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.

Monday, December 30, 2013

Chapter 72: The good spirit which should inspire monastic life

But equally there is a good spirit which frees us from evil ways and brings us closer to God and eternal life. (From para. 1 of Ch. 72 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

The experience of zealousness can mislead me. But if I'm willing I can tell the difference between compulsion and the "good spirit". I know the good spirit by the quality of freedom and closeness to God it brings.

2 comments:

Wally SaundersDecember 30, 2013 at 4:01 AM
Enthusiasm—“en theos”, “in God-iasm”, literally means being in you, Abba, you who call yourself “I Am”. Increasing my zeal, the “Good Spirit” of monastic life, means nothing less than falling more deeply in love with you who live within me. You love me beyond my imagination. You have made your abode in me. My zeal for my twice-daily meditation nourishes and sustains our love.
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Melanie CondesJanuary 1, 2014 at 6:47 AM
“… so there is a good zeal which separates from vices and leads to God and to life everlasting.” The zeal of the practice of meditation … the deepest desire to be in union with God ignites a blazing fire that cleanses and purifies the heart of its impurities. This is sometimes painful but I need to “prefer nothing whatever to Christ.”
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