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, December 24, 2013

Chapter 66: The porter or portress of the monastery

At the entrance to the monastery there should be a wise senior who is too mature in stability to think of wandering about and who can deal with whatever help is required. (From para. 1 of Ch. 66 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. By Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

At the entrance to my heart is a mantra which can root me and guide me and radiate a stable, helpful presence to others.

2 comments:

Melanie CondesDecember 24, 2013 at 3:39 AM
Wisdom. Maturity. Stability... to deal with whatever help is required (and mission to complete). Today, at Christmas Eve, I pray for those blessings which are definitely fruits of meditation.
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Wally SaundersDecember 24, 2013 at 5:18 AM
“ . . . a wise old woman (or man) who knows how to give and receive a message and whose maturity will keep her from straying about.” Give me wisdom, Abba, and grant me true maturity. My word, my mantra, even as imperfectly as I use it, is taming this persistent monkey mind of mine. What a joy it is, in this, my old age, to be able to continue to grow and mature in my relationship with you and with my fellows, as I, paradoxically, become better able to embrace, happily, my continuing ignorance and immaturity, becoming again a child, your little one.
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