The Evil Practice of Private Ownership
Reflections on the Rule of St. Benedict
In my childhood years, I remember a basic organizing principle for peace between siblings was the concept of private ownership. Certain things were yours; certain things were your siblings. I wasn’t to handle my sisters’ things, and they weren’t to handle mine. If we played by those rules there was a little more harmony in the house. Society, for kids and adults, works on those rules of private ownership, too. Certain things belong to me, and thou shalt not steal or mess with them. I, also, don’t steal or mess with your things.
The monastery, though, plays by different rules. Private ownership is not a monastic concept; Benedict even calls it an “evil practice.” In Chapter 33 of the Rule, Benedict says a monk may not “retain anything of his own, nothing at all--not a book, writing tablets or stylus--in short not a single item.” If they need something, they are to ask the Abbot for its use, but nothing is owned by an individual monk, but all possessions are held in common.
As my hair has grayed I’m not as focused on what I own. I have and enjoy certain things, but the idea of possessing them for me and me alone is not my main concern. I realize this monastic way of being is hard to imagine as a societal concept, but maybe we might learn from the monks to hold a little less tightly the things we own. Benedict points out in the earliest description of the Christian church, in Acts 4, those in the church didn’t presume to keep anything for themselves. Any Christian should have that basic understanding, that all we have comes from and belongs to God and is to be shared, not hoarded. I imagine, in the fullness of time, when creation is renewed and the Kingdom of God is known in all its completeness, no one will be too bothered with who owns what. Maybe we can live that way, at least a little bit, now.
"In drawing up its regulations, we hope to set down nothing harsh, nothing burdensome." - Rule of St. Benedict