The 1500-year-old Rule of Benedict offers insights that can not only offset the overwhelming busyness of modern life and help people reclaim their scattered attention but can also guide the Church in its approach to synodality, says well-known monk, author and speaker Abbot Christopher Jamison OSB.
By Debra Vermeer
Abbot Christopher is in Australia for a six-month sabbatical during which he is working on a new book and carrying out a number of speaking and teaching engagements, including a formation day with the Good Samaritan Education Network.
Born in Australia, he moved to England with his family as a baby, and after graduating from Oxford University, he joined the Benedictine Monastery in Worth and later served as Abbot from 2002-2010. Recently, he concluded his second term as President of the English Benedictine Congregation.
Abbot Christopher came to prominence some years ago when he featured in the BBC television series The Monastery, which was watched by millions. He is the author of Finding Sanctuary and Finding Happiness, both of which apply monastic wisdom to everyday life and modern well-being. His most recent book is Finding the Language of Grace: Rediscovering Transcendence.
While in Australia, he is a guest of the University of Notre Dame Australia (UNDA) in Sydney where he is providing staff formation and leading student reflection days.
He made his first visit to the Diocese of Broome recently where he was special guest at a UNDA graduation. In an upcoming trip to the Archdiocese of Brisbane, he will speak at two seminars – one for clergy and one that is open to all, in collaboration with the mission leadership initiative, formation.org.au, the Global Centre for Catholic Leaders and Archdiocesan Ministries.
Chief Executive Officer of formation.org.au Lana Turvey-Collins said the Benedictine tradition offered wisdom that spoke directly to the pressures facing today’s Church leaders.
“We live incredibly fast-paced lives and, as missionary leaders, looking to the future can feel overwhelming at times,” she told The Catholic Leader. “Abbot Christopher’s teachings on the theology of grace and communal discernment practices from the Benedictine tradition have to be an essential part of how we practice synodality and lead into the future.”
In an interview with The Good Oil, Abbot Christopher said that since writing Finding Sanctuary 20 years ago, he believes the need for people to intentionally create space for quiet and for encountering God in the midst of the fast-paced world has only increased.
“It’s not a new problem. In that book I trace it from the 1970s, 80s onwards,” he said. “And it’s to do with ways that the economies of the West came to be organised, when the consumer market took over and regulation went to one side.
“But the slight variation I would give it now is that, as well as saying you have to build a sanctuary by quite self-consciously creating time and a framework so that your life does have space in it for what matters, I would now also talk about the need to pay attention.
“I’ve come to realise that attention is a limited commodity and, therefore, I have to organise it.
“The social media world, which has now become so dominant, is about monetising and stealing my attention so that I’m constantly distracted, which makes me feel overwhelmed. So, I have to guard my attention more than ever.”
Abbot Christopher said in the face of these developments, Christians are called to act and speak in ways that guard attention and nourish souls.
This was becoming an even more pressing task as secular society lost its ability to tap into the language of transcendence and grace.
“In my most recent book, Finding the Language of Grace, which is now three years old, I was saying language had become dis-graceful,” he said.
“What I commend is that Christians be the guardians of graceful language, and I think we have great resources for that, starting with the Bible as the great book of grace and things like the Rule of Benedict. We have a whole tradition of this.”
Abbot Christopher said language has four modes – reading, writing, speaking, and listening – but the modern world has become hyper-focused on speaking.
He said St Benedict’s call at the beginning of his Rule to “Listen” was a much-needed skill and practice.
He also suggested setting aside regular time for deep reading and said journaling is a good tool for prayer and discernment.
“Journaling is a very good example of slow writing, if you like, trying to use the act of writing as a meditation,” he said.
“I’m also very keen on the example of Saint John of the Cross, for whom writing was a prayer.”
He said that when the Carmelite saint was being held captive in Toledo by his own order and treated “unspeakably”, he responded by writing a poem called The Spiritual Canticle.
“This was a love song between God and the soul. There he is, being brutally treated, and he’s writing this amazing love song derived from the Song of Songs about love between God and the soul. So that’s an outstanding example of writing as a spiritual exercise.”
Abbot Christopher said Christians have to not only keep using the language of transcendence but also find ways of using it that are understandable to those who are not familiar with it.
“You have to devise almost a kind of ‘baby steps’ language,” he said.
“I suppose that’s what much of my writing has been trying to do, using the monastic tradition to find a sort of Christian humanist way of speaking to a generation that’s lost the language, and to start always with where people are.
“We can use the Rule of Benedict to help us here, because I always say the Rule is a Christian guide to being human.”
Abbot Christopher said Benedictine spirituality also had much wisdom to share in the practice of synodality, which was promoted by Pope Francis and is continuing with Pope Leo XIV.
“When Cardinal Mario Grech first wrote to the bishops of the world about the beginning of the synod on synodality, he quoted Chapter 3 of the Rule of Benedict, which is the one on summoning the brethren to council, and he quoted that as an example of the ancient practice of synodality,” he said.
“And he’s right because it contains some memorable phrases, but among them is that all must be summoned to council because God often reveals what is best to the youngest.
“I think that’s very relevant to synodality, that the voice of the young is absolutely crucial in this process, and I’m not sure it’s had enough of an opportunity to speak through this process, which is almost inevitably driven by older people.
“So, I think the Benedictine tradition and synodality are on the same page there.”
Abbot Christopher said that one thing people often forget about the notion of synodality in the Rule of Benedict is that the chapter ends with Benedict saying that ‘after he’s heard everybody’s opinion, let the abbot decide what is best’.
“It is not a democracy; it’s an enlightened despotism, I like to say, because ultimately we have to retain the principle that even within the practice of synodality, the Pope, as Bishop of Rome, makes the ultimate decision on some of these big matters,” he said.
This, he said, acts as a safeguard against lobby groups railroading discussions, and also preserves the Pope’s function as a sign of unity.
“Because in synodality, you can’t turn up with an agenda. You have genuinely to listen to the others, and that’s what Benedict is saying in the opening word of the Rule. It seems to me that the Rule can be a helpful antidote to incorrect understandings of how the synod works.”
Abbot Christopher said he believed there was a link between the practice of synodality and the need to help people cope with the busyness of life, which had not yet been explored.
“When synodality becomes another thing to do on your list, that’s when the problem starts,” he said.
“I think where parishes have made synodality the fundamental way they operate, that’s when it has worked. When it becomes just another thing the bishop is asking us to do, it doesn’t work.
“If the parish council becomes more synodal, if the St Vincent de Paul conference becomes more synodal, if the catechists become more synodal and so on, then it works.
“Because it is based on sharing more of our gifts and talents and responsibilities, it should reduce the busyness because more people are involved.
“So, I’d encourage The Good Oil’s readers to think about how can synodality become a way of resolving the busyness of life rather than just another item adding to it.”
