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 whole 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 converse: "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, unforgiving ill-will towards all or most, these are viciously involuted cycles. 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.
Someone years ago wrote a book about suicide titled "The Savage God." The premise was that the illness which caused suicide was like some pagan deity that destroyed its adherents, an apt enough assessment. But evil zeal is a savage god, too. Unlike suicide which leads to death, this one insists on a long and horrible end in prison.
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. (One was so mean- I am not making this up- that the Abbot asked his doctors NOT to discharge him from the hospital before Christmas, just to give the community a break. He had been in for a pacemaker, by the way, and it did extend his life. Now there's a REAL test of the Fifth Commandment! LOL!)
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 is 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 all involved 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!
Second Reflection
"Evil zeal" ought to catch our attention. We tend to think of zeal as more or less good, but it is not in every circumstance. There can be zealous enthusiasm in the service of things other than good, all too often! There can also be evil zeal, even real cruelty done in the name of things which are, in themselves, actually good. Satan loves to dupe people into wickedness in the name of good. That's important to remember.
The beginning and end of the Holy Rule are, to me at least, "sweetheart" chapters. They float and fly with elegance and grace and prose that stirs the soul. I love literature like that! I have to take special care when reading either portion that I do not let my love of beauty carry me away, that I come down to earth long enough to look at the dreadfully tough (or, in this case, evil,) things St. Benedict is talking about.
Because we have a tendency to egocentricity, we tend to view evil zeal as an extreme (which it is!) of the opposing camp, of those "other" folks, which is not necessarily true. Vices, extremes, can flourish all too gleefully in just about any environment, at any point on the spectrum, including our own hearts! This is a crucial truth.
If we lack this wisdom, it is easy to assume that those who are as zealously quite (pardon the expression,) as "full of it" as we are totally wonderful people. We would all do well to remember what the "it" in the previous expression refers to euphemistically! Sure it's nice to have people agree with us and it is very human to enjoy that, but their agreement is not a trustworthy standard of "wonderful." Our lack of self-objectivity can blind us there.
Evil zeal can be found right, left and center. In fact, the evil zeal of moderates can sometimes be very treacherous, indeed, because it is so difficult to spot. We do not usually suspect zeal in the timid, the cowardly, the lukewarm or the mediocre! One can, alas, be filled with the evil zeal of a false nonchalance.
Don't make the mistake of assuming that only wicked people have wicked zeal. Anyone can, just as anyone can be vain or envious or the victim of their own anger. Vice is no respecter of persons, and its only antidotes are humility and love.
I know I'm in the presence of evil zeal in ways that are hard for me to articulate. It's an intuitive feeling for me, a constriction of the heart, which is understandable, because evil zeal loves to step on others' hearts. Even feels gloriously justified in doing so! Hey, let's crush another heart for Jesus today! Real work of merit there.... But that is exactly how vice is made possible, by converting it in the victim's mind into a work of "goodness."
Evil zeal divides, holy zeal unites. Whether is be a Church or family or monastery or work place (or list!!) you can be absolutely certain that a needlessly divisive, partisan zeal is not and cannot be a holy thing. Strong statement? You bet it is. God is One and God is Love. Whatever leads to unnecessary factional disunity and needlessly broken hearts, hurt feelings or useless upset is just flat out wrong, not of God, big trouble.
Evil zeal presumes to look down from above, but only beckons others downward. Holy zeal looks up from humility and calls all together upward. The call of evil zeal is selective, while that of holy zeal is universal. Evil zeal patronizes with condescension, holy zeal knows better than that. Real sanctity never, ever patronizes.
But the greatest tragedy of evil zeal is its ability to blind its adherents totally. That may be evidenced by the fact that many of the people I am writing about here might quite likely drop me a private post to say how wonderful today's reflection was. Please don't let that happen to you! Go back, read the whole thing slowly and then think: "He's writing about me!" Because I am. And I am writing about me, too. There are evil zeals in everyone of us and we must fight the darkness of their blindness all of our lives, rooting them out one by one. But we cannot weed in the dark- we need at least a little light to see!! I pray that we may all have Light!
