Friends of Augustine; National Meeting at Boarbank Hall January 2009
Themes: 1) The Rule. 2) Peace. Guest Speakers: Deacon Nigel Bavidge & Sr Margaret Atkins.
The Weekend:
A short report by Ian Harding
Friends of Augustine from Clare Priory were joined by Friends from Carlisle and by Srs Margaret and Anne from the Boarbank Hall community for a weekend's Augustinian Workshop.
We arrived in time for a delicious Dinner followed by our first session led by Deacon Nigel Bavidge. Nigel's theme was St Augustine's Rule, initially for a general look at the first four chapters but with the intent over the two sessions with Nigel to study the first eight chapters, highlighting rules that stood out to us, as individuals, as important to our own way of life in Christ. With so much to discuss we were unable to complete all eight chapters but we used time on Sunday morning to further our discourse.
Sr Margaret's talk was on Peace. using St Augustine's work on the Psalms and the City of God. These were very well presented, very well received and debated, so much so that when we were running out of time for the questions written at the end of the handouts and we showed concern, Sr Margaret informed us her prime reason for the questions was in case we hadn't asked any during her talk!
A report on Nigel Bavidge's talks is next, written by Paul Bethel and following the report, very kindly permitted by Sr Margaret, are her original handouts.
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Nigel Bavidge: Introduction
I introduce myself to my religion class at school in this way, ‘I’m Nigel Bavidge and I’m utterly fantastic…’ then I go on to explain that it’s because I’m a child of God and He thinks I’m ‘utterly fantastic’ so I must be. I’m very gratified when the children get the right answer when I ask them who I am ‘You’re utterly fantastic’ but even more when they start to understand they are utterly fantastic too because God has made them.We must remember that we are all utterly fantastic – we are gift, perhaps not to every one but that is not our problem but theirs!
The Rule
‘Let’s Look at the Rule Workshop’How can we extract from Augustine’s rule for religious what is relevant to us? We want a version for lay people to use as they wish in whatever circumstance – family, work, parish, marriage.
Chap. 1 Purpose and Basis of the Common Life
One in mind and heart
3. The main purpose for your having come together is to live harmoniously in your house, intent upon God in oneness of mind and heart.4. Call nothing your own, but let everything be yours in common.
5. Those who owned something in the world should be cheerful in wanting to share it in common once they have entered the monastery.
6. But they who owned nothing should not look for those things in the monastery that they were unable to have in the world.
Humility the basis of common life
7. 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.8. The rich, for their part, who seemed important in the world, must not look down on their brothers who have come into this holy brotherhood from a condition of poverty. They should seek glory in the fellowship of poor brothers rather than in the reputation of rich relatives.
Exhortation to harmony
9. Let all of you live together in oneness of mind and heart, mutually honouring God in yourselves, whose temples you have become.Comments from everyone;
· Harmony – one heart and mind on the way to God. Humility – not seeking recognition. Simplicity – opposite of materialism.
· Important to recognise in your neighbour God’s gifts and to receive humbly from them.
· I love the concept ‘house’ used in the phrase and its connection with temple ‘Live humbly in your house… mutually honouring God in yourselves, whose temple you are.’ It starts with harmony within your own heart and then extended to harmony in the community – which is achieved through community prayer, that is the ‘cement’.
· Mealtimes are also important, ‘The family that EATS together, stays together.’ Although it’s not just in prayer and mealtimes: the Spirit works and unites us in many ways.
· Value the other person because they have God within – then you will grow yourself. We can show God to each other.
· God is at the centre of harmonious living, both the life within and without.
· Wealth was the biggest divide in Augustine’s time, that was why he went into such detail about the adjustments the rich and poor had to make in joining the community – poor people were worth nothing, it was an insult for one of them to address a rich person. Today wealth is not so significant a barrier – but there are other ones just as powerful.
· Gwen related a story of an event on a crowded underground which shows today’s barriers and how they can be broken: a women with her Down syndrome young child were in the carriage and the girl became uncontrollably distressed, crying and screaming and her mother couldn’t calm her; all the passengers studiously ignored the situation until a young boy walked down the carriage holding a balloon he’d got from a party and handed it to the girl – she stopped crying immediately and was happy with her balloon. He had reached out to her, all the others were physically close but separated by social barrier – he crossed that barrier.
· Respond to the needs of all in the community. Give what you are to the community – be commited to them. Treat all with dignity.
Chapter 2: Prayer
Prayer
10. Be assiduous in prayer, at the hours and times appointed.11. In the oratory no one should do anything other than for which it 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.
