Holy Rule for December 30
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St. Mary's Monastery
Dec 29, 2025, 5:38:30 PM12/29/25
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Br. Jerome Leo’s Daily Reflection on the Holy Rule
April 30, August 30, December 30
Chapter 72: On the Good Zeal Which They Ought to Have
Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from vices and leads to God and to life everlasting. This zeal, therefore, the sisters should practice with the most fervent love. Thus they should anticipate one another in honor (Rom. 12:10); most patiently endure one another's infirmities, whether of body or of character; vie in paying obedience one to another - no one following what she considers useful for herself, but rather what benefits another; tender the charity of sisterhood chastely; fear God in love; love their Abbess with a sincere and humble charity; prefer nothing whatever to Christ. And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!
REFLECTION
This chapter, full of self-evident and beautiful prose should serve as a short rule of life, a summary of all that has gone before it. Live this one and you're all right: the details from the other chapters will take care of themselves. Little wonder then that its principal points are love, obedience and humility, practiced in the chastity of wholeness. (Chastity, it must be recalled, is proper to every state in life. It is the well-ordered, balanced and wholesome use of sexuality.) Even less wonder that, to call Scripture in to witness here, "the greatest of these is love." Merton's one-line Holy Rule summary also applies: "Love is the Rule."
The beauty here is so great that we often do not spend enough time looking at its opposite: "the evil zeal of bitterness." What a great turn of phrase! Like many of us, St. Benedict seems to have known some whose bitterness turned into an energetic zeal, a way of life, a broken power line in a windy world that could strike others or themselves without warning.
And "zeal" is precisely the word! People can put such frighteningly zealous levels of effort into self-loathing bitterness. It becomes a full-time job; one which requires so much energy that it's a marvel that they continue.
Bitter anger, self-hatred, ill-will towards many, these are viciously involuted cycles, cancers of the soul. They turn on the self, malignantly. They injure and alienate others to make one's twisted world view remain correct. They never rest, the fist is always clenched, the hand never open.
I have known two monks with this dreadful problem, both now long dead. Thank heavens, they both persevered to the end and one hopes that was enough, because, frankly, little else could be said for them. They both guaranteed that their own lives were hell and pretty much ensured smaller doses of hell for the rest of us living with them.
When I was much younger and living with those embittered monks, it was hard to look at them with much pity or calm. It isn't now, thank God, and I have spent considerable time praying for both of them, as well as for a few of their "runners-up"! While all things are possible with God, the terrible thing is that this self-hatred never gets fixed in some people. It can be a life sentence. Then, prayer is the only answer.
In any situation, but perhaps worse when the sufferer is one's spouse or parent or child, this bitterness is a terrible cross, for both the sufferer and those around her. It might seem cold comfort to say that it can make us all saints, but it truly is not cold comfort at all. Being saints is the only thing, ultimately, that matters. I hope by now some of my crosses of the past are praying for me, protecting me, by their prayers, from what once ailed them and forgiving me for the times I provoked them!
Br. Jerome Leo Hughes, OSB (RIP)
Br. Jerome Leo’s Daily Reflection on the Holy Rule
April 30, August 30, December 30
Chapter 72: On the Good Zeal Which They Ought to Have
Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness which separates from God and leads to hell, so there is a good zeal which separates from vices and leads to God and to life everlasting. This zeal, therefore, the sisters should practice with the most fervent love. Thus they should anticipate one another in honor (Rom. 12:10); most patiently endure one another's infirmities, whether of body or of character; vie in paying obedience one to another - no one following what she considers useful for herself, but rather what benefits another; tender the charity of sisterhood chastely; fear God in love; love their Abbess with a sincere and humble charity; prefer nothing whatever to Christ. And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!
REFLECTION
This chapter, full of self-evident and beautiful prose should serve as a short rule of life, a summary of all that has gone before it. Live this one and you're all right: the details from the other chapters will take care of themselves. Little wonder then that its principal points are love, obedience and humility, practiced in the chastity of wholeness. (Chastity, it must be recalled, is proper to every state in life. It is the well-ordered, balanced and wholesome use of sexuality.) Even less wonder that, to call Scripture in to witness here, "the greatest of these is love." Merton's one-line Holy Rule summary also applies: "Love is the Rule."
The beauty here is so great that we often do not spend enough time looking at its opposite: "the evil zeal of bitterness." What a great turn of phrase! Like many of us, St. Benedict seems to have known some whose bitterness turned into an energetic zeal, a way of life, a broken power line in a windy world that could strike others or themselves without warning.
And "zeal" is precisely the word! People can put such frighteningly zealous levels of effort into self-loathing bitterness. It becomes a full-time job; one which requires so much energy that it's a marvel that they continue.
Bitter anger, self-hatred, ill-will towards many, these are viciously involuted cycles, cancers of the soul. They turn on the self, malignantly. They injure and alienate others to make one's twisted world view remain correct. They never rest, the fist is always clenched, the hand never open.
I have known two monks with this dreadful problem, both now long dead. Thank heavens, they both persevered to the end and one hopes that was enough, because, frankly, little else could be said for them. They both guaranteed that their own lives were hell and pretty much ensured smaller doses of hell for the rest of us living with them.
When I was much younger and living with those embittered monks, it was hard to look at them with much pity or calm. It isn't now, thank God, and I have spent considerable time praying for both of them, as well as for a few of their "runners-up"! While all things are possible with God, the terrible thing is that this self-hatred never gets fixed in some people. It can be a life sentence. Then, prayer is the only answer.
In any situation, but perhaps worse when the sufferer is one's spouse or parent or child, this bitterness is a terrible cross, for both the sufferer and those around her. It might seem cold comfort to say that it can make us all saints, but it truly is not cold comfort at all. Being saints is the only thing, ultimately, that matters. I hope by now some of my crosses of the past are praying for me, protecting me, by their prayers, from what once ailed them and forgiving me for the times I provoked them!
Br. Jerome Leo Hughes, OSB (RIP)
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