NORTH AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF BENEDICTINE OBLATE DIRECTORS
BIENNIAL MEETING
July 28 – August 2, 2007
Conference Summary
Saint Martin's Abbey, Lacey, Washington was the site of the recent meeting of the North American Association of Benedictine Oblate Directors. Participants joined the monks for Evening Prayer on July 28th. The last time Saint Martin's hosted this event was in 1978. Forty-eight Oblate Directors and Associate Directors and forty-two Oblates representing forty-six monastic communities came from around the United States and Canada to meet and discuss varying issues that they face in their duties as Oblate Directors.
Two speakers gave excellent talks that centered on the theme "The Charism of Benedictine Leadership." The first speaker Abbot Peter Eberle, O.S.B. is a monk of Mount Angel Abbey in Mount Angel, Oregon and currently serves as Abbot President of the Swiss American Benedictine Congregation and Formation Director at Mount Angel Seminary. In the past, he has served as Abbot, Prior and Novice Master of his community as well as a faculty member of Mount Angel Seminary. Abbot Peter holds an STL from St. Paul's University in Ottawa and a STD in Moral Theology from Academia Alfonsiana in Rome. Over the years, he has preached retreats to a number of monastic communities.
In his first conference talk entitled: "The Abbot as Leader," Abbot Peter drew on several ideas from a book entitled Certain Trumpets: the Call of Leaders by Gary Wills. According to Wills a leader not only needs followers but he or she also needs to have a goal and bring his or her followers along in order to achieve it. In short, a leader has to be able to mobilize people to a common or shared goal if the leadership is to be at all effective. Wills further explains that there is not one type of leader. Nor can one leader command all types of situations with the same basic gifts. An example of this is how Ulysses S. Grant was a great general on the battlefield, but he was at best a mediocre president of the United States.
Abbot Peter provides this backdrop to explain monastic leadership. "The mantel of monastic leadership falls outside the parameters of a purely secular model because of the belief system that the process of the Holy Spirit is at work. Our ideal of a leader is selfless, straightforward, and completely devoted to service. Thus, monastic leadership would never be willful, as if a superior is leading monastics toward his or her personal goals. Nor should it ever be manipulated as if monastics are "snookered" into doing the superior's will."
Abbot Peter notes the importance of goals for leadership. He asks the question, "Why does Saint Benedict insist so strongly on the abbot accommodating himself to his monks? ..."For one thing only: to lead followers to the desired goal which is eternal life. It is the abbot's job to keep everyone on target. If accommodations to individual's various temperaments is required to achieve the goal, then, says Saint Benedict, that is what has to be done."
He ends with Wills coining a part of leadership training as '"rhetorical leadership." In fact, rhetoric (which, in a sense, is affected speech) can actually reach the truth much better than conventional (i.e. plain) speech can. When his eloquence reaches the real truth of the situation, a great orator impels his listeners to action. In that sense, he is a leader because he moves them into a goal by his rhetoric. In short, one has to practice what one preaches. '"It can't be purely book knowledge, but a product of lived experience. Conversely, that lived experience ought to be shaped (or at least honed) by what he or she preaches. Of course, Saint Benedict knew this perfectly well. He tells the abbot he has to teach by word and example, but more by his deeds than by his words."
In his second conference talk entitled: "Leadership in the Rule of Benedict," Abbot Peter references the Thematic Index which lists ten titles for the Abbot in the Rule. He highlights the list: the abbot as Father, Healer, Judge, Master, New Moses, Servant, Shepherd, Spiritual Father, Wise Physician,
Steward and Teacher explaining several of them with reference to the Holy Rule. One example: "If you (as abbot) want to be accepted as a teacher, cease not to be a witness, not to perfection but to conversion."
In his third and final talk entitled: "Responding to Leadership According to the Rule" Abbot Peter notes that while it is the leader's task to lead, it is the followers' task to follow. If they don't, leaders can't lead. '"It is remarkable, "Abbot Peter continues, "that despite Saint Benedict's insistence on an abbot's absolute authority and a monk's complete obedience, he still admonishes the abbot to accommodate his monks. Thus in his role as teacher, he will use "firm argument" for the "undisciplined and restless" whereas he will simply appeal for "greater virtue" with the '"obedient and docile, and patient." The life is directed by a Rule, but from time to time the abbot can change it to accommodate the brethren. And certainly the abbot must make changes if the status quo gives rise to justifiable murmuring."
Obedience and support are the two qualities that characterize a monk or sister's relationship towards his or her abbot/prioress. And Abbot Peter draws on the Declaration of the Swiss American Congregation entitled: The Covenant of Peace
to explain these qualities. But in the end he notes, "...1 think I can speak for most superiors who would rather run from the office they have been elected to. So treat them fairly, maybe even gently, be patient and support them with your prayers."
