Here....

In monastic language, zeal is a much richer word than our modern sense of “enthusiasm.” It means something closer to ardor, passionate devotion, earnestness, or an intense desire directed toward some object. And that intensity is morally neutral until we see what it is directed toward and what kind of fruit it produces.

The English zeal comes through Latin zelus from the Greek zēlos. In Greek the word could mean fervor, eagerness, and emulation—but also jealousy, rivalry, and envy. That double meaning is important. Zeal is a kind of spiritual heat. The same fire can warm a community or burn it down.

This is precisely the distinction Benedict makes in Chapter 72, “The Good Zeal of Monks.” He contrasts the bitter zeal that separates us from God with the good zeal that separates us from vice and leads us toward God and everlasting life. And Benedict finally brings the whole matter to one uncompromising center: prefer nothing whatever to Christ. As John Mark Comer might put it, we must not simply admire Christ; we must follow the Way.

Sister Joan brings Benedict's teaching wonderfully close to home. Benedictine spirituality, she reminds us, is about loving God and learning to love the people who surround us. Holiness is not somewhere else. It is not waiting for us in a more dramatic life, a more congenial community, or among people easier to love. It is here.

And here may be one of the most important words in the spiritual life.

The Holy One is encountered here—in this person, this interruption, this disappointment, this ordinary day. Wisdom is found here, but only if we are present enough to recognize it.

That is why Sister Joan calls good zeal the spirituality of “the long haul.” Good zeal carries us through the days when nothing seems particularly holy, when prayer is dry, community is difficult, and our lives appear painfully ordinary. Benedict reminds us that sanctity is rarely made of spectacular gestures. More often it is fashioned quietly through patience, humility, obedience, forgiveness, and the repeated choice to put another before ourselves.

Perhaps that is the final test of our zeal. Does the fire within us draw us toward ourselves—or toward Christ and one another?

For Benedict, there can be little doubt.

The good zeal is the fire by which we slowly learn to prefer nothing to Christ—and therefore to discover Christ here, in one another.