History of Religious Life
The Decline and Reformation of Religious Life after St. Benedict
by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J.
The Institute on Religious Life and the Daughters
of St. Mary of Providence of Chicago bring you the following conference in a
series of conferences given by Fr. John A. Hardon S.J. on the theme: The History
of Religious Life. Father John Hardon is a Professor of Theology at St. Johns
University in New York. He is a well-known lecturer and consultant to various
national, religious and educational enterprises, and is renowned as a retreat
master and spiritual director. Father Hardon is the author of many articles
and books including Holiness in the Church and The Catholic Catechism
which has been strongly endorsed by Holy Mother Church. In this next conference
Father Hardon speaks on the subject The Decline and Reformation of Religious
Life after St. Benedict. Father Hardon.
First, Some Observations: Why Was There A Need for A Reformation?
There was a need for reformation
because there had been a decline which is a nice word for saying that there
had been a secularization of religious life.
What were some of the
features that became prominent and for which all those reformers, and I just
chose the biggest, struggled to overcome?
With Increased Wealth Was Increased Pride
First was poverty.
Monasteries became wealthy. With increased wealth a number of things happened.
They would get people of prominence and wealth into the community which in itself
wouldnt be bad except that often, then, they would set the norm or the pattern
for the way of life in that community. Moreover while keeping the principle
of sharing it was no longer in not a few monasteries sharing the poverty but
sharing the wealth! Its not bad, the kind of poverty that anybody would enjoy.
Moreover, with increased wealth came increased pride. A part of it was created
by the primitive conditions among which the early monastic missionaries worked.
As you know they would go into a previously uncivilized territory. Number of
monks or nuns, as the case may be, might establish themselves and then somehow
would attract the people, be taught some trade or some means of improving their
crop or whatever and gradually the gospel would be preached and in time the
countryside would be converted. That was all very well except that the property,
then, became the property of the monastery and the abbot became the prince abbot.
He became, in effect, a civil ruler because the people who needed spiritual
direction needed other kinds of direction too. And often instead of doing what
would have been more reasonable to train leaders from among their own ranks,
the monks themselves would be the leaders. Do you follow the misstep that was
taken? This is all well-intentioned and often very necessary.
Moreover, along with increased
wealth there was a great deal of leisure, and with leisure there was increased
hired help. May I suggest to communities that have a large number of people
working for them or for that matter anyone working for you, to take a long hard
look! This, I consider in all good communities that have to do it often because
the state requires it, to be one of the most serious threats to the future of
religious life in a country like ours. So youve got the money or you get the
money, so you hire. So what do religious become? Well, they are the ones in
charge. Grand ladies. Or they go off and get specialized degrees because they
have to qualify for those positions which the state requires. All I know, Ive
taught too many good minds not to know this, you put too much education
in the wrong mind and you inherited a problem. She may be bright, thats
not the point. Is she humble? If shes not, God help that community! So thats
what happens and, by the way, thats whats happening now.
The Real Idea of Spiritual Combat Is to Engage in Spiritual Combat
Still again with the increased
leisure, the spiritual combat that we spend so much time talking about, you
know what the monks would do? They would read about it. Well, its good to read
about the spiritual combat but the real idea of the spiritual combat is to engage
in a spiritual combat. Ive listened to people talk about mysticism, youd think
they were, well, the latter day Teresa of Avila! Theyre not.
The Fervor of A Community on Fire with Love of God Is Breathtaking!
Leisure. With leisure
comes laziness and with laziness any sin, including sins of the flesh. And this
is where now that Im working have been for the last four years with the Missionaries
of Charity in New York both groups the active and contemplative one every week
for 3 hours at least with the contemplatives and I know whats happening to
other Missionaries of Charity in other parts of the world. How I wish! Theres
no way, youd have to experience it, theres no way you can really describe
it, the fervor of a young community on fire with the love of God. Its
breathtaking! Honest. Im really not sure what Im teaching those young women
more or theyre teaching me more. Grace grips them, and by the way dont stay
more than about three days, they find out if they belong. Some stay a bit longer
but in time you find out, you cant keep up with the others. Well this is true
I suppose of all life. Well arise, we develop, reach a peak and then the inevitable
decline. But unlike a human body, the spirit can be rehabilitated.
Religious Communities Have to be Reformed to Survive
Were going through one
of those periods in history. Thats why I wanted to say a little bit about this.
