WCCM Oblate Blog: Reflections from Daily Reading of the Rule of St. Benedict

WCCM Benedictine Oblates are encouraged to read a designated portion of the Rule daily, and to write a brief, personal response. I hope that this blog will support our Oblate community in this practice. Please, keep blog entries brief and in a first-person ("I") voice. Refrain from discussing, offering an opinion, or commenting on other entries. Simply consider how a particular section of the Rule is speaking to you in your present circumstances.

Monday, August 6, 2012

Chapter 54: The reception of letters and gifts in the monastery

No one in a monastic community may receive or send to others letters, gifts of piety or any little tokens without the permission of the superior, whether it is their parents who are concerned or anyone else at all or another member of the community.
(From Ch. 54 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

St. Benedict reminds me that created things radiate the glory of God in a pure heart, but they may also be misused by my ego to build up a false sense of self.

2 comments:

Roger SessionsAugust 6, 2012 at 8:04 AM
I am what I eat, spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
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val latonaAugust 8, 2012 at 5:42 AM
How we love to feel special. As children gifts excited us. We did not even look at the wrappings as we tore them off to see what was in the box. And Christ asks us, me, to become like a child enjoying the "full gift of my being"(from John Main's, The Heart of Creation). It is in my being loved beyond my wildest imagination as I am, that I find my true specialness. It is from this reality that I make others feel special.
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