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, September 10, 2012

Chapter 2: Gifts needed by an abbot or abbess (paragraph 2)

However, it is also true that, if the flock has been unruly and disobedient and the superiors have done everything possible as shepherds to cure their vicious ways, then they will be absolved in the judgement of God and may say with the psalmist: I have not hidden your teaching in my heart; I have proclaimed your truth and the salvation you offer, but they despised and rejected me.

(From para. 1 of Ch. 2 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

I have not hidden your teaching in my heart: May the Lord grant me the grace to say this psalm in truth, firstly by the fruits of meditation, and also through my Oblate commitment to share the gift of meditation and the teaching of the community.

2 comments:

James BishopSeptember 10, 2012 at 3:43 PM
I love this passage, because I can't help but picture an utterly frustrated abbot, throwing up his hands and saying to God, "Hey, I tried." I try to remember that the truth is proclaimed in my actions as well as by my words.
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Roger SessionsSeptember 10, 2012 at 7:17 PM
Our model for any position of authority is the loving mother, not the tyrannical father.
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