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.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

Chapter 5: Monastic obedience (paragraphs 1-3)

The first step on the way to humility is to obey an order without delaying for a moment. That is a response which comes easily to those who hold nothing dearer than Christ himself.

(From para. 1 of Ch. 5 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

If my "abbess" is the inner teacher, or God speaking to me through others, Benedict's injunction could sometimes lead me, not to obedience, but to impulsivity or confusion, if my discernment isn't clear, and my ego is in overdrive. But "holding nothing dearer than Christ himself" is a fruit of meditation -- a grounding in the heart, and a responsiveness borne of love.

1 comment:

Roger SessionsSeptember 23, 2012 at 4:53 AM
"I have come not to do My own will,but the will of Him who sent Me" (John 6:38).

Our will comes from ego, that part of us that immediately jumps up and says, "Me first!" at every opportunity. Only when we quiet the voice of ego can we hear the the voice of God. Meditation is my path to this goal.

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