Augustine Wetta - Humility Rules: Saint Benedict’s Twelve-Step Guide to Genuine Self-Esteem

HUMILITY RULES

J. AUGUSTINE WETTA, O.S.B.
Monk of Saint Louis Abbey

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

Scripture quotations are from Revised Standard Version of the BibleSecond Catholic Edition (Ignatius Edition) Copyright 2006 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Cover art:
Saint Benedict with Skateboard
by Jean C. Wetta

Cover design by Augustine Wetta, O.S.B.

2017 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-1-62164-149-0 (PB)
ISBN 978-1-68149-787-7 (EB)
Library of Congress Control Number 2017932733
Printed in the United States of America

For my godmother, Tina Stretch

I see the beauty of Your grace;
I contemplate its radiance,
and I reflect its light.
I am caught up in its unspeakable splendor.
I am drawn outside of myself as I think of myself.
What I am, what I have becomeO what wonder!
My eyes are open, for in my own presence,
I feel such esteem, reverence, even fear,
as though I were actually standing before You.
I am bewildered, overwhelmed by this fear.
I do not know whether to sit or stand,
what to do with these arms and legs that are Yours,
for what works, what deeds I should use them,
these wondrous divine marvels.
Grant me to speak, and also to do what I say,
O my Maker, my Creator, my God!

Saint Symeon the New Theologian
Hymns 2, 1927

M y so that you dont confuse him with any real living person) suffers from profound insecurity. He is afraid that he doesnt love himself enough. He is afraid that people dont take him seriously and that he is often overlooked because he is not assertive. Egbert worries about his body and fears that people are judging him. He is stressed out, bummed out, overworked, underappreciated, and anxious. In short, he suffers from something that we often label low self-esteem.

I would like to help Egbert, but its hard to know where to turn for advice. And the world is full of bad advice. If my friend asks around, hes likely to hear a lot of clichs like these: Be true to yourself, Follow your dreams, Learn to love yourself first, and You can do anything so long as you put your mind to it. These platitudes might make Egbert feel better for a time, but in the end, I fear they will only result in empty narcissism and despair.

Now it happens that there is a little-known but highly effective twelve-step self-help program that folks all over the world have been using for more than fifteen hundred years. You wont hear about it on late-night infomercials or read about it in Vogue or Mens Health because its not about beating the competition, getting rich quick, making friends, enhancing your sex appeal, or influencing people. And it doesnt have many boisterous proponents, because those who have mastered this program tend to be content just as they are. Nonetheless, those people are happy to share what they know if you ask.

The program is called The Ladder of Humility and it comes from a short book by Saint Benedict called simply The Rule . Before we get started, however, there are surely some questions you will want answered. No one in his right mind is going to take advice from a complete stranger on an issue so important and so personal as self-esteem. So allow me to introduce my friend, Saint Benedict. Also, Ill introduce myself and try to explain why Benedicts Ladder of Humility is worth your time.

Who Was Saint Benedict?

Right around the beginning of the sixth century, there lived a teenager who was bored with school. He was at the top of his class. His father was wealthy and influential. This was a smart, charismatic kid, and he seemed destined for greatness. But he hated school.

It wasnt that he had anything against learning; he just felt like he was wasting his time. He was training to go into politics, but the world seemed to be going down the tubes. There were gangs of kids armed to the teeth in the street; there were endless, bloody wars being fought all over the world; and there was a sudden influx of terrible diseases for which there were no cures. There were scandals in politics and scandals in the Church. In short, the world was a mess.

So he ran away. But he didnt join the circus or find his fortune in The Big City. Instead, he went to live in a cave on the side of a mountain. There, without all the distractions of family and schoolwork and social life, he figured he could focus exclusively on holiness. He was thinking specifically of Christs words: If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and... follow me (Mt 19:21). He wanted to take those words literally.

Saint Benedict spent the next three years just praying. Ironically, all this praying made him famous. People started to come to him for advice. The next thing he knew, there were hundreds of guys living in the same mountains, trying to do the same thing. Folks even invented a name for them: the monakhoi the lonely menor, in modern English, monks. But each monk seemed to have his own way of doing things, with the result that there was a whole lot of chaos and not a lot of prayer going on. So a bunch of them got together and came to Benedict as a group. Teach us how to be real monks, they said.

So Saint Benedict wrote a handbook. It was chock full of great advice, from who should apologize after an argument, to how many times a day you should pray, to what you ought to do with old underwear, and whether you should sleep while wearing a knife. It was so useful, in fact, that within a hundred years, virtually every monastery in Europe adopted it. We know it today as The Rule of Saint Benedict , and it is used by monasteries all over the world, from Saint Louis Abbey in Missouri to Ndanda Abbey in Tanzania to Tupazy Abbey in Paraguay to Saint Willibrords Abbey in the Netherlands. In all, there are more than twelve hundred monasteries and twenty-five thousand Benedictines worldwide. Im one of them.

Who Is Augustine Wetta?

I knew a monk who used to say, Enough of me talking about me. What do you think of me? For good reason, monks tend to be reluctant to sound their own praises. The core of monastic spirituality is humility, and humility is hard to square with autobiography. Still, if you are going to spend time reading what I have to say, I can understand why you might want to know a thing or two about where I come from. So here is my story:

I grew up on an island in the Gulf of Mexico. My family belonged to a wonderful parish with a brilliant and energetic pastor named Paul Chovanec. I decided I wanted to grow up and be just like him. But around thirteen, I discovered girls and changed my mind. Also about that time, my mother insisted on sending me to Theater Camp, which was where I learned to be a nerdor at any rate perfected my natural talent. Juggling caught my imagination and turned out to be an easy way to earn a quick buck. Two years later, I started a business with my best friend. We called ourselves The Flying Fettuccine Brothers. For $75 an hour, we hired ourselves out as performers at birthday parties, grand openings, street festivalsyou name it. We did the whole thing: bowling balls, clubs, torches, machetes, unicycles...