BEING BENEDICTINE A Reflection on the Meaning and Significance of Benedictine Values at Saint Anselm College Gary M. Bouchard 2005 1 BEING BENEDICTINE Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................1 The World We Seek to Serve ...................................4 The Lives We Seek to Live .......................................9 The Work We Seek to Do ......................................12 The Community We Seek to Build .........................17 The Wisdom We Seek to Learn .............................23 The God We Seek to Know ...................................28 Reflections Questions ............................................32 Benedictine Resources ...........................................34 About the Author Gary M. Bouchard, Ph.D. Raised in New Mexico and Colorado, Gary Bouchard attended Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, graduating with degrees in English and communications in 1982. He received his doctorate in English literature with an emphasis in early modern poetry from Loyola University of Chicago in 1988. He has taught in the English Department at Saint Anselm College since 1987, serving as the college’s Executive Vice President from 1998 to 2003. Among recent scholarship, he has authored an article entitled, “The Shape of Song in a Flood of Words: Poetic Truth and Benedictine Education” forthcoming in the American Benedictine Review (December 2005). 2 BEING BENEDICTINE Introduction Common the pealing of Remembrance the bells on Alumni Hall on Those who “When I remember who I am work and teach a glorious spring at Saint Anselm most deeply, I am at my best. commencement, College, and When Saint Anselm College and the tolling those who of the bells have come to remembers who it is most on the Abbey learn and study deeply, it is at its best.” Church on a day here are bound turned suddenly by common – Abbot Matthew Leavy, O.S.B. sad. remembrance. Reminiscence, In fact, the with its seasons on our accompanying campus fold into one another with such reveries and revisions, helps us to sustain a rhythm of beginnings, middles and our common story. For what college ends, that only official records stored worth the sacrifice of its ancestors in files can help us make order of our does not share and celebrate common shared recollections, from which we memories? Within these stories, however, recall the departure of one more summer, there is another kind of remembrance the too-early arrival of another autumn, whereby we remember who we are by and with it one more freshman class remembering who we are called to be. to keep us looking forward. And even This is the kind of remembering to which as we do, we recall the renovation of Abbot Matthew refers above, and to one old building, and the construction which the many voices in this document of another; the improbable winning speak, as they ponder and wrestle with the of a past championship, and a faded basic question: What does it mean to be musical triumph on the stage; the sudden, Benedictine? academic maturity of a student, and Common Identity the reluctant retirement of a legendary Sitting in his office with a stack of professor; the leaves aflame with color midterms on a late winter morning, while one October weekend, and the onset of his students are away on semester break, an early winter storm; the echoing song of Professor Bill Farrell of the Sociology the choir, and another stack of exams; 1 BEING BENEDICTINE Department considers the nearly half Common Purpose century he has spent on this campus, Long past are the days when the and doesn’t imagine being anywhere imposing structure of Alumni Hall was else this morning. “In many ways, this Saint Anselm Monastery as well as Saint is my home,” he states simply, and to Anselm College. But the Benedictine understand the identity of this home, he monks who currently administer proposes the Confucian adage that “a Saint Anselm are the direct religious person should be what he or she is called. descendents of their brothers who A professor should profess,” he states founded the monastery and college, and simply, “and a Benedictine College should who are now buried in Saint Leander be Benedictine.” A statement so obvious cemetery behind the present monastery. that it requires no explanation, provided, Today the monks live their lives in of course, one understands what it means accordance with the same monastic Rule to be Benedictine. as their predecessors, the same Rule that has ordered the lives of Benedictines for The purpose of this document is to over fifteen centuries. assist us in that understanding. It is not, by any measure, a commentary upon Most of us who spend our days or The Rule of Saint Benedict. Neither nights working at Saint Anselm are not is it a systematic assessment of The monks, and therefore have not taken the Rule’s applicability and relevance to three vows of a Benedictine: Stability, Saint Anselm College, nor