Vincent van Gogh was quoted as saying that the best way to know God is to love many things. Sister Joan reminds us, however, that it is not necessarily things themselves that trap us, but the way we approach them.
False asceticism was not Benedict’s goal. Deprivation was not his ideal. He wanted the Benedictine life to be simple, joyful, and fulfilling. He wanted the monastic to avoid hoarding, accumulating, and consuming—not because things are inherently evil, but because he understood how easily we can become smothered by them. Possessions can weigh us down, draw us into indolence, and gradually blind us to what truly matter.
We are called to live balanced lives—to possess without being possessed, to use without clinging, to enjoy without needing always to acquire more. We are called to free the body so the soul can soar. As Sister Joan observes, simplicity is a gift too easily lost in a consumer society.
Benedict makes it equally clear that the goods of the community are to be distributed according to need, with particular care for the weak and the vulnerable. Yet each monastic also bears responsibility—to oneself and to the community—to take only what is needed, to live simply, and to hold aloft the values by which the community has chosen to live.
Perhaps the question for us today is not simply, what do I own? It is more searching than that. Maybe it's time to ask, what has begun to own me?
What might I let go of today to make more room for God and others in my life?
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