphasize the part about reverence in prayer. St. Benedict writes, “Whenever we want to ask some favor of a powerful man, we do it humbly and respectfully, for fear of presumption. How much more important, then, to lay our petitions before the Lord God of all things with the utmost humility and sincere devotion” (Holy Rule, Ch. 20). I think of how the Old Testament prophets like Daniel prayed for the people by saying, “We have sinned…” They didn’t point their fingers and blame the people, but they rather included themselves with the people and said, “We have done this…” Similarly, when we pray for the Church, when we pray for the world (especially when we pray the Divine Office), we too are a part of that Church, a part of that world; and so when we stand before God to pray, we don’t blame others, but pray for them by standing by them and saying, “We have sinned…” “We have done this…” If you pray this way, you will start to see things differently, and it will transform how you pray. Also regarding prayer, St. Benedict quotes the psalmist saying, “Seven times a day I praise Thee” (Holy Rule, Ch. 16). I’m not sure if you have seven times a day to pray the Psalter, but you do have seven times in the day when you can say, “My God, I love You.” How many times do you just stop what you’re doing and acknowledge God’s presence? That is Benedictine.
Oblates make their promises to Mother Maria-Michael, OSB
If our Church today could take these simple things, the Benedictine pillars of stability, obedience, silence, humility and prayer, and place them in the core of the Church, do you think it would look different? Would we hear different things? Let us assist the Church by embracing these pillars in our own lives. I offer this challenge to you, as you make your final oblation, and to all of us – the challenge of living the Benedictine virtues of stability, obedience, silence, humility, and prayer. The sacrifices you will make to live out these precepts of St. Benedict are no small ones, but in faith, we know that, “Never departing from this guidance, then, but faithfully observing his teaching in the monastery until death, we shall through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may deserve also to share in his kingdom. Amen” (Holy Rule, Prologue). This is what I truly wish for you: the Kingdom of God.
Oblates and nuns of the Abbey of St. Walburga sing the “Receive me, O Lord” chant
In the first year of his reign, King Cyrus issued a decree: Let the governor and the elders of the Jews continue the work on that house of God; they are to rebuild it on its former site. I also issue this decree concerning your dealing with these elders of the Jews in the rebuilding of that house of God: Let these men be repaid for their expenses, in full and without delay from the royal revenue, deriving from the taxes of West-of-Euphrates, so that the work not be interrupted. I, Darius, have issued this decree; let it be diligently executed.
Ezra 6:3, 7-8, 12
In the book of Ezra, we hear how King Darius encouraged the building of the house of God. Would that our world had leaders that cared about God’s will, and that encouraged the things of God – I think there would be greater peace! In Chapter 2 of the Rule of St. Benedict, we hear what kind of person the Abbot should be: “Above all things, he must be careful not to take lightly the souls committed to his care, or to have more care for fleeting, worldly things than he has for them. Rather, he must always consider that he has undertaken the government of souls, for which he must give an account. And so that he will not complain out of desire for worldly things, he must remember that it is written, ‘seek first the kingdom of God’ and again, ‘nothing is lacking to those who fear him.’” Worldly leaders do have to worry about worldly things to an extent, but I wish I could send all the leaders around the world a copy of the Rule of St. Benedict, to share some insight on how God might help them out. This world belongs to God, and I wish there was more of a sense of serving Him in it. Let us pray hard for our leaders, that they will have a good sense of protecting the things of God, and that they would lead the people of the world to live on a higher plane, soaring with the eagles, rather than giving in to living as earth worms.
As religious, we also have a role to play in helping this change come about. King Darius instructed that the workers should be paid “from the royal revenue, deriving from the taxes of West-of-Euphrates,” (Ezra 6:8). Nobody likes taxes, yet I was thinking of how in the spiritual realm, the religious are the rich. We live in the house of God, we live to do the work of God, and so many others are tasked with doing the work “of the world.” So God taxes the rich, and asks us, “Can I have some of your works? Can I have some of your graces? Can I have some of your prayers to uphold those who are out in the world?” Yes, we are taxed a little bit extra: “Will you wake up a little bit earlier? Will you be on time for the Divine Office? Will you stay one second longer to offer that for the people?” These things are asked of us, because through them, God is “diligently executing” His work. If we give freely of the little extra things the Rule asks of us, if we do them specifically and mindfully, for the good of others, we will truly build up the body of Christ in the way in which we have been asked. We are richly blessed, and it is a joy to pay these taxes.
Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB, celebrated her 45th Anniversary of Monastic Profession on September 8. During Mass, she led the nuns of the Abbey of St. Walburga in singing the “Suscipe” chant (Translation: “Uphold me, O Lord, and I shall live, according to your promise; do not disappoint me in my hope.”)
A reflection on the purpose of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict by Mother Maria-Michael Newe, OSB
The Rule of St. Benedict outlines for us how to live a righteous life, and most importantly, it leads us to love. At the end of our lives, we will be judged by love. Just as the law isn’t going to save us so the Rule isn’t going to save us. But if we do what it says, it leads us to love.
In the Prologue, St. Benedicts says that his Rule is from “a father who loves you” (RB Prologue:1). His bottom line is that he’s writing it out of love. According to the dialogues of St. Gregory, at the end of Benedict’s life, his love needed to be perfected. So St. Scholastica, who was more perfect in love, was there to show him this last mark of his life that was needed—that love triumphs. The law was good and necessary, but it leads to love, and that’s its only purpose. (Click here for Gregory the Great’s account of this meeting).
Again, we hear in the Rule that “as we advance in the religious life and faith, we shall run the way of God’s commandments with expanded hearts and unspeakable sweetness of love” (RB Prologue:49). That’s what we’re all supposed to become. That’s what St. Benedict so desires for us. It is nothing more than the gospel message to love God and love our neighbor, and he shows us clearly a way to do this in his Rule. I challenge everyone to read Chapter 4 of the Holy Rule and pick one thing to work on for the good of the Body of Christ, for the better of another, for love. Do this seriously, that Christ may look upon you and say, “What a light in this world, which is so needed. I see clearly that my death meant something.” And in this way we will comfort the heart of Christ.
One of our Sisters reading the Holy Rule of St. Benedict and enjoying the beautiful Spring weather.
