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.

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Chapter 48: Daily manual labor (paragraphs 1-2)

Idleness is the enemy of the soul. Therefore all the community must be occupied at definite times in manual labour and at other times in lectio divina.

(From para. 1 of Ch. 48 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

Idleness, I think, is a waste of time, and suggests to me a kind of disengagement or alienation. Likewise, frenetic and uncentered activity can also be just a busy kind of idleness. St. Benedict inspires me to keep time holy, so that whatever I do I'm engaged with being in the presence of God.

1 comment:

val latonaMarch 29, 2013 at 4:07 AM
To be "idle" means to be without significant purpose or place. So if I am not praying, reading or engaged in outside work and feel like I have nothing to do and do not know what to do, what then? These idle times give me opportunity to examine what causes this idleness and if God is showing me something. I can use this time to do something simple and repeat the mantra until the idle time is over and I feel my place and purpose once again.
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