When Religious communities have got to be reformed to survive. The only
communities that are going to survive into the 21st century the
only ones are those that will radically reform, radically. Poverty, real
poverty: Chastity no cheating, no cheating. And can religious ever cheat on
And obedience. And living
a community life that is community life. If a person cant take it, she doesnt
belong. Period. So whats the fuss! Shell save her soul maybe become a saint,
but not here. So thats the reason there was a reformation, because there was
need for one.
Every Religious Community Begins with Poverty
Another area of observations.
You will notice the life spread of the saints and I deliberately chose such
a wide coverage; England, Italy, France and I might have gone elsewhere. It
indicates that there is something inherent in religious life that unless people
watch and keep examining their collective consciences no country has a monopoly
on the crises that befell religious life then as befalling religious life today.
The Society of Jesus is now down to one province for the whole of France. However,
the main feature I want to bring out is the fact that in each case, the reformation
was achieved by some outstanding person or persons. The fact that I have them
identified is just my way of making clear that we can see exactly when, under
whom a previously secularized community was reformed. On what areas did these
reformers mainly concentrate? They all concentrated on the lack of poverty.
Hear this! The reformation of every religious community begins with poverty,
because where there are possessions, where there is wealth there will be leisure
and all the rest. There would be no following.
is a reformation in terms of the quality of the candidates that were accepted.
By now I think youve all read the story of St. Bernard, maybe more than once,
to know that what he was especially looking for in his immediate followers was
persons who were deeply convinced of the monastic way of life. In other words,
that reformation begins with people.
No Community Has Been Reformed without Reformers
I got a call long distance
yesterday just before I left New York from a religious deeply concerned over
whats happening to her community and shes trying to hold on. She asked if
I could help, could she see me. I said well Im leaving the city in a couple
of hours which Im just in New York for a day or so. Can I see you? Well, I
said, sister, I dont think its realistic, lets just talk over the telephone.
Well she said people standing around here. Well, put your hand to your mouth
or something, dont talk so loud so they wont hear you and nobody is standing
around me. So, she told me the story. The community, the typical story of so
many communities, a mid-western community, by the way, where the administration
has, well, taken to the things of this world. So then I said well, are there
others like you that think the way you do? She said, Yes, but theyre afraid.
I said, Afraid of what? Well afraid something would happen to them if they
talked too loud or say too much because theyre under, under authority. So I
told her, Well Sister, there no question your community needs is a reformation
and my reading of the whole history of religious life is; no community has been
reformed without reformers. And reformers are people. So I told her, Sister
you have one of two things to do. Either pray for a miracle or resign yourself
to the inevitable. Right?
So each of these, the
first thing they did and this is what Im telling you communities today, this
is not history of religious life to be kept over there, is to bring it to ourselves.
A community will be as strong as those who it takes now are strong, and no better.
And if ever we could afford to either compromise or qualify or say well, she
might change or well there are certain things that obviously as a person develops
she should change but certain basic qualities must be there. In other words,
all, every one of these reformations every one of them was not done by speeches.
It was not done by a lot of writing, it was not done by severe laws, or you
get a pronunciamento with a papal seal, you know, embossed in molten
wax from Rome telling the monks or nuns to behave themselves. Isnt this good
to hear? All reformations begin with the new recruits being men and women
of deep, strong commitment to the ideal for which that community was founded.
So Bernard would go back
with his monks and quote Benedict to them this is what Benedict, this is the
way we should live. Do you believe this? We do some five or six centuries later
or in Bernards case, six centuries. In other words, a community does not
die as long as someone still keeps and is willing to pay the price, for keeping
the spirit of their Founder. With Benedicts passing away, date 547 A.D.,
the middle of the sixth century, monasticism spread throughout Europe, the only
possible figure of speech is like a wildfire.
There Was a Call for Reformation and Development
In any case, within four
or so centuries, there was call for both reformation and development. I distinguish
reform from development because reform has to do, rather, with something that
has to be changed, corrected and I checked it in the dictionary and the verb
is reform accent on the second syllable when its correction. When you merely
reshape; its re-form with a hyphen in between re-form. Im talking about reform
change with a view to improvement or correction.
There were especially
three reasons why monasticism, in the centuries following St. Benedict, needed
reformation. The first was the dwindling spiritual life of many of the
monks and nuns. That was due, in some measure as least to the large numbers
that flocked, in hundreds, to the monasteries. It is further due to the fact
that not a few came from well to do families and without the proper control
of poverty, it was understandable that some of these monasteries became quite
wealthy. Well, now a wealthy religious community is a liability. It would not
be too bad for a community to pray to stay poor. Moreover, there were problems
built into the, you might say, relatively simple. Now some of you put down and
compare for example your rules with St. Benedict. You thought he was too detailed.
