At this point we cannot evade a crucial question: is this monastic ‘school’ a part of the Church, or is it distinguished from it? The Master’s expressions we have analysed thus far give the impression that the two societies are certainly analogous and connected, but when all is said and done, outside each other. Whether we regard them as two successive moments in the same work or as two institutions of the same type, it is not clear that the monastery is in the Church. The same sentiment is felt when we see the Master having direct recourse to Scripture for the foundation of the monastic institution as for the Church itself. According to him, the scola of the monks has its proper foundation in the words of the Gospel ‘Learn of me’, just as baptism and the motherhood of the Church have theirs in the preceding words, ‘Come to me’. Similarly abbots seem to enjoy the charism of ‘teacher’ by the same title as bishops, and the most solemn words of Christ to his apostles are applied equally to both. All this seems to make the monastery and the Church two independent entities of the same rank, equally rooted in the soil of revelation.
Adalbert de Vogüé. The Rule of Saint Benedict. A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary. Kalamazoo, Michigan; Cistercian Publications, 1983. 20-21.
Having pointed to the near identification between monasticism and Christian life in general, Father de Vogüé continues to probe the ambiguity in the Master’s view of the relationship between the monastery and the Church. Despite his tendency to see the monastery as independent from the broader Church, this is tempered by the liturgical role that he assigns to the bishop in the “ordination” of the abbot so that
abbots do not constitute an order perfectly symmetrical to the teaching-authority of the Church and independent of it. Only the episcopate inherits the apostolic succession in direct line. The hierarchy of the monasteries is grafted onto that of the Church at each generation. This crucial fact indicates a real subordination of the scola to the ecclesia. From the latter the monastic school receives not only its pupils, the baptized, but also its master, the abbot. (21)
Moreover, despite the Master’s apparent dismissal of those Christians who do not enter the monastery, in other places admits the existence of an “ecclesia in the world” as his recognition of the bishop’s authority also indicates. De Vogüé concludes:
If the monastery defines itself [as a school of Christ], it is not because it has an exclusive right to this title, or because it owes this quality only to itself. Rather, it holds its nature as a school from the Church and shares it with her. In the monastery, ecclesia mater develops and shows to the highest degree one of her essential attributes; the power to educate souls according to the teaching of Christ and to lead them to salvation. The monastery is therefore a ‘school’ only in the Church, by the Church, and for the Church. (22)
A vow of conversation 
April 3, 2009 at 6:10 pm
How can highly-regulated (elitist gnosticim of) ceonbitic monasticism, which knew no existence in Christianity until the late antiquity, several centuries after Pentecost, be considered anything other than an eccentric “exception” in the Life of the Church?
April 4, 2009 at 3:45 pm
If you wish to consider coenobitical monasticism as an eccentric exception that is fine by me. But my reading of this book – and my life for that matter – is based on the premise that it is a legitimate development in the life of the Church. I don’t have the time or the inclination to enter a discussion on this – that is simply not what this blog is for.
April 4, 2009 at 4:00 pm
Of course you are entitled to run your blog with any set of presuppositions that you wish. But, if Apostolic authority as demonstrated by contemporaneous course of conduct and that of the better part of four centuries carries no authority, one wonders what criteria you use to consider your topics?
April 3, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I must confess my curiosity on this continued discussion of the RM in a commentary on the RB? It is as if de Vogue cannot escape his earlier books. Perhaps I am wrong, but up to this point the argument which conclude on page 22, could easily have been shown without recourse to the RM, over, and over again.
I am so glad to be reading this book while you are commenting on it, Sister.
April 4, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Yes, I’d also wondered at the extensive discussion of the Master! But I think that his point is that Benedict does use the Master rather extensively and that it is therefore important as background – certainly in the Prologue. And, perhaps more importantly, it will be interesting to see where and how Benedict uses, reinterprets or departs from the Master.
April 4, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Yeah, I’ve found that some of de Vogüé’s most helpful insights, those for instance dealing with the most hum-drum parts of the RB, are gleaned from his comparison of the RB with the RM.
April 4, 2009 at 11:10 pm
I look forward as we progress through the book. For my part, I am reading the book as part of the preparation of a Formation Program I am writing for the Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani, Kentucky.
Aaron, I will bear your insight in mind and read with fresh eyes.