Motivations Matter

How many alarms do you set in the morning? I’ve not necessarily done research on it, but I imagine a lot of people set one or two. Some mornings I set more than others; on the mornings of important tests, for example, I’ll set an additional one across the room to avoid accidentally hitting “stop” instead of “snooze” on my main alarm. The point here being the more alarms I set, the less likely I am to screw up and oversleep. Sometimes I get so paranoid about oversleeping and hitting “stop” that I set too many, and it just gets annoying and unnecessary.
I mention this to introduce the concept of legalism, which is defined as “excessive adherence to a law or formula”. You may have heard of this before in the context of the Pharisees, who are the textbook example of ridiculous adherence to the law. (Let’s be real–they were so extreme they told God himself that he was breaking their law. I mean, I guess you have to admire their audacity?)
While reading the Rule of St. Benedict, legalism was a concept that consistently struck me. He just has so many! They seemed to go against the very concept of Christianity–that our God is a loving God, full of forgiveness. The most suspect rules to me were three particular ones: “Of Those Who Commit a Fault in the Oratory”, “Of Those Who Fail in Any Other Matters”, and “Whether a Monk Should Receive Letters or Anything Else”. The first two talked about those who made mistakes. However minor, if you messed up the daily reading, cooking, cleaning, et cetera, adults must immediately humble themselves before everyone and make satisfaction or else endure a greater punishment. And what of children? “But let children be beaten for such a fault.”
But however severe, there is a clear-cut difference in St. Benedict’s rules and those of the Pharisees. It rests in where they are based: what are the motivations? The Pharisees motivation were so they could be the very best. They wanted God to lavish praise on them for how good they were, and put down others who weren’t as pure. We can see this in Jesus’s parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector.
Benedict’s motivations were almost exactly the opposite. If you truly take the time to read them all, you can see that they are about humility. He sought to make sure no monks thought of themselves first, ever. Ultimately I find that I agree with the value he places on humility, but not how to go about it. He has people forsaking everything, and that may be something you need to do. As for me? I can show humility to God by living out the gifts and blessings I have.
No need to punish myself like Dobby the house-elf.