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.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Chapter 7: The value of humility (paragraph 15)

The eighth step of humility teaches us to do nothing which goes beyond what is approved and encouraged by the common rule of the monastery and the example of our seniors.

(Para. 15 of Ch. 7 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

Is St. Benedict telling me to squelch my initiative? How could that possibly be, when, in seeking God, I enter more and more into God's creative energy? And yet, I'm grateful to those mentors, and to those who've gone before me in faith, who help me to understand how I'm called to manifest God's energy in the world.

1 comment:

val latonaFebruary 9, 2013 at 4:40 AM
What is encouraged and approved is that I do not look for "returns" or "pay-offs" from my meditation practice like lowering my blood pressure, or levitating or whatever else is out there touting the benefits of meditation. Daily meditation is like "breathing" without it I do not know how to live; without it I do not know how to truly love.
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