There
he draws heavily on his life-long researches in the
earliest monastic history to conclude that what distinguished
St Benedict from all other monastic legislators was,
first, his care for moderation in all ascetical practices
and, second, his insistence that genuine monks keep
to stability, a term which means perseverance throughout
life within the same monastic family and its place
of residence.
These two principles also
regulated Butler’s own government of Downside. He
had been foremost in the Nineteenth century constitutional
struggle to reshape the English Benedictine Congregation,
so that its monasteries, till then called priories,
should no longer be little more than nurseries of
monks who would normally work on Benedictine parishes
scattered throughout the country, and which were
governed by a central administration that could commandeer
monks from the house for parish work. The ideal of
the younger Butler and his allies was the English
monasteries should become fully-fledged, autonomous
abbeys, masters of their own destinies, and places
where monks could normally hope to pass their whole
lives. When this was granted by the Holy See in 1899,
Butler then contended that the supreme, though not
the exclusive, purpose of the newly liberated monasteries
should be the service of God through a life of prayer,
both liturgical and personal.
Butler had long been a
disciple of Augustine Baker, reading Sancta
Sophia through every Lent, and through his close friendship
with Baron Friedrich von Hügel he had become convinced
that the vitality of the Catholic Church was to be
found in the mystical tradition and mystical life
was her ultimate purpose. For him, Benedictine life
was contemplative. Butler’s second big book, Western
Mysticism (London 1922), set out to examine the roots
of this tradition in the major Latin Fathers, Augustine,
Gregory and Bernard. This book was much appreciated
for its collection of passages from these grand sources,
describing experiences of prayer bearing a strong
resemblance to those better known in the Spanish
Carmelites, Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross,
as well as in Augustine Baker. The book has also
been the object of sharp criticism from many directions.
Scholastic theology, with its precision of terminology
and method, had not figured in Butler’s own training,
and he was accused of not being clear about what
was the essence of ‘contemplation’ and ‘mysticism’,
even though he had advanced as his working definition
of mysticism ‘an experimental perception of God’s
Being and Presence’. Later critics, writing after
Vatican II, have found fault with his starting point
in the Fathers, and for failing to appreciate the
roots of their teaching in the Bible and the liturgical
worship of the Christian community.
This second work seems
to lack the sureness of touch, the soundness of judgement
and the ring of experience that gave such authority
to Benedictine Monachism. But it can be claimed that
Western Mysticism brought home the centrality of
mysticism to Christian life at all stages in its
history. It was also powerful support for his view
that contemplative prayer was not only for a chosen
few, but was the birthright of all who believe in
Jesus Christ, and that one can sense its reality
and its necessity without a prior knowledge of its
precise outline. Although he had no dexterity in
the technical language used by scholars to expound
mystical theology, he was so convinced of its importance
that he never deflected from his twice-a-day practice
of mental prayer, where he lay himself open to receive
any graces or purifications that God might send him.
This was his achievement, and the legacy he bequeathed
to his community.
With all his learning,
Cuthbert Butler had an essential simplicity of spirit,
and a sanity in dealing with the complicated and
bizarre, that makes his writings very accessible
to ordinary men and women. He writes, not just about
the topic in hand, but as one directly addressing
his readers. He has the blank spaces of his generation
that we now see and can take into account: the communal
dimension of prayer does not loom very large with
him; the Bible is still treated as a rather remote
authority, not as opening up a world of faith we
are invited to inhabit. Although as Abbot he raised
the liturgical observance of Downside to new heights,
and put behind him the low rating Augustine Baker
himself had given to the Divine Office when compared
with mental prayer, the Liturgy had not become for
him the central current of Christian life it was,
for example, for his older French contemporary, Prosper
Guéranger (1805 – 1875) and for the Solesmes Congregation,
and which was envisaged by Vatican II. But he firmly
planted at Downside the shape of life and the mentality
that would, when their time came, bring these missing
elements together and help imbue others not living
in monasteries with the spirit of prayer.
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