Well, no. Normally I didnt make any particular comments on your papers but
anytime anyone criticizes a man like Benedict, I come to his defense. No! Detail
if anything, he was under detailed. And, in fact, so generic that many problems
later on arose that he just didnt provide for.
Secondly, the Churchs
needs. With the expansion of population, mobility, the break-up of
the Roman Empire, the wars, the rise of feudalism, the Churchs needs had to
be met. And Benedictine monasticism needed to be somehow changed to meet those
needs. And finally, the strong stress in St. Benedict on liturgical prayer left
much to be desired. For many who may have been quite expert in liturgical, say,
chant and would faithfully show up for the Divine Office, six, seven, or more
times a day, but then he could not pray, especially mental prayer. So the life
of union with God needed to be reformed.
Five Areas That Called for Development
So much for reformation;
now development. There were especially five areas that called for development,
partly because there was need for improvement, but partly because, well, the
Church grows on in monasticism, religious life went on things had to improve.
As a matter of fact, not a few monasteries disappeared or became so lax that
either the Pope or the secular powers had to suppress them.
Government Had to Be Clarified and Developed
The first stand in
the major area of development was government. In St. Benedicts vision of
the superior, he was as the word implies, a father. Well thats all right, you
can be a father to a dozen or twenty or even a few hundred monks but you begin
to multiply that and its remarkable what happens to fatherliness. For one thing,
the contact between the abbot and the subjects was necessarily minimized. With
the growing numbers a question arose, an unsolved question that had to be resolved.
What was the precise relationship of a daughter monastery to the parent monastery?
Was there dependence? If so, how much? And they had some sad experiences of
daughter monasteries, well, becoming wayward daughters, going off on their own,
doing their thing quite alien to the spirit of the parent monastery.
Moreover, since the monks
helped the people to also civilize and not just teach them the Faith, the abbots
often became the civil rulers of a large territory. This created some major
problems as to their authority: Is it just civil or civil and ecclesiastical?
What kind of obedience do the people of the countryside owe the abbot? He may
be an abbot to the monks but what is he to us? The government had to be clarified
As you recall from your reading of the Rule of Benedict, and what we know about
original monasticism, the asceticism was, indeed partly asceticism of the spirit,
of the will, especially through obedience. But the heavy emphasis in asceticism
was placed on bodily mortification: on watching the diet, on sleep, getting
up, for example in the early hours of the morning, curtailing the sleep to recite
the Divine Office.
Intellectually the Mind Needs Asceticism
Moreover, with the passage
of time, more and more of the members of these institutes were either educated
or, at least, naturally gifted people. Now you may, indeed, mortify yourself
by hard work but intellectually the mind needs asceticism. That means mortification.
When Ive taught intellectuals for enough years to know, youd better give them
the equivalent of a pick, a shovel and a hoe to train their minds, otherwise,
they may be handy with a hoe or a shovel but they can be just impossible to
live with because of their stinking pride! Intellectuals, with no exception,
no exception unless specially graced by God, are all proud people. Period. Ive
been living with them for too many years. Because anyone with brains knows hes
superior. He doesnt even have to tell anybody He knows it. And his mind can
control other minds and thats the worst kind of pride. So some kind of asceticism
had to be developed for which Benedict did not quite provide for the spirit
especially the intellect.
Labor, that needed
development. Benedict was strong on manual labor; hours in the field. Now you
might often have to leave whatever you were shoveling or hoeing with, I guess
a shovel and a hoe to answer whatever bell would sound across the field to show
up for whatever the hour was. And it was hard labor. But two problems arose.
One, hardworking people who worked industriously accumulate. The monasteries
accumulated all kinds of property. Things they produce, they could sell. People
gave them money for that. So it affected poverty.
And the second was: Which
comes first? Is it manual labor or is it the Divine Office? Now as many of us
know in the midst of religious life is one thing to say were to have a nice
balance between prayer and labor but except for it being nice on paper, its
the hardest thing to work out in real life. That had to be developed.
Fifth, the apostolate.
The apostolate refers to those who already have the faith. It is well to know that all the monasteries both of men and women for a thousand years, from the middle of the sixth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, were in large measure havens, schools, you might call them nurseries for the young who would be placed there by their parents, and among those who were there not a few would then join the respective communities. This is Boderick writing about Boniface: "He found his vocation very precociously, for we are told he made up his mind to be a monk cum esset honorem chuiter quartuor seu quinque" - he made up his mind to become a monk when he was about four or five years old. "And a monk he became. At the age of seven he left home, to the great sorrow of his father who had pinned all his worldly hopes on this extraordinary child. And he lived to the ripe old age of seventy-seven; he never lost sight of his Benedictine vocation."
