On Not Having a Charism

 I wrote this piece a few years ago on the feast of St. Dominic when I was a monk.  While it speaks to religious orders, I think it may also have something to say to ISM communities who give a lot of thought to their particular charism or mission.

At Vigils this morning as we celebrated St. Dominic, it occurred to me once again that Cistercians are blessed by having neither founder nor charism.

As an order, we have no one founder. We generally recognize three founders, but in practice have four: St. Robert was the inspiration; St. Alberic was our first real leader; St. Stephen got us organized; and then St. Bernard came along to market us. Any of these four would have said that that they were merely trying to live out the Rule of St. Benedict, who in turn would have said that he was only writing up what monks had been doing for several centuries and that even this should be adapted to local needs.

In short, we have no charism. We're not practicing the spirituality of X while doing work Y and wearing the habit of Z. We have no distinct spirituality, though it can sometimes look as if we do since we have maintained the office while it has gone by the wayside to varying degrees elsewhere. We have no manuals or exercises. We have no distinctive apostolate. We wear a basic habit free of distinctive trinkets. In 1500 years the Benedictine family has produced preachers, teachers, mystics, and theologians, but the first task was always simply to seek God and try to try to save our own souls. A Benedictine monastery is just a place to try to live out the Christian life. It ultimately has no other purpose or mission.