an attempt Obedience and Conversion through a to re-define the college’s mission. This Monastic Manner of Life. Nonetheless, document did not develop out of the rhythm of work and prayer that committees, focus groups or workshops. brings order to the lives of the monks It originated out of conversations, dozens who founded and still administer Saint of them. Conversations with Benedictine Anselm is a rhythm that many people at monks, administrators and professors, the College still seek to make their own. some of whom have spent the better Father Jonathan, who came to Saint part of their lives at Saint Anselm—men, Anselm as a student four decades ago, women, scientists, artists, humanists, and has served as its president for the past tradesmen—people who, in the classroom sixteen years, urges them to persist in this or not, share this much in common: effort: “Though The Rule of Benedict they dedicate their days, and sometimes was written for monks—for those who, the better portion of their evenings, to under the inspiration of God’s grace, working at Saint Anselm College, and chose to live their lives in a particular have, along the way, given some thought way–still there are principles which are to what the Benedictine identity of the ‘translatable’ to other ways of life, and college means to them and to their work. to the institutions and work with which From these conversations, we hope that Benedictines and their lay associates dozens more will follow. engage themselves.” 2 BEING BENEDICTINE Today, Alumni Hall is but the central says Abbot Matthew, “is that the thought building on a campus of 60 structures on in this document will permeate every part 400 acres of land. Even as the campus and of our life here.” its variety of academic and non-academic All those who receive this document facilities and programs have increased, are encouraged therefore to read it with the number of monks in a monastic the attention urged by Saint Benedict at population that was never regarded as the beginning of his Rule when he tells very large, has steadily declined. This the young monk to “Listen! Listen with reality, as much as any other, speaks of the ear of the heart.” Having done so, we the need for this present document, a may then join in a conversation about document that invites us to recognize the our Benedictine identity that we pray will values that have shaped our past, that shape Saint Anselm’s future, and remain remain part of our present and that can our common remembrance. help us forge our future. “Our desire,” 3 BEING BENEDICTINE I. The World We Seek To Serve ne has only to our culture have O surf the seventy fostered more or more channels “Monks exist in part to be a neurosis than on a television nirvana. question mark to people.” to perceive the Former Dean moral confusion, –Father Peter Guerin, O.S.B. of the College ambiguity and and professor of ambivalence of Theology, Father the age in which Peter Guerin, we live. There is O.S.B. has long been admired by confreres the rancor and hype of cable “news” and laity alike for his adherence to his programming, the voyeurism and monastic vows and responsibilities. He exploitation of so-called reality T.V., the first came to Saint Anselm Abbey in 1957, eroding boundaries to graphic depictions and when he considers the world then, of violence and sex, and the unapologetic and the one from which our students celebration of vanity in celebrity come today, he acknowledges that for mongering and material makeovers. All the person seeking a life of faith, the of it is subsidized by corporate marketing challenges are greater than ever. And yet, that alerts us to our many inadequacies. he notes, “the thorns” have always been We eat, worry, spend, and work too there. “I often think of Jesus’ description much; we exercise, sleep, invest, and earn of the seeds that fall among the thorns. too little. And there are pills to fix much What are the thorns? The anxieties of the of it. world. If we don’t take time to stop, we Is it any wonder that the Abbot of are buying into a culture that says work Saint Anselm Monastery stands fast 24-7. It’s a bad sign. If we cave into the against allowing a television into the expectations of our culture, we will be monastery? And yet the television is but a choked off.” window into our age of anxiety in which One office in any institution that the material comforts and excesses of deals routinely with the variety of such 4 BEING BENEDICTINE challenges is the Office of Human been, people seeking to anchor themselves Resources. Pat Shuster, who came to the in a life of faith have, perhaps, never been college in 1994 as the Director of Human more at odds with their world than they Resources and who now serves as the are today, when secular thinking and college’s Vice President of Administration behavior have become more and more notes that “reconciling who we seek to persistently the norm of our culture.