First of all, we honor one another. Then, he goes on (and he is very realistic): infirmitates suas sive corporum sive morum patientissime tolerent. We tolerate, with the greatest possible patience, the infirmities of body and of the way of morum—the way of acting, functioning, the way we present ourselves, the way we live. We tolerate these. Our infirmities are not good things. They are the effects of sin. The debilities of our body and spirit are the effects of sin. They are not good things in themselves, but we tolerate them with patientissime, the greatest possible patience.
Benedict ends the prologue: “we shall through patience share in the sufferings of Christ that we may deserve also to share in his kingdom” [7]. It is through patience that we share in the passion of Christ. What do I have to be patient with? Not only my brother’s infirmities but my own infirmities. Our infirmities. We all have these infirmities. As we get older, we have to constantly sanctify our diminishments (weaknesses). There are the physical diminishments. We cannot hear so well. We cannot see so well. We cannot remember so well. Our knees ache. Our back aches. We have to help each other more and more along with journey. There are also the infirmities of the spirit, morum. The way we act. The different habits. The different ways that people respond to life. The different weaknesses that people have.
Sometimes it is their old age that we get a glimpse of how virtuous a person is. When they get to a point where they no longer have much control of what they have been controlling all the years—anger, gluttony, sloth. They are now no longer able to control them, and we see the weaknesses so clearly. We should honor them. How wonderful it was that they lived such a virtuous life as long as they could. We honor one another, and we tolerate with the greatest patience all the weaknesses.
Abbot M. Basil Pennington, OCSO
The Good Zeal of Monks
A talk given on the Rule of Saint Benedict
Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Monastery
Thursday, April 4, 2002