12. When you pray to God in psalms and hymns think over in your hearts the words that come from your lips.
13. Chant only what is prescribed for chant; moreover, let nothing be chanted unless it is so prescribed.
Thoughts from retreat
· Be faithful in prayer = develop a regular habit of prayer.· Just as the abbey has an oratory, a place of prayer, so we have an oratory within us and have to guard what we let go on in their just as in Augustine’s rule. Let God in and he will clean it out!
· Great heresy is the separation of life and religion, we should pray frequently, remembering that desire for God is prayer.
· We so believe in the real presence in the oratory that we believe in the ‘real absence’ everywhere else!
FINAL VERSION
‘Persevere faithfully in prayer: think over in your hearts the words that a come from your lips (or…let the words that come from our lips be alive in your hearts’.Chapter 3: Moderation and Self-Denial
Fasting and abstinence
14. Subdue the flesh, so far as your health permits, by fasting and abstinence from food and drink.Reading at meals
15. When you come to the table, listen until you leave to what is the custom to read, without disturbance or strife.Consideration for the weak
16. If those in more delicate health are treated differently in the matter of food, this should not be aa source of annoyance for others.Austerity and understanding
17. The rest should not want the extra they see given to the few; it is not a special privilege, but a help to support them in their weakness.Concern for the sick
18. Just as the sick must take less food to avoid discomfort, so too, after their illness, they are to receive the kind of treatment that will quickly restore their strength.
Final Version:
‘Remember we are equal but not the same: we should all hgave what we need but simplicity should be our guide in life. Gather together for meals – no disagreement has any place at the table.’
Chapter 4: Safeguarding Chastity and Fraternal Correction
Clothing
19. There should be nothing about your clothing to attract attention. You should not seek to please by your apparel, but by a good life.Behaviour outside the monastery
20. Whenever you go out, walk together, and when you reach your destination, stay together.21. In your walk, comportment, and in all your actions let nothing happen to give offence to anyone who sees you, but only what becomes your holy state of life.
22. When you see a woman, do not keep provocatively looking at her. You cannot say that your inner attitude is good if with your eyes you desire to possess a woman, for the eye is the herald of the heart.
23. Indeed, if a person cannot keep his eyes off a woman and enjoys attracting her attention, he should not imagine that others do not see this, least of all by God.
24. When you are together, in church or anywhere else, exercise a mutual care over purity of life. By mutual vigilance over one another God, who dwells in you, will grant you his protection.
Fraternal correction
25. If you notice in a brother this spiritual ailment then warn him immediately, so that the evil that has taken root may not worsen and so that he may promptly improve his behaviour.26. It is your duty to make known a brother's spiritual ailment lest he should become more corrupt at heart.
Severity in love
27. If your brother does not acknowledge his fault and accept correction the community must be informed. But let the matter first be made known to the superior alone. Thus, corrected in private, the fault can perhaps be kept from others.Hate the sin, love the sinner
28. Let what I have said be carefully observed with regard to all other offences: to find them out, to ward them off, to make them known, to prove and punish them.
29. If anyone should go so far in wrongdoing as to receive secret letters or gifts of any kind, you ought to show mercy and pray for him if he confesses this of his own accord.
Final version:
‘Be discrete in your appearance. Guard your heart’s desires, preserve chastity. Love each other and hate sin. Be honest and open to correction.’
(This was my version – I didn’t write down much about the comments of others – did anyone else?)
Report written by Paul Bethel
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Augustine on peace in the Psalms
Sr Margaret Atkins, Boarbank Hall
Ennarrationes in Psalmos (Expositions of the Psalms) EP
N.B Augustine uses the Greek/Latin numbering of the Psalms, found sometimes also in Catholic bibles. For most of the Psalms the conventional modem numbering, which follows the Hebrew, is one number higher.
Peace in the Old TestamentPsalm 71 (72). 15-17:
Long may he live, may gold of Sheba be given to him!May prayer be made for him continually, and blessings invoked for him all the day!
May there be abundance of grain in the land; on the tops of the mountains may it wave;
May its fruit be like the Lebanon; and may men blossom forth from the cities like the grass of the field!
May his name endure for ever, his fame continue as long as the sun!
May men bless themselves by him, all nations call him blessed!
