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 to respect vigilantly the difficulties that can be associated with growth -- mine and another's.
I remember learning what most adolescent and family therapists have learned: that the etiology of “a problem child” often comes down to a “problem parent” or two, or, as Benedict implies here, a problem community “rescuer”, or two. Problem teenagers’ path to help is dependent on a parent’s willingness to examine their own behavior. And that—I had to learn with my own sons—is what makes “”tough love” tough. Tough love does not mean becoming tough with my kids but rather, that is, becoming tough with myself and becoming humble, teachable, less egocentric. Abba, help me to be humble, to let you do your healing work.
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