Reflection for Ash Wednesday 2010
17 February, 2010

by Anne Shepard, OSB

The Church in her wisdom decided to give us a time, a generous liturgical season, to come back to Christ in a very deliberate way. We have more than ten percent of our calendar year devoted to a penitential season meant to afford us the opportunity to be purified personally and communally, to free us from sin, to challenge us to change our minds and hearts to live more in the way of Christ. As we begin Lent, let us consider the wisdom and insights afforded us in Chapter 4 of the Rule, a chapter some writers claim is the touchstone of our monastic way of life.

The context for the tools of good works is the setting of a life apart from the world, a life marked with values and practices that separate us from secular and selfish life styles. Separation from the world is a matter of living a life punctuated with steadfastness of prayer made possible by our choices. Prefer nothing to the love of Christ, Benedict asks us at the end of the Rule. We are asked to turn back in these forty days to the Christ who is our way and our truth. To do that we must act and live as Christ invited us to do in baptism, as we promised to do in confirmation, as we agree to every time we approach the altar at the Eucharist, as we promised to do in our profession. We keep going back to Christ in this season of repentance because we do not have it right yet and probably never will on this side of the clouds.

During this Lent I recommend that we as a community focus on chapter 4 of the Rule, the Instruments of Good Works, because it gives us an overview of the challenges of our human, our Christian, our monastic lives. We are asked to be more austere than we usually are: to refrain from food and drink, loud laughter and other pleasures. Bernard of Clairvaux, in his litany of walking down the stairs of pride by walking the up the way of humility, illustrates a satirical framework to be avoided by the sincere monastic: we must not seek novelties, must not be victim to unnecessary curiosities, must avoid being sheer busy- bodies, must stop being ambitious. Imagine almost a thousand years ago, Bernard warns of the vices of consumerism, spreading of false or unwarranted rumors, unnecessarily interfering in the affairs of others, pompousness and megalomania. Saints Bernard and Benedict among many spiritual writers, invite us to regard Lent as a time of advancement of our prayer lives, and thus a time of diminishment of our worldly lives that lead away from God.

Instruments of good works, tools of good works, the phrases lend themselves to concrete imagery. Musical instruments alone may sound beautiful. When played with others, they may sound richer, fuller. The total sound is stronger and yet the individual piece gets lost in the beauty of the whole. Instruments used for surgery ought to be sharp and they ought to be precise for the necessary usage. Tools in the shop vary in age, but all work better when they are cleaned and made sharper as required for efficiency. The images of instruments and tools vary greatly and we can ponder the multiple meanings to connect to what the practical Benedict referred to in the title of chapter 4. Instruments of good works. Tools of good works.

The tools of good works parallel themselves with the three traditional Lenten practices of fasting, giving alms and praying. We are to prefer nothing to the love of Christ. We attach to Christ, we attach to community and by doing so we are striving to live the ultimate meaning of unworldliness. We rid ourselves of the pleasure principle. Instead of caving in to fleeing delights, we are challenged to love fasting, love it and see it as gift and as privilege. Whatever we do that is on the way to God is good; whatever distracts us from that road or disguises the clear options leading to God must be avoided. In committing to the fast this year, I plan to do so with an intention every week: to remember the unemployed, those dealing with cancer, those wanting to stop their addictions, the victims of the atrocities in Haiti, teenagers who struggle with depression and not wanting to live and the sick who face diminishment. The gift, for me, may be the discipline I want as I pray intentionally for others, fast intentionally for others.

Secondly, almsgiving to the sick, the poor, the needy is possible here in our midst as well as outside of us. Father Michael Casey, in his treatise on the ordinary, the unexciting life that we have been called to, assures us that “The corporal works of mercy are always a good indication that the ascetic is genuine. The breadth of God’s love for us is mirrored in our willingness to give ourselves to the undeserving and the unresponsive. We do not travel to God by a sense of determination to do so, but rather by the performance of service to others.” We cannot just will to get to God. Our lives reflect a serious effort to travel to God though a self purification and through service to others. We will have a collection again this Lent. The AIM poster will be displayed. There are so many needs in countries who struggle for survival.

A third set of instruments has to do with renouncing all that is untrue in our lives. By ridding ourselves of the untruth, we are strengthening our integrity in the eyes of God.

When we submit to truth we begin to experience real humility, a humility that sets us free, makes us whole, takes us in prayer to God. We Mount Benedictines claim to embrace contemplative prayer. Our Lenten prayer perhaps can be a cleansing of those aspects of our lives that fall short of authenticity. Truth sets us free, free to be humble.

As you leave here tonight, I invite you to pick a card from the basket, a card that has an instrument of good work on it. Keep it in a place where you pray. Consider how God wants you to use this tool to get closer to Christ in this penitential season. Read and reread chapter 4 of the Rule.

Let us support one another in prayer, in silence, in fasting and in giving to those who have less than we do. May we prefer nothing to the love of Christ so that all together we are brought to eternal life.

© 2010 Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica
Atchison, Kansas