What I wanted to point
out, however, is that there is need for the Apostolate to go beyond the confines
of the monastery. There were faithful all around. What do we do with them? Do
we just pray for them? In other words, education as an apostolate in the Catholic
Church grew out of Benedictine monasticism after it was discovered, no great
discovery, that many more needed a good religious training than the few that
could squeeze into where a boy of seven would be put into a monastery. And that,
by the way, was common practice.
One thing we need to look
into since this is a course on History of Religious Life We should all re-examine,
especially Major Superiors, the preparing of young people when theyre still
very young for a future religious life. Todays world and its pressures are
too much, Im afraid, for many what would otherwise have been good vocations.
Evangelization differs from the Apostolate in that it is addressed to those
who are not yet Christians. And thus and Boniface would be a case in point.
All the great missionaries of the early Church, Im talking about after Apostolic
times with Paul and Barnabas and the rest of them. They were after the liberation
of the Church under Constantine and certainly after Benedictine monasticism
became established they were always too strong. Most of them were religious
who heard by that time of the number of people who had never heard of Jesus
and Mary whom they sought out often to uncharted and unknown lands, cutting
down the forests, building some semblance of a hut and beginning to recite the
Divine Office with just the wind blowing through the trees around them and,
in time, people were first curious, then interested. And by the way, the number
of martyrs that the Church had from those early monks and nuns, much of that
we dont even have record of. All we know is they kept pouring in more one
wave would die or be killed, another wave would come in, in order to evangelize
a still heathen people. Thats what Boniface did. Can you remember? What color
vestments do we wear for St. Boniface? Who remembers? Red. Hes one of the thousands,
literally of martyr monks, who in seeking to evangelize paid with their lives.
Reformation Took Three Principle Forms
The either Reformation
or Re-formation: It took three principle forms and all future derivatives somehow
come from these three. There was first of all the Benedictine tradition itself,
purified, amplified, but essentially Benedict. And all weve seen about St.
Benedict applies here. Second, the Cluniac Reform and the third, the Cistercian;
Let me say just a word about the second two because we have already handled
the first one except for such adjustments as we implied in the last fifteen
or so minutes.
The Cluniac reform is
named after Cluny, a city in France to be exact in the district of Aquitaine
made of its beginning 909A.D., Founder Blessed Berno. What the Prince of Aquitaine
did was to recommend and Berno took him up on it that he, the Abbot of Cluny
would be exempt both from his civil jurisdiction and from the jurisdiction of
the Bishop and to be directly responsible only to the Pope. What the Cluniac
reform did was especially to cope with the problem of dismemberment and disarray
through a lack of authority with monasteries mushrooming all over, often ill-formed,
poorly conceived, with abbots who shouldnt have been abbots and monks that
shouldnt have been monks, or nuns.
Here are some features
of the Cluniac reform which, of course, the fact that both the men and the women,
all the members of all the monasteries, no matter how they were formed, and
one figure that I have in my mind is seven hundred at one time. We were all
subject, subject to Cluny. Well that was a far cry from the abbot as Father.
You dont run 700 monasteries as just a loving Father; you exercise jurisdiction.
You give orders; You become, in effect, the General of an Army. Moreover, not
only were the monasteries subject to the Abbot of Cluny; all the abbots were
appointed by him and Id like to say, they could also be disappointed by him
meaning they could be removed by him. The vows which were pronounced by all
members of what later came to be known as the Cluniac Order or the Order of
Cluny were the vows were to be taken and received by the Abbot of Cluny. Another
reason for going in this direction was to take care of the evangelization and
the apostolate. Then the Abbot of Cluny could say there are people in need in
whatever town or country. You go there, the Church needs you and they went.
They better go! And not just to Christian people but to foreign, pagan lands.
The monks, therefore, became in large measure teachers and missionaries. At
the same time perhaps we might think somewhat strangely the Cluny reform
elaborated and developed the Divine Office, made it more solemn, to be sung
in choir. And talking to monks who sing their Office in choir they tell me four
hours is not unusual; fours a day with all the ritual that, for a solemn Office
this requires. Of course, their Churches became Cathedrals and the stress in
their relationship to God was on the Divine Majesty. And some of the great figures
in the Cluny Order, which was a Benedictine derivative, are among the greatest
intellectuals in the Churchs history. I happened to have mentioned three outstanding
names; Dunston, Oswald and Epiwald, thats for England.
The other was the Cistercian
Reform; the date here is 1098, the place, of course is Citeaux, again in France
but in the district of Burgundy. And the one who began it was the Abbot St.
