Metanoia

The change of life

Metanoia is an major word in the New Testament. It is translated as “repent” as in—Repent and believe in the Gospel, in Mark. But metanoia is not fundamentally an act of will in turning to God. It begins with the stunning realization that there is no turning away from God! The Prodigal Son experiences this when, alone with the pigs, he “came to his senses,” in Jesus’ words.

Let’s start with a story.

Once upon a time, there was a priest chosen by lot to enter the holiest part of the temple. His name was Zechariah, and there he met an angel.

The angel Gabriel told him he was to father a child. Zechariah was filled with shame that he would not be able to fulfill the will of God. Knowing that it is impossible to hide anything from the Holy, he says—There is no way. I am impotent and my wife is menopausal. We cannot have a child.

He may also have thought to himself—Where were you twenty years ago when we needed you? The biological facts were incontrovertible; in the Real World, his fathering days were over.

The angel, who knows that everything that exists, including biology, has its being inside the Holy, looks sourly at the man. But Gabriel does not walk out on Zechariah. —It will happen as I have said, and you are going to shut up until you come to your senses. Or something like that.

Imagine what the next year was like for Zechariah. His understanding of what was fundamental and what was contingent was shattered, and he couldn’t talk to anyone about it. His understanding of the Holy had been nested inside his understanding of the material, and now he had to reverse this order. The Real World was the Holy, and everything he had taken as fundamental was actually subsumed in this reality. It must have been a very difficult time.

Naming his son John was the sign that he understood, and he regained the ability to speak.

—Blessed be the God of Israel! He has come to his people and set them free!

Zechariah has been set free, and he uses his freedom to celebrate the greatness of God. He gives his fiat, for what it is worth, to the angel’s prophecy about John.

And then, at the end of the prayer we call the Benedictus, he reflects on his own experience.

—In the tender compassion of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

This is now his conviction. This is the Real World.

That’s the story. The metanoia of Zechariah did not occur during the meeting with the angel, but over the following months, while he endured an enforced social isolation.

St. Benedict imposed a social isolation upon himself. Supported by the monk Romanus, he spent three years in a cave. It was in that cave where his conversion, his metanoia began. Yet Benedict, when the time came to write down a handbook of the tools of holiness, did not write—Do as I did. Go away from everyone. Based on a lifetime of experience with seekers, he wrote—Live as one. Go to God together. Seek the necessary social isolation together!

Thousands upon thousands of seekers have followed his advice for hundreds of years. The exact details of how they put his Rule into practice have shifted over time, but the intent to go to God together never has. The following posts are meant to be a help to modern people who want to be Benedictine in this sense, and join in the community on its way to metanoia.

This does not mean that everyone is always kind and good to everyone else, although we all try. The inevitable friction inherent in community is one way of sanding the bumps of self-deception off of each of our souls. Benedictines believe in working out their salvation together.

Let’s get started—together!