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The second speaker Sister Jacquelyn Ernster, OSB is a member of Sacred Heart Monastery in Yankton, South Dakota where she has served as Prioress, Council Member, as well as History Professor, Academic Dean and President of Mount Marty College in Yankton. After her term as Prioress, Sister Jacquelyn spent time at Hawkstone Hall, England in a renewal program and five and one half months in Nairobi, Kenya doing volunteer work. She is currently the Executive Director of ASEC (African Sisters Education Consortium, Marywood University, Scranton, PA).
In her first conference talk entitled: '"Qualities of Leadership: Active Listening," Sister Jacquelyn begins with the statement that there are many different definitions of leadership. She notes that in John Greenleafs Servant Leadership, "A mark of leaders is that they are better than most at pointing the direction... the leader always knows what the goal is and can articulate it for any who are unsure."
In J. Autry's Servant Leadership ten characteristics of servant-leadership are defined, which include: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of others, and building community. Sister Jacquelyn notes that if J. Autry's list is in order of importance that he is totally in tune with Saint Benedict who begins his Rule with "Listen."
While noting the Rule's Prologue on listening, Sister Jacquelyn continues this theme with reference to Gene Klann's book on leadership entitled: Building Character. "We can all hear," says Sister Jacquelyn, "but listening requires us to really concentrate on what is being said. To whom do we listen we might ask? And Saint Benedict she notes listens to the seniors (Ch 3), to the sick and infirm (Ch 36), to those who have been wronged (Ch 27), and to the juniors (Ch 3). She continues with the idea that sometimes listening is one on one, sometimes it is in more formal settings such as chapter meetings, while at other times it is intuited in silence and observation."
Sister Jacquelyn says, "While active listening is a person's willingness and ability to hear and understand...it is a process that results in understanding." She goes on to explain how active listening involves the six skills of: paying attention, holding judgment, reflecting, clarifying, summarizing and sharing clarifying each of these skills with articulation. She further states, "Active listening can make a huge difference in our interactions with others. Working relationships become more solid based on trust, respect, and honesty." And clarifies as one author says, "Active listening is not an optional component of leadership; it is not a nicety to be used to make others feel good. But it is, in fact, a critical component of the tasks facing today's leaders."
In her second Conference talk entitled: "Qualities of Leadership: Discernment and Building Community" Sister Jacquelyn expresses the Benedictine life as being built around community. "To organize life in a community," Sister Jacquelyn says, "Saint Benedict sets up a hierarchy, encourages consultation, differentiates work assignments, establishes a process for correction, builds an opportunity for recourse, establishes an honorarium, and ties it all together with prayer both formal and informal, throughout the day."
She further states, "Monastic love holds the community together under the leadership of the abbot...and when in Chapter three Benedict calls on the abbot to seek the counsel of the members in matters little and large, he does so based on the premise that the members have pride in their organization, want it to succeed, and are willing to do what is necessary to make that happen, and genuinely care about each other."
In Skrabec's S1. Benedict's Rule for Business Success, Sister Jacquelyn states, "Part of Benedict's genius was his integration of community, hierarchy, and organization." Benedict's communal organization achieved common community goals as well as individual goals because Benedict realized that for productivity, happiness and spiritual self-actualization, individual and organizational goals must merge. "The Rule," Sister Jacquelyn continues, "built community before structure," sighting three principles at the heart of community: camaraderie, communal welfare, and stability.
"Qualities of Leadership: Humility" marked her third conference talk, which according to Sister Jacquelyn is a characteristic of those who have not forgotten their roots noting that humble people are down to earth and are not alienated from their own nature. And that humility is grounded in truth-within oneself, in one's relations with others, and with regard to God. How truth-filled living is the soul of humility characterized by an attitude of realism. She further explains humility through the twelve steps of Benedict's Rule drawing deep parallels between the first step and the twelfth step. "While the first step enjoin us to be mindful of God in our lives... and takes effort on our part... by the twelfth step no effort is needed to be mindful of God. It is second nature. Mindfulness of God be-comes radically independent of techniques."
Sister Jacquelyn introduced the concept "Elegant gravity" in this conference talk first used by Pope Paul VI when describing Benedictines on the occasion of a Papal visit to Monte Cassino. She says, "It is an apt expression that evokes the image of cultivation for which we have been known throughout the ages with our libraries and saving of western culture, seriousness which befits a monastic who is seeking God, and sensitivity, which is the earmark of all who follow the Gospel. It is a distinctive mark of the leader who follows the Rule."
I hope that I have captured the essence of each of these talks and that you, the reader, gain insight as to what Benedictine leadership requires from both its abbot/prioress and its followers.
In the Spirit of Saint Benedict,
Mary Randall, Oblate
Saint Martin's Abbey
Contact Information
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