11th July, 2021

​My dear friends,

Today, Sunday 11th July, is the feast day of St Benedict, who has a special place in the origins and history of the Order of St John.
 
St Benedict is believed to have been born on 2nd March 480 and to have died on 21st March 547 aged 67, which was quite a good age for the sixth century. He came from a wealthy Roman family, but in his youth he became a monk in order to devote himself more fully to God. He lived first at Subiaco and then at Monte Cassino in Italy. During this time St Benedict wrote the ‘Rule of St Benedict,’ which is the most wonderful, cheerful, sensible guide for living in a Christian community, but can also be read with profit by those of us who live ‘in the world.’ I was given a copy by a monk of Prinknash Abbey in 1983 and I have read a little bit most nights ever since.
 
In chapter 36 of his Rule, St Benedict writes in some detail about the care of the sick. He insists that sick brethren are to be looked after properly, adding that they are to have special food and baths. He admonishes the sick not to grumble and complain all the time. He also warns those who care for the sick that from time to time they will have to deal with difficulties. Significantly, St Benedict points out that they are to care for the sick not simply because they (the carers) are Christians, but because Christ is to be encountered in the persons of the sick themselves.
 
 It is not difficult to see here in the ‘Rule of St Benedict’ the origins of the motto of the Order of St John, Pro fide, pro utilitate hominem, ‘For the faith, for the benefit of humanity,’ This is also doubtless the origin of our historic tradition of referring to the sick as ‘Our Lords the Sick.’
 
With the passage of time, Benedictine monasteries came to care not just for sick monks but also to offer medical care to their local communities. The fictional Brother Cadfael is a good instance of this. Monks were careful observers of the human body at all stages of life. Monks ran schools, universities, and – strange though it sounds to us – monasteries were sometimes given children to raise, so monks knew all about childhood and adolescence, as well as middle and old age. Monks were also great gardeners and herbalists, and knew the healing powers of plants.
 
The large Benedictine monastery in Jerusalem – St Mary of the Latins, beside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – had an infirmary where the monks cared for sick and injured pilgrims as well as for sick members of their community. With time, almost a thousand years ago, a group of these Jerusalem Benedictine monks pledged to devote themselves to care for the sick and injured. Gradually, they evolved into a new religious order, the Order of St John. However, without St Benedict and his ‘Rule’, this development might never have happened.
 
Benedictine monasteries are said to have helped preserve European culture during the Dark Ages. St Benedict describes his ‘Rule’ as ‘a little rule for beginners’. Not all sections are equally gripping, but the ‘Rule’ contains much plain common-sense and encouragement. It quite literally helped to inspire our own Order of St John. If you have a spare book token at home, I would encourage you to splash out and buy your own copy of the ‘Rule of St Benedict.’ You will get more out of it than you might expect
With my continued prayers and all good wishes,

​                                             The Rev. Dr  ROBERT BEAKEN, County Chaplain
TRINITY 6 – 11th JULY 2021.
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Gospel: St Mark, chapter 6, verses 14-29
Today’s Gospel reading is really a study of two contrasting personalities – and it contains a message about Christians having principles and sticking up for the truth.
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The first personality is St John the Baptist. According to St Luke, St John the Baptist was the son of Zechariah, a priest of the Temple in Jerusalem, and Elizabeth, a kinswoman of Mary. John lived as a hermit in the desert of Judea, clad in camel skins and eating locusts and wild honey, until about A.D. 27. When he was aged around thirty, John began to preach on the banks of the Jordan against the evils of the times and called men to repentance and baptism, “For the Kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.” John attracted large crowds, and when Jesus arrived at the Jordan one day, he recognized him as the Messiah and baptized him, saying, “It is I who need baptism from you.”

Our second personality is Herod Antipas. St Mark refers to him as King Herod. This isn’t quite right. His father, Herod the Great, was a proper king, but then the Romans conquered the Holy Land and by the time of Christ, King Herod’s second son, Herod Antipas, was merely a ‘Tetrach’, a local native ruler with limited power under Roman overlordship. Herod wanted to become a proper king like his father, but he was not a charismatic figure or an astute leader. When he did try to seize power it all went wrong and he lost his throne. He could also be manipulated by others, and that is where the trouble all began. Herod had an older brother – Philip – who was a bigger disaster than he was. Philip entered into an arranged marriage with the daughter of another local ruler, Herodias. When her father saw that Philip was a flop, he took his daughter Herodias back. He later decided that the younger brother Herod had better prospects, so he persuaded him to get rid of his wife and marry Herodias. Not surprisingly this caused an enormous scandal. Herod had broken the Jewish Law in several respects. He didn’t even get a good bargain, because Herodias appears to have been rather manipulative.

It is not exactly a surprise to discover that Herod clashed with John the Baptist, who was revolted by Herod’s behaviour and he didn’t scruple to say so. Herod, goaded on by Herodias, had John imprisoned.

            Herod understood that John was a holy man. Even after John’s arrest, Herod would visit him in prison and listen to him talk about sacred things. In the end, though, Herod had him murdered. Modern Biblical scholars, I’m sorry to disappoint you, generally think that we must take with a large pinch of salt the story of Salome dancing in front of Herod’s guests – it is inconceivable that a woman of the Royal family would dance a lascivious dance in front of a lot of boozy Army officers. This tale is probably a colourful rumour circulating in the bazaar, where the poor people venerated John and disliked Herod. The truth is probably that Herodias, who had hated John for years because he had condemned her re-marriage, finally persuaded Herod to have the Baptist done away.

            Men and women are pack animals. We live in carefully constructed human societies, and there is great pressure to toe the line, to fit in, to go with the flow. This is because – in part – we derive our identities from our relationships with other people and shared values.
John the Baptist doesn’t appear too bothered about toeing the line, fitting in, going with the flow. Right at the end, John might have been able to save his skin whilst he was in prison – “Your Majesty, I’ve been thinking about you and Herodias, perhaps I’ve been a little hasty...” – but John sought only what would serve God, and so he called a spade a spade. Two thousand years later we remember John the Baptist as a saint and Herod as a bit of a chump.

            Sometimes in life, just like John the Baptist, we have to stick up for the truth. Of course, things are not always black and white; we can be faced with difficult choices; sometimes we have to live with a mess. But sometimes we come to a crossroads in our lives and we have to stick up for the truth, for principle, for Jesus Christ – all the while knowing that it will bring us pain and trouble. I hope this won’t happen too often in our lives, but when it does, our duty is clear. Jesus first.
Such moments can be very hard. We don’t know what we would do until we find ourselves in that position. However, I don’t know how I would live with myself if I abandoned Jesus Christ merely to save my skin or for an easier life.

Back to John the Baptist. Something John said after meeting Jesus has long stuck in my mind: ‘He must increase, I must decrease.’

All of John’s life was focused upon Jesus Christ. We must try to do the same, though it isn’t something one does overnight, but rather something one works at for the whole of one’s life.
John the Baptist challenges us: “who do you think Jesus is,” he seems to ask us? Either he is the Messiah, the Son of God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity made flesh – or he is not. He can’t be a bit of the Messiah. People do not have ‘their’ individual truth in Christianity. The truth is the same for everyone.

So, we find that we are brought up sharp: if Jesus really is the Son of God, we must listen to him, base our lives upon his teaching, and become members of the Church he left behind. We have no option. He must increase in me; I must decrease.

But here’s the wonderful point: as I decrease, as I share more and more of myself with Jesus, with the goal of sharing all of me with him, so I change. I start to become more fully myself, more fully alive.

Who would you say that Jesus is?
He must increase, I must decrease.