Blessed Schuster’s Daily Thoughts on the Rule: Monday after the Third Sunday of Lent

Monday after the 3rd Sunday of Lent

No One Is a Prophet in His Fatherland 

1. Today the Station is at the titulus Marci, near Trajan’s forum, and therefore the Gospel pericope describes for us the hostile behaviour of the Nazarenes towards Jesus. Saint Mark, too, had to take refuge in Egypt against the plotting of his Jewish compatriots.

Commonly, the first detachment that the Lord imposes on His most privileged servants is that from one’s fatherland and one’s kindred. Thus He did with Abraham, with Joseph, with the Apostles, with the Saints. St Mark at the beginning was not very convinced of this; so much so, that he abandoned Paul and Barnabas in order to return home to Jerusalem. But he learned at his own cost, and later followed Peter and then Paul to Rome.

The Cassinese Patriarch [St Benedict] himself also submitted to this law, and in the flower of adolescence, at Rome, as Saint Gregory writes, relicta domo, rebusque patris [leaving home and his father’s property], he took the way of voluntary exile, betaking himself to beg for lodging first at Enfide, then at Subiaco.

One of the mother-ideas of Christian spirituality from the first centuries was that of our common condition as pilgrims and foreigners on earth.

Saint Peter had already exhorted the faithful to consider themselves as Advenae et peregrini [foreigners and pilgrims].

When St Clement I directed his Epistle to the Corinthians, he employed this very significant form of address:

‘The Church of God, pilgrim at Rome, to the Church of God which is pilgrim at Corinth.’

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2. Not infrequently, divine grace finds greater correspondence where one would expect it least, rather than among those more favoured by Heaven. The Redeemer confirms His saying today with the examples of the pagan widow of Sarepta and of the leper Naaman of the Court of the King of Assyria [sic].

The reason for this is explained for us by the Imitation of Christ. The continuous hearing of the Holy Gospel easily renders it habitual, such that the impression of it diminishes.

From this danger Saint Benedict wants to keep us absolutely distant, when he writes: oblivionem omnino fugiat et semper sit memor omnia quae praecepit Deus. (Rule, Ch. 7: ‘Let him absolutely avoid distraction and always be mindful of the divine precepts.’)

Oblivionem here indicates and describes that type of moral insensibility of a monk who no longer feels hunger or thirst for God; nay, is forgetful of Him.

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3. If Jesus’ compatriots arrive at the point of making a violent attempt on His life, what wonder that the monks of Vicovaro and the priest Florentius should have wanted to poison Saint Benedict?

Thus the Apostle writes: ‘We bear continually the death of Christ in our humanity, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed also in our mortal flesh.’ (2 Cor 4:10)

And he meant: we are continually exposed to death, in continuation of that of the Divine Crucified One. We live nonetheless and we tire ourselves out for the Gospel, as the risen Christ communicates to us His life.

Saint Benedict alludes to this twofold condition of life and death, when he invites us in the Prologue of the Rule to take part by mortification in the Passion of Christ, so as then to participate in the glory of His Kingdom of glorious resurrection.

The conclusion of Chapter 72 is significant.

Christo omnino nihil praeponant, qui nos pariter ad vitam aeternam perducat. (Rule, Ch. 72: ‘Prefer nothing whatsoever to Christ, and may He lead us all to life eternal.’)