Chapter 64: The election of an abbot or abbess (paragraphs 3-4)
In correcting faults they must act with prudence being conscious of the danger of breaking the vessel itself by attacking the rust too vigourously. They should always bear their own frailty in mind and remember not to crush the bruised reed. (From para. 3 of Ch. 64 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
This is powerful imagery of the rust and the bruised reed -- I feel it in myself. Yet I also know from my own experience that hidden in the weakness, hidden in the wound, Christ tenderly waits for me to find him.
“Let him be chaste, sober, and merciful, and let him always exalt ‘mercy above judgment,’ that he also may obtain mercy.” Ah, Abba, that “one foot drop” again! How easily I can forget the drop from my head to my heart, from judgment to love. For that is to finally begin to see and live in Reality. Reality is you who are love and who rains upon the good and the bad alike. You came, not to save the just but sinners, not the good but the bad. You always exist in that metaphorical one foot drop. Help me to never forget how you lead, always, with mercy. Teach me to do the same with all I meet today.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good reminder to put "my own human frailty before my eyes." This will help me become very very slow (if I cannot totally avoid) judging and complaining about others and situations.
ReplyDeleteEvery family is a monastery, with or without walls, nuclear or extended. Each one has one or several “Priors” or “Prioresses”. Family and systems psychology studies confirm that many of the problems of the younger members of the family community, the children and/or grandchildren, come from conflicts of those in authority over them. Mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, mother- or father-in-law and daughter- or son-in-law or any combination thereof: their struggles for control and with one another result in silent or open battles, active or passive aggression. The community of the young ones can pick up these conflicts intuitively, whether they witness them or not. This results in what some well-known family therapists call the “rotten kid” syndrome or “blaming the victim”. In planning treatment for a problem child, they always look first for any “rotten” or problematic authority figures as too often the probable best explanation for the disturbed young one. Abba, my Creator, may my twice-daily commitment to meditation and John Main’s “simple acts of kindness” that best prepare me for it, make me less and less a source of conflict and more and more a channel of your peace and love in the community that is my family. Make me, like you, a truly loving spouse and papa and grandpa.
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