Chapter 25: Punishment for more serious faults
None of the community should associate with or talk to the guilty person, who is to persevere alone in sorrow and penance in whatever work has been allotted, remembering St Paul's fearful judgement when he wrote to the Corinthians that: such a one should be handed over for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit maybe saved on the day of the Lord. (From Ch. 25 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)
St. Benedict's words sound harsh to me, and yet they offer the solace of privacy, work and prayer that I can see as important to strengthening interiority. His words also remind me to be patient and vigilantly respectful of the difficulties that can be associated with growth -- mine and another's.
Excommunication! Ultimately, excommunication begins with me, Abba. In your mercy you have taught me that I and my ego are the the principle agents of my excommunication. I excommunicate myself when I lock myself up in my own head, when I intellectualize, when I isolate myself, embrace my tendency to play the lone wolf with my problems and challenges, especially with my resentments and my fears. I did that with my depressions, my suicidal thoughts and my anxieties and it nearly killed me in my twenties and thirties. Communicating, opening up my "can of worms", becoming honest with mentors, spiritual directors, mental health professionals has been the path whereby you have led me to you, Father, and to the peace that passes all understanding.
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