Richard Meux Benson: Forming and Formed by Communities of Love
Br. Keith Nelson
Father Richard Meux Benson was the principal founder of the Society of St. John the Evangelist. For Fr. Benson, Christ is always more: always a higher height, a deeper depth, inviting us beyond the life we know now into something “greater than we can either ask for or imagine.” Fr. Benson made the power of the risen Christ real for others – so real that it was worth offering oneself up to it entirely, in soul and body.
To the sleepy, establishment-minded Church of England in the mid-nineteenth century, a life lived with such passionate abandonment to God was unthinkable. While the first communities of Anglican sisters had been founded in the 1840s, consecrated religious life was still enormously controversial in the Church of England by the time he, Fr. Grafton, and Fr. O’Neill quietly made their own vows of poverty, celibacy, and obedience in 1866. Yet the mentors and peers who formed Fr. Benson, the theologians and priests of mid-nineteenth century Oxford, embodied a new spirit flaring to life in the English Church: a Christian discipleship both ancient and scandalously new that risked everything for the sake of a God who risked everything for us.
Rather than making this life of the glorified Christ a remote, ethereal horizon in some distant future, Fr. Benson devoted his whole being to a God who makes heaven real here and now supremely in the person of Jesus. “Do not think of that as if it were a world far away,” Benson urges. In another place, he writes,
We must lay hold upon the glory of Christ as the basis and life of the eternal kingdom. The triumphant glory of the incarnate Son of God, the Redeemer, is the fundamental principle which sustains the universe he created; permeates it; quickens it; develops it in purposes of expanding power, elevates it as an object of the Father’s love. God’s decree shall make all who enter this eternal kingdom to share the glory of the eternal Son.
The wisdom and witness of monastic life, at its best, points to the reality of the kingdom present here and now, even as we yearn for the “freedom of the glory of the children of God” in its fullness. We engage that consoling, transfiguring, and at times crucifying invitation in religious community. But this, we believe, is the common calling of every disciple of Jesus: to practice loving and being loved by forming, and being formed by, communities of love.
The wisdom and witness of monastic life, at its best, points to the reality of the kingdom present here and now.
Life in religious community powerfully shaped Fr. Benson’s vivid apprehension of heaven. This is a vision desperately needed in our time. In many ways, we have lost both the urgency of our desire for heaven and our sense that our ultimate healing and wholeness can only come by participation in community. Benson writes:
The glory of heaven is the love which rejoices in all the glory of God, as manifested in all that are around. There the saints shall rejoice, each in the glory of all. All that we have, we possess along with the rest as the common gift from Christ to all the members of his body. All that Christ imparts to others is no less our own because it is manifested in them.
Questions for Reflection
Fr. Benson devoted his life to sharing his vision of God as a God who makes heaven real here and now in the person of Jesus.
How do you experience God's kingdom in the here and now?
In what ways can you bring heaven to earth in your daily life and relationships?
Father Benson emphasized the importance of participation in community for our healing and wholeness.
Reflect on how community life has shaped your faith journey. How does the community you are a part of support your growth? How does it challenge you to become more loving and open?
I loved this “tour” if you will, of the beautiful windows of your chapel and of the enlighting explanation of the saints represented! I intend to revisit this site often.