The Economy of Holiness

In her book, The Monastery of the Heart, Joan Chittister, a Benedictine Sister of Erie, PA, writes: "Benedictine spirituality calls us to the tasks of living and refuses to allow anything we do to be lost to the economy of holiness: not kitchen tasks, not reading, not personal relationships, not work, not even our small service to strangers.  It confronts us with a moral determination to care for the poorest of the poor, to respect the whole of society, to open our arms to the entire gamut of life and see it as our obligation to participate in the co-creation of the world."

"The economy of holiness:" It is a phrase that we are not accustomed to hearing. If anything, having watched the financial shenanigans that very nearly destroyed the world economy, and with it the jobs and lives of so many people, it seems that there is little holiness associated with it all. When we hear the word 'economy' we think of money, finances and wealth. A definition of the word 'economy' focuses on "...the management of the resources of a community, country, etc., especially with a view to its productivity."  In fact the origin of the word has to do with "the management of household affairs." Ironically, dictionaries now call this definition 'obsolete.' Therein, I think, lies our problem, and why we need to pay attention to Joan Chittister's important insight.

Wendell Berry has written in his book What Matters: Economics for a Renewed Commonwealth: "Over a long time, and by means of a set of handy prevarications, our economy has become an anti-economy, a financial system without a sound economic basis and without economic virtues." He goes on: "Finance, as opposed to economy, is always ready and eager to confuse wants with needs." It really should not surprise us that the world's financial systems unraveled, under siege from greed, short-sighted policies and decisions, unregulated and unwatched financial institutions, and people who imagine that they can borrow their way into prosperity, all for the purpose of accumulating piles upon piles of cash and possessions. We are learning that economics is too important to be defined solely in financial terms, and left to the 'financial types." As Henry Ward Beecher wryly put it: "Wealth is like manure, if you heap it up all in one place, you can hardly stand it; but if you spread it out evenly over the earth, it may do some good."

That's where the economy of holiness comes in. It does not confuse wants for needs, asks us to live with "a moral determination to care for the poorest of the poor, to respect the whole of society, to open our arms to the entire gamut of life and see it as our obligation to participate in the co-creation of the world."

John Wesley understood this and used the terms "personal holiness" and "social holiness" to describe our inward growth in the love of God and neighbor, which in turn leads to outward works of love.  He understood that all of humanity is one family and that we live in one household. For him faithfulness moved from personal holiness to social holiness: "The feeding the hungry, the clothing the naked, the entertaining or assisting the stranger, the visiting those that are sick or in prison, the comforting the afflicted, the instructing the ignorant, the reproving the wicked, the exhorting and encouraging the well-doer."

When economies forget what Chittister calls "the moral determination to care for the poorest of the poor, to respect the whole of society, to open our arms to the entire gamut of life and see it as our obligation to participate in the co-creation of the world," they become tyrannies that end up destroying the household of human kind. We are called to give witness that there is an economy of holiness that calls all people to account. When we are seduced by the siren song of wealth, we will run aground on the hard rock of reality that wrecks the illusion that money and possession alone will be the measure of our worth.

Chittister writes that nothing is to be regarded as "secular" or unimportant, and that nothing is left out of the equation of sanctity. That is a conversion of the heart that gives witness that there is a larger economy of holiness that builds up the whole human community, that has, in deed chosen to "do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God."