July 11. In contemporary society, private ownership is woven deeply into our understanding of freedom. We own our homes, our automobiles, our clothing, our books, our investments, and the countless objects accumulated over a lifetime. We have been taught that possessions provide security, independence, and control. In a consumer society, what we own can even become a way of declaring who we are.
And then Benedict interrupts us.
In Chapter 33, he insists that no member of the monastery is to claim anything as exclusively his or her own—not even a book, a writing tablet, or a pen. "All things should be the common possession of all.” Benedict’s purpose is not simply to impose poverty. Every person is to receive what that person actually needs. Benedict's concern is the preservation of a community in which no one can use possessions to establish power, privilege, or independence from the others.
Sister Joan, then quietly leads us toward the real issue: control.
We want to control our surroundings, protect our preferences, secure our futures, and arrange the world so that as little as possible can disturb us. Possessions seem to promise that control. Yet, slowly and almost imperceptibly, what we own begins to own us. We must protect it, maintain it, insure it, store it, worry about it, and defend our right to it. What began as freedom can quickly become another form of servitude.
The philosophers understood something of this. Aristotle did not condemn material goods; he recognized that some external resources are necessary for a flourishing life. But he also knew that human fulfillment cannot be separated from friendship, virtue, and life with others. The Stoic Epictetus went further, reminding us that property lies outside our ultimate control. We may possess it for a time, but it remains vulnerable to accident, loss, change, and death.
The modern psychologist Erich Fromm described two fundamentally different ways of living: the mode of having and the mode of being. In the having mode, identity rests upon what we possess, control, and consume. In the being mode, life is found in loving, sharing, creating, and participating. The question is no longer, “What belongs to me?” but “To what, and to whom, do I belong?”
Contemporary psychological research lends support to this ancient wisdom. A large meta-analysis found that placing a high value on money, possessions, and material success is generally associated with diminished personal well-being. Possessions are not themselves the enemy. The danger arises when we ask them to provide identity, security, meaning, or love—things they are incapable of giving.
Richard Rohr approaches the same truth through the Franciscan tradition. Simplicity, as he presents it, is not grim deprivation. It is liberation from the endless striving that leaves us perpetually unsatisfied. When we learn what is enough, we become less vulnerable to being controlled by money, status, reward, or fear of loss. We can hold possessions lightly because we no longer expect them to save us.
What, then, does this say to those of us living in a retirement community?
Benedict does not ask us to surrender the legal ownership of our apartments, furniture, savings, or family treasures. He asks something more searching: Have we allowed private ownership to make us private people?
My apartment may be my home, but it need not become my fortress. My automobile may belong to me, but perhaps it can sometimes carry someone else. My experience, education, tools, time, and abilities may be mine, but they can become gifts placed at the service of the community. Even my sorrow, weakness, and need can become gifts, because they allow another person to serve, to care, and to discover that they are needed.
Community begins when “mine” ceases to mean “for me alone.”
It appears when we share our abilities, notice another’s loneliness, welcome the newcomer, support the struggling caregiver, visit the sick, contribute to the common good, and refuse to walk away simply because relationships have become difficult. In genuine community, we stay. We listen. We forgive. We work the problem out together.
Perhaps Benedict’s most radical message is
that dependence upon one another is not a failure of independence.
It is the very condition of human life.
The goal is not to own nothing.
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