Real-Life Communication
Being a minister requires lots of interpersonal and communication
skills -- after all, a big part of the job involves speaking to large congregations
week after week. "You must love people," says William Staton. "Reaching people
and introducing them to the same love and joy that I found in Christ is a
wonderful experience."
This morning you visited a sick parishioner
at the church. You returned to your office in the afternoon and met a young
couple who is going to be married next year. You arranged further counseling
sessions for them and discussed the vows that they would be taking at the
ceremony. After their visit you see another member of your congregation and
his daughter. You know the two have been having difficulty getting along.
In
a normal day, you meet and speak with many people, but you also spend time
preparing sermons and in quiet study. Now that you've seen all the people
who needed your services today, you turn to your books.
You're preparing
a religious studies session for students at the local college. You've chosen
to begin your course with an introduction to the Rule of St. Augustine, which
was written in 400 AD. It is one of the earliest guides for religious life.
It
would be interesting for these students to learn these rules set out for life
at a monastery. You'll begin your lecture by presenting the material and then
discuss the writings with the students. You will give them copies of the first
two chapters to take home and then, in order to see if they retained the information,
you'll give them a short quiz in the following class. Here are chapters 1
and 2 of the eight-chapter document:
The Rule of St.
Augustine
Chapter 1 -- Purpose and Basis of Common Life
Before
all else, dear brothers, love God and then your neighbor, because these are
the chief commandments given to us. The following are the precepts we order
you living in the monastery to observe.
The main purpose for you having come together is to live harmoniously
in your house, intent upon God in oneness of mind and heart.
Call nothing your own, but let everything be yours in common. Food
and clothing shall be distributed to each of you by your superior, not equally
to all, for all do not enjoy equal health, but rather according to each one's
need. For so you read in the Acts of the Apostles that: "they had all things
in common and distribution was made to each one according to each one's need."
(4:32,35)
Those who owned something in the world should be careful in wanting
to share it in common once they have entered the monastery.
But they who owned nothing should not look for those things in the
monastery that they were unable to have in the world. Nevertheless, they are
to be given all that their health requires even if, during their time in the
world, poverty made it impossible for them to find the very necessities of
life. And those should not consider themselves fortunate because they have
found the kind of food and clothing which they were unable to find in the
world.
And let them not hold their heads high because they associate with
people whom they did not dare to approach in the world, but let them rather
lift up their hearts and not seek after what is vain and earthly. Otherwise,
monasteries will come to serve a useful purpose for the rich and not the poor,
if the rich are made humble there and the poor are puffed up with pride.
The rich, for their part, who seemed important in the world, must
not look down upon their brothers who have come into this holy brotherhood
from a condition of poverty. They should seek to glory in the fellowship of
poor brothers rather than in the reputation of rich relatives. They should
neither be elated if they have contributed a part of their wealth to the common
life, nor take more pride in sharing their riches with the monastery than
if they were to enjoy them in the real world.
Indeed, every other kind
of sin has to do with the commission of evil deeds, whereas pride lurks even
in good works in order to destroy them. And what good is it to scatter one's
wealth abroad by giving it to the poor, even to become poor oneself, when
the unhappy soul is thereby more given to pride in despising riches than it
had been in possessing them?
Let all of you then live together in oneness of mind and heart, mutually
honoring God in yourselves, whose temples you have become.
Chapter 2 - Prayer
"Be assiduous in prayer" (Col 4:2), at the hours and times appointed.
In the oratory no one should do anything other than that for which
was intended and from which it also takes its name. Consequently, if there
are some who might wish to pray there during their free time, even outside
the hours appointed, they should not be hindered by those who think something
else must be done there.
When you pray to God in Psalms and hymns, think over in your hearts
the words that come from your lips.
Chant only what is prescribed for chant, moreover, let nothing be
chanted unless it is so prescribed.
These are the questions you put on your
test:
- What is St. Augustine's notion of equality?
- Why should poor people not hold their heads high and consider themselves
fortunate to be receiving goods from the monastery?
- Why should the rich not look down on the poor at the monastery?
- Why shouldn't brothers use the oratory for reasons other than prayer?
What answers do you jot down to these questions?