Chapter 63: Community order (paragraph 1)
So, apart from those whom the superior has promoted for a more cogent reason or demoted for specific faults, all the others retain the order of their conversion to monastic life so exactly that one who arrived at the monastery door at the second hour must accept a place junior to another who came an hour earlier, whatever their age or former rank may have been.
(From para. 1 of Ch. 62 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
St. Benedict defines my moment of conversion -- my movement away from self-centeredness and towards Christian community -- as my moment of be coming a new creation in Christ.
In this reading the phrase that jumps out for me is "They must constantly reflect that they will have to give God an account of all their decisions and actions." My life needs to reflect what takes place in the silence of my meditation practice to everyone. When it becomes a question of "rank" or merit or any ego aggrandizement, I deflect the light of Christ away from others instead of reflecting It to them.
ReplyDeleteI start from scratch every time I sit down to meditate.
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