Holy Rule for February 3
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St. Mary's Monastery
Feb 2, 2026, 6:16:25 PMFeb 2
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Br. Jerome Leo’s Daily Reflection on the Holy Rule
February 3, June 4, October 4
Chapter 7: On Humility (49-50)
The sixth degree of humility is that a monk be content with the poorest and worst of everything, and that in every occupation assigned him he consider himself a bad and worthless workman, saying with the Prophet, "I am brought to nothing and I am without understanding; I have become as a beast of burden before You, and I am always with You" (Ps: 22-23).
REFLECTION
It is easy to miss the hardest word in this reading. Our eyes fly right away to the ones we want to argue with-and these days many want to argue with them! Slyly stuck into the first line is the precept that the monastic "be CONTENT with the poorest and worst of everything." The connection this time is not to obedience, but to other virtues in humility's service: simplicity, poverty and stability.
Contentedness does not bide its time for a jump to something better, does not merely endure things, but accepts them rather matter-of-factly. Contented monastics aren't hunting for or wondering about something else, usually it doesn't even occur to them. Truly contented people, in monasteries or in marriage or in the world do not spend a lot of time on "what if?" or "what next?" In the 70's a lot of people loved the popular phrase on posters: "Bloom where you are planted." Quite possibly they never stopped to think exactly what that meant: being contented enough to blossom in any circumstance. Whoops! A little more teeth to that version!
I know from sad personal experience: stability with divided attention, with tons of Plans B, C, and D, simply is not very effective. It is better than nothing, to be sure, but it is nearly nothing when compared with its power once all those distractions are dropped. We may not be able to drop them all at once, but we must try to stay rooted, ever more and more rooted.
I knew one great monk who told me, at 83, that he had finally decided to stay! There was not even a hint of irony in his voice. On the other hand, I have known monks who were happy as clams and completely contented in their forties. It is a different struggle for each of us.
Truly contented simplicity and stability are powerful, counter-cultural witnesses to offer this age. Materialism, consumerism and the short attention span rule. A consumerist society is actually fueled by provoking discontent: how else can superfluous consumption be imposed?
Every time one person, family or monastery gets even partially free of those constraints it is a powerful witness to those still bound. Most of us truly do not "need" more. The Holy Rule can teach us that, but not if we look at it through the lenses we have hauled along with us from the 21st century world. Those lenses are completely invested in our reaching the opposite-and false-conclusion.
Lots of people LOVE consumerist enslavement, or at least think they do! Your efforts to free yourself might be far less than applauded in many eyes, while some may actually try to pull you back. Someone once remarked that we think nothing of people spending themselves, even dying in the pursuit of sports, bodybuilding, mountaineering and the like, but our secular culture has a VERY different view of those who spend themselves in the pursuit of the spiritual.
The other, equally important consideration is that simplicity is NOT just a way to save money-though it will free up plenty. The goal is not to hoard what you have saved, but to spread it around or, as St. Elizabeth Seton said: "Let us live simply, so that others may simply live." We can direct our goods ever so much more responsibly toward the common good, goods we had been tricked into believing we had to throw elsewhere in the service of greed!
As to the "bad and worthless workman" line, where I expect there'll be a lot of dissent, well, that isn't St. Benedict or me. You'll have to argue with Jesus Himself on that one. He said that after we have done ALL that was commanded us, we should say we are nothing but unprofitable servants. Being God, I don't imagine He was mistaken.
Br. Jerome Leo Hughes, OSB (RIP)
Br. Jerome Leo’s Daily Reflection on the Holy Rule
February 3, June 4, October 4
Chapter 7: On Humility (49-50)
The sixth degree of humility is that a monk be content with the poorest and worst of everything, and that in every occupation assigned him he consider himself a bad and worthless workman, saying with the Prophet, "I am brought to nothing and I am without understanding; I have become as a beast of burden before You, and I am always with You" (Ps: 22-23).
REFLECTION
It is easy to miss the hardest word in this reading. Our eyes fly right away to the ones we want to argue with-and these days many want to argue with them! Slyly stuck into the first line is the precept that the monastic "be CONTENT with the poorest and worst of everything." The connection this time is not to obedience, but to other virtues in humility's service: simplicity, poverty and stability.
Contentedness does not bide its time for a jump to something better, does not merely endure things, but accepts them rather matter-of-factly. Contented monastics aren't hunting for or wondering about something else, usually it doesn't even occur to them. Truly contented people, in monasteries or in marriage or in the world do not spend a lot of time on "what if?" or "what next?" In the 70's a lot of people loved the popular phrase on posters: "Bloom where you are planted." Quite possibly they never stopped to think exactly what that meant: being contented enough to blossom in any circumstance. Whoops! A little more teeth to that version!
I know from sad personal experience: stability with divided attention, with tons of Plans B, C, and D, simply is not very effective. It is better than nothing, to be sure, but it is nearly nothing when compared with its power once all those distractions are dropped. We may not be able to drop them all at once, but we must try to stay rooted, ever more and more rooted.
I knew one great monk who told me, at 83, that he had finally decided to stay! There was not even a hint of irony in his voice. On the other hand, I have known monks who were happy as clams and completely contented in their forties. It is a different struggle for each of us.
Truly contented simplicity and stability are powerful, counter-cultural witnesses to offer this age. Materialism, consumerism and the short attention span rule. A consumerist society is actually fueled by provoking discontent: how else can superfluous consumption be imposed?
Every time one person, family or monastery gets even partially free of those constraints it is a powerful witness to those still bound. Most of us truly do not "need" more. The Holy Rule can teach us that, but not if we look at it through the lenses we have hauled along with us from the 21st century world. Those lenses are completely invested in our reaching the opposite-and false-conclusion.
Lots of people LOVE consumerist enslavement, or at least think they do! Your efforts to free yourself might be far less than applauded in many eyes, while some may actually try to pull you back. Someone once remarked that we think nothing of people spending themselves, even dying in the pursuit of sports, bodybuilding, mountaineering and the like, but our secular culture has a VERY different view of those who spend themselves in the pursuit of the spiritual.
The other, equally important consideration is that simplicity is NOT just a way to save money-though it will free up plenty. The goal is not to hoard what you have saved, but to spread it around or, as St. Elizabeth Seton said: "Let us live simply, so that others may simply live." We can direct our goods ever so much more responsibly toward the common good, goods we had been tricked into believing we had to throw elsewhere in the service of greed!
As to the "bad and worthless workman" line, where I expect there'll be a lot of dissent, well, that isn't St. Benedict or me. You'll have to argue with Jesus Himself on that one. He said that after we have done ALL that was commanded us, we should say we are nothing but unprofitable servants. Being God, I don't imagine He was mistaken.
Br. Jerome Leo Hughes, OSB (RIP)
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