This is a challenging chapter of The Rule. Holy Scripture teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves. The only area that Saint Benedict promotes us to compete in our zeal toward one another and in obedience to one another (RB 72). However, before he encourages us to show preference to one another, he forbids defending one another. How do we process this apparent tension in The Rule?
Abbot Philip Lawrence, Christ in the Desert, writes that relationships that blind us to the faults of one another are distorted relationships. Our feelings may eclipse our ability to recognize that we all have flaws. When we elevate someone above the good of the community, we fail everyone. Without discipline there is no love. Even God disciplines those who He loves.[1]Abbot Philip writes that “Saint Benedict’s advice here is to keep us on the right path to interior freedom and to the path of deep, interior prayer.” He warns that “emotions get caught up in one another and can block us from the relationship that we are to have with God.”[2]
There are two concerns which threaten the harmony of the community and the welfare of the one who is disciplined. When a brother or sister rushes to the defense of someone there is a great the stage is set for a degenerative situation called triangulation. Triangulation involves choosing sides in an argument. The person who feels offended (often the one under discipline) seeks an ally to commensurate their perceived injustice. If they are successful, the alliance (offended party and their new affiliate) stand against the perceived oppressor (often the disciplinarian). The weight shifts and the perceived oppressor suddenly becomes the offended and seeks an ally to commensurate. The spiral threatens the foundation of the entire community.
The second concern is known as overidentification. There are several relationship possibilities during the trials of pain. We may be sympathetic when we acknowledge the pain of another but take no action toward them. We may be empathetic when we acknowledge their pain, reach out a helping hand, and remain firmly grounded in the objective realities of the situation at hand. We become overidentified when we are blinded by the situation and become so engrossed in the plight of the other person that we our paralyzed by their pain. We can fall in the ditch of their suffering that we lose objectivity. The Ruleencourages empathetic compassion toward one another. However, Benedict is warning us against abandoning the narrative of The Ruleby being blinded by affections toward an individual.
We rarely know the details of another’s plight. Our perspective is largely shaped by what we are told by another. The telling is always distorted by their emotions. This doesn’t mean that we cannot empathize with their understanding. However, we must recognize that their understanding belongs to them, biases and all.
Sympathy is good. It softens the heart and quickens the soul toward others. Empathy is better. It expresses the sympathetic heart by leading others to firm foundation. Overidentification fails all who are involved in a situation. This overidentification is what St. Benedict is avoiding by warning us against in this chapter.
[1]Hebrews 12:6.
[2]www.christdesert.org/prayer/rule-of-st-benedict/chapter-69-the-presumption-of-defending-another-in-the-monastery/
