Holy Rule for February 6
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St. Mary's Monastery
Feb 5, 2026, 5:37:03 PMFeb 5
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Br. Jerome Leo’s Daily Reflection on the Holy Rule
February 6, June 7, October 7
Chapter 7: On Humility (56-58)
The ninth degree of humility is that a monk restrain his tongue and keep silence, not speaking until he is questioned. For the Scripture shows that "in much speaking there is no escape from sin" (Prov.10:19) and that "the talkative man is not stable on the earth" (Ps. 139:12).
REFLECTION
Well, you can safely bet that I fail this one right and left.
Obedience is essential to humility, but as we climb the steps, other virtues that figure in humility are presented to us. Why is silence important? Because when someone like me is shooting his mouth off all the time, whether being really funny, or just thinking he is, offering the world choice observations of his "exquisite" wisdom, what's really going on is a desire to be at the center of things, to be star and protagonist. Lights, camera, action! Why?
If I am bored- and I often am- I make a joke, create my own excitement, change the human situation I have walked into to suit MY needs. Maybe others weren't bored at all, even if they politely laugh and seem to enjoy it. That trait doesn't say much for my depth.
I need to be entertained? Hello!?!? Can't I find enough material in silence to keep me busy? What's really going on here? Short attention span much? I can get so absorbed in elevating humor and speech as positive, necessary goods that I can easily forget that both can be tools of control, and control is not for the humble.
Naming that does not mean I do not have to work at change. I do. I think it was Flannery O'Connor who said that accepting ourselves does not preclude an effort to be better. Change may be so gradual that none will ever notice, but every time I resist any useless temptation to open my mouth, there is a small victory.
Face it; we think a lot of what we have to say is important because we think WE are important, or funny or clever. We truly have divinely created dignity, but that is not usually what is employed in making these decisions to speak!
Silence is not incompatible with charity or cheerfulness. Brother David Gormican, OSB, of St. Leo, now gone to God, was a paragon of this step (actually, of all of them!) Brother would speak first if he needed something, but otherwise, he waited until he was spoken to or asked something. No surprise that he usually looked very recollected: he was!
When he was called on to speak, it was always cheerfully and with something I can only describe as sweetness. I don't mean he was sugary, I mean sweetness in the best possible sense. When Brother David DID speak, one would never think that silence was unloving; all his compassion and love just shone right through.
Brother David was truly a saint. No doubt, had he wished to run off at the mouth as I do, he could have given you all much better and deeper wisdom and holiness than me. But part of his holiness was silence and his humility allowed people far less bright (like me,) to talk all they wanted, unchallenged.
On the rare occasion when he wouldn't leave something unchallenged, the weight of a well-chosen phrase or two of his would offset pages of prose! Part of the reason his words bore such weight is that he was so usually silent that people LISTENED when he spoke. Sadly, that is not true for many of us.
Br. Jerome Leo Hughes, OSB (RIP)
Br. Jerome Leo’s Daily Reflection on the Holy Rule
February 6, June 7, October 7
Chapter 7: On Humility (56-58)
The ninth degree of humility is that a monk restrain his tongue and keep silence, not speaking until he is questioned. For the Scripture shows that "in much speaking there is no escape from sin" (Prov.10:19) and that "the talkative man is not stable on the earth" (Ps. 139:12).
REFLECTION
Well, you can safely bet that I fail this one right and left.
Obedience is essential to humility, but as we climb the steps, other virtues that figure in humility are presented to us. Why is silence important? Because when someone like me is shooting his mouth off all the time, whether being really funny, or just thinking he is, offering the world choice observations of his "exquisite" wisdom, what's really going on is a desire to be at the center of things, to be star and protagonist. Lights, camera, action! Why?
If I am bored- and I often am- I make a joke, create my own excitement, change the human situation I have walked into to suit MY needs. Maybe others weren't bored at all, even if they politely laugh and seem to enjoy it. That trait doesn't say much for my depth.
I need to be entertained? Hello!?!? Can't I find enough material in silence to keep me busy? What's really going on here? Short attention span much? I can get so absorbed in elevating humor and speech as positive, necessary goods that I can easily forget that both can be tools of control, and control is not for the humble.
Naming that does not mean I do not have to work at change. I do. I think it was Flannery O'Connor who said that accepting ourselves does not preclude an effort to be better. Change may be so gradual that none will ever notice, but every time I resist any useless temptation to open my mouth, there is a small victory.
Face it; we think a lot of what we have to say is important because we think WE are important, or funny or clever. We truly have divinely created dignity, but that is not usually what is employed in making these decisions to speak!
Silence is not incompatible with charity or cheerfulness. Brother David Gormican, OSB, of St. Leo, now gone to God, was a paragon of this step (actually, of all of them!) Brother would speak first if he needed something, but otherwise, he waited until he was spoken to or asked something. No surprise that he usually looked very recollected: he was!
When he was called on to speak, it was always cheerfully and with something I can only describe as sweetness. I don't mean he was sugary, I mean sweetness in the best possible sense. When Brother David DID speak, one would never think that silence was unloving; all his compassion and love just shone right through.
Brother David was truly a saint. No doubt, had he wished to run off at the mouth as I do, he could have given you all much better and deeper wisdom and holiness than me. But part of his holiness was silence and his humility allowed people far less bright (like me,) to talk all they wanted, unchallenged.
On the rare occasion when he wouldn't leave something unchallenged, the weight of a well-chosen phrase or two of his would offset pages of prose! Part of the reason his words bore such weight is that he was so usually silent that people LISTENED when he spoke. Sadly, that is not true for many of us.
Br. Jerome Leo Hughes, OSB (RIP)
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