Temporary and eternal peace
See, brothers, peace is called a good, a great good. You were asking what it would be called: is it gold or silver or a farm or clothing? It is peace: not the kind of peace that human beings have among themselves - unreliable, unstable, changeable, uncertain; nor the kind of peace that each one of you has with yourself. What kind of peace then? Such as the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard (I Cor 2.9). (EP 127.16)Seek peace and you will find it. He did not say to you, 'You will have peace here.' Seek it and you will .find it; but where Will you find it? Where he has one first. For the Lord is our peace, and he rose and ascended into heaven. Seek peace and you will find it, because when you too rise again this mortal nature will be changed, and you will embrace peace, where there will be no one to trouble you. (Ep 3.19)
Interior and exterior peace
Then there will be a full and firm peace. Nothing will fight against your soul; and your soul will not fight against itself, because it is damaged. There will be no frailty of the flesh, no needs of the body, no hunger or thirst or cold or heat or weariness or need; no quarrels provoked, not even the constant anxiety of avoiding and loving one's enemy. All of these things, my brothers, fight against us now; we do not yet have full and complete peace. (EP 147.20)What is peace? Where there is no war .... where there is no opposition, where nothing resists you, where nothing is against you. See if we are there yet - see if now there is no conflict with the devil ....The saints .... fight with their desires, which suggest sins to them .... There is not yet peace, while they are still fighting. (EP 84.10)
You are fighting with God; for you have not made a place for him in your heart, since his place is in peace. How do you begin to have peace with God? You begin by confessing to him.... you will end with peace. (EP 5.3-4)
Reading the Psalms: Christ
The title of this Psalm is marked as 'for Solomon'; however, things are said in it that cannot apply to the Solomon who was king of Israel according to the flesh. On the other hand, they can be fittingly applied to the Lord Christ. Therefore, we should interpret the name 'Solomon' as being used with a figurative significance, to refer to Christ. For Solomon means 'Peacemaker', and so the name very truly and appropriately applies to the mediator through whom we receive the forgiveness of sins, and are reconciled with God, having been his enemies. For, when -we were still enemies, we were reconciled with God through the death of his Son (Rom 5.10). He himself is the peacemaker, who commandments in decrees so as to build-the two in himself into one new person, making peace. And when he came, he preached to those who were far off and peace to those who were near (Eph 2.14-17). He himself says in the Gospel, I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Many other testimonies sow that the Lord Christ was our peacemaker; not according to the peace that this world knows, but the peace of which the prophet said, I will give you true consolation, peace on peace (Is 57.19), that is, when the peace of immortality is added to the peace of reconciliation. (EP 71.1)Reading the Psalms: enemies
He makes the sun rise on the good and the bad, and rains on the just and the unjust. You cannot make the sun rise; but can you not at least keep some one thing for your enemy, so that you might have peace on earth as a person of good will? This rule of love is planted in you, that you should imitate the Father and love your enemy - for he said. Love your enemy (Lk 6.27). How, then, will you practise this, unless you have an enemy? (EP 54.4)What were the two-edged swords in their hands'? The two testaments are compared to a two-edged sword: the Old Testament promises earthly things, and the New what is eternal.... To deal out vengeance to the nations .... How, you will ask, are the pagans killed? How, except by becoming Christians? I am looking for a pagan, and I can't find one; he is now a Christian; the pagan is dead....
To bind their kings in chains .... God as Christ came to benefit everyone, but he chose to benefit the emperor through a fisherman, not a fisherman through the emperor. He chose those things that were of no importance in the world (cf. I Cor 1.26-28). He filled them with his Spirit, he gave them double-edged swords; he told them to preach the Gospel, and to go through the whole world. The world raged; the lion aroused itself against the lamb; but the lamb proved stronger than the lion. The lion was conquered in its rage; the lamb conquered in its suffering. The hearts of men were converted to fear of Christ; kings and nobles began to be moved by miracles, disturbed by the fulfilments of prophecies, to see the human race gather around one name .... Many still hold on to their nobility and their royal power, and are Christians in this way. They are, as it were, in chains, and in fetters of iron. How? They have accepted chains to stop themselves resorting to what is unlawful: the chains of wisdom, the chains of the Word of God. (EP 49.12,14)
The ecclesial context
Making wars cease to the ends of the earth. We see that this has not yet been fulfilled. There are still wars; among the nations for their kings, among the sects, among Jews, pagans and Christians and heretics. There are wars; there are frequent wars. Some fight for the truth and others for lies. {EP 45.13)I was a peacemaker with those who hate peace. Who are those who hate peace? Those who tear apart unity. If they had not hated peace, they would have remained in unity. {EP 119.9)
A few questions
1) How would you define 'peace'?
2) To what extent is the peace of heaven anticipated in the Christian life?
3) Can we find peace only in Christ?
4) How do we read, or pray, those Psalms in which enemies are cursed?
Sr Margaret Atkins, Boarbank Hall..................................................................................................................................................................
