The talk about systemization in the handbook today gives us an opportunity to meditate on this theme in the context of our everyday lives. It is interesting to note in our day to day experience what seems to be systematized and what tends not to be. As a general rule, it seems that aspects of our life that conduce to bodily health and function are highly systematized, while matters that pertain to our personal and interior life tend reject and distrust systematization. Perhaps examples would be helpful. Rules for when to replace air filters in cars and houses abound in the daily life of most individuals. Along with this, morning routines tend to be highly systematized, along with all the minutiae that are usually associated with them, like the schedule upon which the toothbrush is changed. On the other hand, most individuals do not have rules for when they pray, how they pray or for how long they pray, just as most individuals do not have rules governing how much time they spend with loved ones or how often visits are to be made to loved ones who are at a distance. Yet, in most of these cases, some level of systematization would be beneficial, but its presence would not be tolerated.
We human beings generally seem to be uncomfortable with any attempt to systematize virtue, and especially charity. A systematized love just doesn't feel like love to us any longer. This, I think, is precisely the reason why the general concept of the "religious order" in the handbook is the necessary paradigm for the lay apostolate. Monastic life could be defined as "love systematized." First, it challenges the notion we have that love cannot be systematized, because God is personal (in fact superpersonal, because He is tri-personal). If monastic life does not seek the love of God then it is not monastic life. Second, it illustrates the way in which multitudes of people can share the same love precisely because of the system that is established in order to sustain it.
On the other hand, the identity of monastic life as "love systematized" suggests to us why it has had to be reformed so often during the course of the history of the Church. The reforms become necessary for two opposite reasons. First, everyday living leads eventually to a neglect of the system. Thus, the system is weakened, the group becomes lax and lazy, and love grows cold. Or, second, zeal to observe all the details of the system leads to neglect of the reason the system exists in the first place: the love of God. The system collapses into an empty formalism, in which everybody may obey the rules, but no one really remembers why the rules are the rules. All societies in the Church have had to walk a tightrope throughout history trying to navigate between these contrary and opposite vices.
Using the experience of the Church over the past twenty centuries, in which monastic life has played a major role, we can identify several rules that I think guide us to the level and extent that love can be and should be systematized in our own circumstances. First, we should always remember that the goal of the rules is our salvation. Just as with the Church at large, the salvation of souls is the supreme law. Everything else has to be considered subservient to that. Naturally, within that law, the salvation of our own souls is paramount. Second, the rules are means to an end. They are not the end. We cannot afford to become so obsessed with observance of the rules that we forget the destination to which they are intended. It would be like someone driving their car and forgetting where they are going, because they have become obsessed with the details of driving (gripping and turning the wheel, pressing the peddles, checking the mirrors, etc.). Third, because of rule #2, when the rules become a hinderance rather than a help they need to be adapted and changed. The observance of lifeless rule systems for their own sake is precisely the Lord's objection to the religion of the Pharisees.
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