My words will not pass away

Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mk 13:31). Our life on earth is a gift, but it is not our home. We are called to a life that does not pass away.

In the Dialogues of Gregory on the life of Benedict, there is an episode in which Benedict frees a peasant from a ferocious Goth named Zalla. The Goth had taken a peasant in custody and tortured him cruelly. To save time, the peasant told a fib that Benedict retained him as his property. Zalla dragged the peasant to the door of Benedict’s monastery and demanded ransom. Benedict glanced up from his reading and his glance immediately broke the cords that bound the prisoner. Zalla fell to the ground. Zalla was brought into the monastery, chastised and then blessed by Benedict.

This episode of Benedict’s life is only one story away from the encounter with Scholastica, her eventual death, and then Benedict’s own passing. The story of Zalla displays an integrated soul of Benedict at the end of his life that had undergone the long process of theosis, a union with the Word. Gregory comments on the purpose of retelling this story: “Those who grow close to almighty God by serving Him can sometimes perform miracles through their own power.” In Benedict, God’s power shines. Through reproach, wise counsel and blessing, Benedict broke the evil spirit in Zalla and won his soul back to God.

Peter said to Jesus, “We have given up everything and followed you. What will there be for us?” Benedict’s way of life is nothing but the giving up of everything to follow Jesus. Not in a spectacular and explosive way of the martyrs, but by the daily “labor of obedience to bring us back to Him from whom we have drifted through the sloth of disobedience” (RB Prol. 2). Instead of the shooting star of the martyr that displays the glory of God, it is the Benedictine custody and vigilance over the “Domus Dei et Porta Coeli” (Gen 28:18), house of God and gate to heaven, and keeping it in peace. It is not the bullseye of one arrow of the martyr, but “the happiness of the man who has filled his quiver with many arrows in which he has no cause for shame when he disputes with his foes in the gateways” (Ps 127:5).

“Sanguis martyrum est semen christianorum” says Tertullian: “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity.” But not all are called to witness the Gospel by the shedding of blood. Many are called to live a white martyrdom of daily dying to oneself for the sake of Christ and the sanctification of self and the world. With Benedict and his Rule, he has established a school in the Lord’s service, “to prefer nothing whatsoever to Christ” (RB 72:11). And what will there be for us? Jesus replied, “Amen, I say to you that you who have followed me, in the new age, when the Son of Man is seated on his throne of glory, will yourselves sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mt 19:28). This is our hope as we strive to live authentically our calling, whatever it may be. So that we can see: a great multitude singing, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!” and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen” (Rev 7:9-12). Like Zalla and the multitude of saints, we fall to the ground to worship the Lamb, the Word that does not pass away. Let us leave behind what will not serve us on our journey and cling to what does not pass, is eternal, and gives life.

*  Abbot of St Martin Abbey
Lacey, Washington

By Fr Marion Nguyen, osb *