Chapter 20: The ideal of true reverence in prayer
When we come, then, with our requests in prayer before the Lord, who is God of all creation, is it not all the more important that we should approach him in a spirit of real humility and a devotion that is open to him alone and free from distracting thoughts?
(From Ch. 20 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)
I understand real humility as true self-knowledge. That is, I come to know myself as someone grounded, not in my ego, but in the indwelling Christ. I'm helped to free myself from the distracting thoughts of my ego by the devotion of selfless attention to Him.
I understand real humility as true self-knowledge. That is, I come to know myself as someone grounded, not in my ego, but in the indwelling Christ. I'm helped to free myself from the distracting thoughts of my ego by the devotion of selfless attention to Him.
"...in prayer before the Lord, who is God of all creation," is very humbling. It is humbling for me because when I pray the psalms I am united with all creation through Christ in God. It is a powerful thought this realization that my praying the psalms joins me with every one who does the same, every Christian, and Jew, and I am even more deeply united across more belief systems in the hospitable and loving heart of Christ through meditation with every one who seeks God in the same way.
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