Wine and Good Cheer

As I am writing this in July 2025, England is between heat waves. We have already had two heat waves this year and the third is just about to start. Did St Benedict have anything to say about heat waves?

The answer to that - surprisingly - is yes. Unlike England, Italy in St Benedict’s time could get very hot in the summer. Monks had to go about their daily business in the summer heat. For some, it was not a problem, but if monks were out in the fields attending to crops, perhaps

bringing in the harvest, then heat could be a major problem. In chapter 40 of the Rule of St Benedict, he writes that the superior must determine ‘when local conditions, work or the summer heat indicates the need for a greater amount’ of drink. For Benedict, drink meant wine and he says in the same chapter that ‘we believe a half bottle of wine a day is sufficient for each monk’.

Photo Credit: Kevin Kelly on Unsplash

This stipulation of half a bottle a day is one of the more famous quotes from the Rule because it conjures up for many the image of the happy, half-inebriated monk. However, St Benedict is not really in favour of this half bottle. He says in Chapter 40 that ‘we read that monks should not drink wine at all’. He recognizes though that it is the custom of the society in which he lives that wine should be part of the daily diet. So he says that ‘let us at least agree to drink moderately, and not to the point of excess’. In Benedict’s day, just as today, there was a tension between those who believed that the ‘real’ Christian life was one of asceticism and extreme spiritual practices and those who were prepared to accept people as they were, with all their faults, failings and imperfections.

St Benedict makes a number of references in his Rule to ‘real’ monks who stormed the bastions of the spiritual life. Equally, he is constantly referring to and making provisions for his monks who are far from perfect. So it is good to have a rule about how much each monk should drink each day, but that rule can be changed depending on local circumstances. There is a flexibility and humanity about Benedict’s monastic living which explains why the Rule of St Benedict became the dominant monastic rule within the Church.

Photo Credit: Luis Feliciano on Unsplash

In the Lay Community of St Benedict, members don’t pretend to be monks or nuns, but we do claim to be inspired by the Rule of St Benedict and by the lived example of those who live in Benedictine monasteries and abbeys today. In the Promise we make when we become members or renew our membership, we pledge to live a Christian life ‘in ways in which my circumstances allow’. Like St Benedict in the Rule, we recognise that life is different for all of us. By coming together in community we can explore our spirituality with others for whom the Christian life is important. As St Benedict writes in the Prologue, by journeying together, ‘as we progress in this way of life and in faith, we shall run on the path of God’s commandments, our hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love’.

In this year, when we celebrate 60 years of St Benedict being made patron of Europe, we hope that the Lay Community of St Benedict can make a small contribution to the path that leads us to God.

Alain Anderton

2025