The Woody Swamp: Benedict's Silent Revolution

I was intrigued when it was suggested that I might write a blog post on a quote from Pope Paul VI's Letter Pacis Nuntius: 'Benedict changed the world through the cross, the book and the plough.' For Pope Paul, the three symbols of cross, book, and plough represented the key elements of the Benedictine contribution to European civilization.

This quote reminded me of an earlier quote from Cardinal Newman's essay The Mission of Saint Benedict, where he writes of the early Benedictines in this way: 'Silent men were observed about the country, or discovered in the forest, digging, clearing, and building; and other silent men, not seen, were sitting in the cold cloister, tiring their eyes and keeping their attention on the stretch, while they painfully copied and recopied the manuscripts which they had saved. There was no one who contended or cried out, or drew attention to what was going on, but by degrees the woody swamp became a hermitage, a religious house, a farm, an abbey, a village, a seminary, a school of learning and a city.'

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It is a wonderful piece of writing, and my eyes especially alighted on two images as I pondered in the spirit of an act of lectio divina. The first was the phrase 'the woody swamp became'. What did it become, this woody swamp, but a litany of things, each possibly building on the other, and becoming ever deeper and richer? As I read it, I wondered about my own 'woody swamp'—not a physical place somewhere out there, but a spiritual place within. What might God be inviting me, inviting each one of us, to do during this St. Benedict's Week with our woody swamps? What fertile ground is waiting to be discovered beneath all the messiness of our lives, the things that we seek to hide, the things that are apparently useless, and yet could become interior hermitages, religious homes, schools of learning?

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The second phrase that drew my attention was 'silent men', all engaged in a range of activities that Pope Paul sums up in cross, book and plough. For me, the important word, though, is that of silence. It denotes something of the contemplative nature of the Benedictine life, something of that listening charism which is bound up with the vow of obedience. Obedience, with its Latin etymology of 'hearing forward'—a really rich image associated with submission to something bigger, something deeper, to God. Could this be the tool that we all need to help us clear our woody swamps? Might it be in the silence of prayer that we somehow are able to cooperate with a movement of the Spirit within, which clears the ground so that God might do a new work within us? I hope so. I want to believe so as I spend time most days in some form of silent meditation.

So, happy St. Benedict's Week everyone! I hope that there is much to celebrate, but also space for silent men and women to begin to grow something new within and without, to the glory of God.

Photo Credit: James Morden on Unsplash

Fr Mark Kenny

2025