Augustine on peace in City of God
Sr Margaret Atkins, Boarbank HallBook XIX in the context of the whole
Therefore we can say of peace that it the goal of all our good things, as we have already said of eternal life .... The goal of this city, then, in which the supreme good will exist, should be called either peace in eternal life, or eternal life in peace, so that everyone can understand us more easily. Peace is so great a good that even in earthly and mortal matters no word is more gladly heard, no thing is more desired, nothing better can be found .... Just as there is no one who does not want to be joyful, there is no one who does not want to have peace. Even people who want wars want only to win them, and so what they really desire is to reach a glorious peace .... so even wars are fought with the intention of peace. (CG 19.11-12)
Peace at each level of society
St Paul says, Whoever does not provide for his own people, and especially/or his household, denies the faith and is -worse than an unbeliever. (I Tim 5.8) Domestic peace derives from this, that is, an ordered agreement of commanding and obeying among those who live together. Those who give the commands are those who care for the others: a man for his wife, parents for their children, masters for their slaves. Those who obey are those who are being cared for: women their husbands, children their parents, slaves their masters. But in the household of a just man who lives by faith, and is still making his pilgrimage by that heavenly city, even those who command are serving those whom they appear to command. For they do not command out of a love of domination, but out of a duty of care, nor through pride in being first, but through compassion in being responsible. (CG 19.14)Domestic peace has reference to civic peace .... Thus, the father of a family ought to draw the orders by which he rules his household from the law of the city, so that is might be accommodated to the peace of the city. (CG 19.16) Let us say that a 'people' is a massed group of rational beings, united by shared agreement about the things that they love. (CO 1.24)
Peace and order
The peace of the body, then, is an ordered balance of its parts; the peace of the irrational soul, an ordered stillness of its desires; the peace of a rational soul the agreement between thought and action; the peace of body and soul, an ordered life and the health of the living creature; the peace of mortal human beings with God, an ordered obedience in faith under the eternal law; the peace of human beings, an ordered agreement (Concordia), the peace of a household, an ordered agreement of commanding and obeying among those who live together; the peace of a city, an ordered agreement of commanding and obeying among citizens; the peace of the heavenly city, a fellowship, perfectly ordered and in perfect agreement, in enjoying God and one another in God. The peace of all things is lies in the tranquility of order, and order is the giving of its proper place to all things, whether they are equal or unequal. (CG 19.13)The two cities and temporal peace
Therefore as long as this heavenly city is a pilgrim on this earth, she call citizens from all the nations, and gathers them into a pilgrim society of every language. She does not care about differences in those customs, laws and institutions that secure earthly peace; she does not reject or destroy any of these, but maintains and follows them, as being directed, despite the differences among different nations, to the same one goal of earthly peace - provided that is that they do not hinder the religion that teaches us to worship the one, most high and true God. Therefore the heavenly city also makes use of earthly peace on her pilgrimage, and desires and seeks the cooperation of human wills in things relating to our mortal nature (so long as godliness and religion are allowed to be safe); and then she refers this earthly peace to the heavenly peace. (CG 19.17)
Blessed is the people whose Lord is that God. (Ps 143.15) The people that is alienated from that God is wretched. However, it will still love a certain peace that is not to be despised, even though it will not have this at the end, because it does not use it well before the end. It matters to us too that for the time being it should have this peace in this life, because as long as the two cities are mixed, we also make use of the peace of Babylon. That is why St Paul urged the Church to pray for its kings and those in authority, adding, so that we can lead a quiet life in all godliness and love. (I Tim 2.2). (CG 19.26)
The limits of peace in this life
What of all the failures in love that Terence recounts. Injuries, suspicions, hostilities, war, then peace again'? Isn't human life always full of such things? Don't they happen often enough even in loving and decent friendships? Don't we know that human life everywhere is full of evils that are certain: injuries, suspicions, hostilities, war? Peace, though, is an uncertain good, since we do not know the hearts of those with whom we wish to share it; and even if we could know them today, we could certainly not know what they would be tomorrow. (CG 19.5)Differences of language makes human beings strangers to one another. If two people meet one another and some necessity forces them not to pass but to be together, and neither knows the other's language, then it is easier for animals without speech, even of different species, to associate with each other than for these two, who are both human beings. When they cannot communicate to each other what they are thinking, because of the difference of language, the fact that their natures are so similar does not help them to be companions. People would rather be with their own dog than with a foreign human being. (CD 19.7)
{Compare: If the body of Christ now speaks the languages of everyone, then I am in all languages. Greek is mine, Syrian is mine, Hebrew is mine, the language of every nation is mind, because I am in unity with all nations. (EP\ 47.19)] Judges can never see into the consciences of those they are judging, and so they are often forced to seek the truth under torture from innocent witnesses to someone else's crime.} (CD 19.6)
A few questions
1) Is peace a universal goal? Is it what we most want?
2) How are peace and order related: in the family?
at work?
in society?
in the Church?
3) How far can believers and non-believers share the same understanding of peace?
Sr Margaret Atkins, Boarbank Hall