Robert, originally of Molesme. To see what happened, if you can place the Cluniac
Rule into a mirror and look into the mirror, thats the Cistercian. Its just
the opposite. The very things that the Cluny people stressed, the Cistercians
opposed; The first major polarization in the history of religious institutes.
Thus, instead of expanding monasteries and then centralizing them under one
head who then became for all practical purposes a Superior General, the very
expression we owe to Cluny. Now as you can see, for example, you speak of Mother
General, dont you? We talk about Father General. You see what weve done? Weve
combined the Cluniac and the Cistercian ideal somehow. Do you get it? But the
combination is not easy to live out in practice, especially as communities become
large like my own.
There were several emphases
in the Cistercian Reform. First, the asceticism of St. Benedict was if anything,
intensified and bodily mortification became part of the Cistercian way of life.
What well known branch of the Cistercians is well established in the United
States? The Trappists, all right? Asceticism, especially on its bodily side,
was intensified and it reminds you a great deal of Antony remember his struggles
in the desert? Correspondingly, solitude and as much as that could be done that
the solitude of the eremitical life would be preserved even though you had a
community. And one way to preserve the solitude was forbidding the monks to
talk. So the stress on the eremitic, the solitary, the denial of communication
which is a means of recreation, as we know and more than that a great pleasure
and legitimately. So the whole spectrum of asceticism.
Secondly, the tendency
toward the more eremitical view. Thirdly, and with great emphasis, poverty.
The third large area of
reform and development in the Cistercian tradition was poverty; therefore simplicity,
the bare necessities in food, clothing, shelter. Who is one of the outstanding
Cistercians of all time? St. Bernard. I dont know how much of him youve read
I think youve read a great deal. You got the idea? Even the house of God
was not to be too elaborate, right? And he had some really strong homilies about
fancy churches. Well, its good to hear that! This is a way of life. So, poverty
in all of its forms was stressed in the Cistercian tradition.
Apostolate of Holiness
Manual labor. Where in
the Cluniac reform they became interested, understandably, in preaching and
evangelizing, the Cistercians not being so concerned, as weve just earlier
said, in traveling; in fact, quite the contrary in staying put. Their apostolate
would be mainly the apostolate of holiness. They did not entirely exclude the
apostolate of service, but they felt that it was not their charism. You see
how important it is to know the charism of these founders? Take, well, the saints,
well in both cases weve got some of the greatest saints in the monastic history;
their founders or early pioneers in the Cluniac tradition and in the Cistercian
tradition: the ones couldnt make their Churches elaborate enough, ornate, all
the silver, marble and gold you can get. Nothing is too good for God. The Cistercians:
bare walls, plainness, nothing that should delight the eye: it must all be spiritual.
Right? And believe me, if you have a vocation to one, you dont have a vocation
to the other. All right? How important it is nowadays to know who we are.
For the Cistercians and
St. Bernard would be a classic instance. It is said of him for twelve years
everyday he meditated on the Infant Jesus: littleness, helplessness, poverty,
simplicity. All right? But this same Christ Child is the Lord of Heaven and
Earth. God wants to be worshipped and Christ wants to be followed by different
people in different ways. Am I clear? They would make no mistake provided
their sincerity are seriously intent on loving God and becoming like Christ.
Communities are supposed to be different. But it is well to know that each community
understands what it is supposed to be. And when you mix breeds - Youve got
Manual labor, therefore,
to close with that in the Cistercian tradition was and remains to this day the
idea the Divine Office and work with ones hands. This I think I indicated
earlier, was one of the reasons for the crisis in the Trappists who were the
Cistercian tradition, as I learned from personal experience, having worked with
the Trappists and the history shows it. The largest loss of any major Order
in the church in modern times has been among the Trappists, percentage wise
larger than the Jesuits, though numerically ours is the biggest because of our
sheer numbers. And their problem, almost the center of their problem, not a
few vocations enter them highly gifted, articulate, talented people. In any
case the Cistercian tradition, I am confident, is once more recovering itself.
It is an authentic tradition of the Church, and if we said what we did regarding
St. Benedict that he is the father in God of all religious since. So these
two branches of the Benedictine monasticism are our respective parents in God,
and you can tell immediately communities more along the active, external apostolic,
evangelization, educational line and those morally interior, the contemplative,
the cloistered, the secluded, the sacrificial life.
Conference transcription from a talk that Father Hardon gave to the
Institute on Religious Life
Institute on Religious Life, Inc.
P.O. Box 410007
Chicago, Illinois 60641
Copyright © 1998 by Inter Mirifica