Chapter 3: Calling the community together for consultation (paragraphs 2-3)
In a monastery no one should follow the prompting of what are merely personal desires nor should any monk or nun take it on themselves to oppose the abbot or abbess defiantly, especially in a public forum outside the monastery. (From para. 2 of Ch. 3 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
I've leaned that a fruit of meditation can involve putting aside "what are merely personal desires", so that I become more attuned to the promptings of the Spirit that move among us all.
I have experienced the folly of following "personal desires" but though a slow learner I have discovered the antidote of returning to the discipline of the mantra.
ReplyDeleteSince reading this phrase from Meister Eckhart last night, it has been resonating in my heart all day today – “we think of freedom as exercising our own will, yet letting go is freedom.” So I decided to start. Restart today a life of freedom. Letting go of “my plans,” “internal control systems.” Just flow in the river of God’s love and mercy. Read each moment as if today is the first page of my life story. As an aspiring “monk in the marketplace”, I need the Rule as a guide and the counsel of the wise so that I will not stumble. I also sought the prayer of St. Anthony, the father of monks, whose feast day we celebrate today, to pray for me and all the monks in the world.
ReplyDeleteI see this very blog as a good example of what it means to call the community together for consultation. To participate appropriately in a community “consultation” like this takes simplicity and humility, neither of which has ever been my strong suit. My pride can manifest itself in timidity, a form of my prideful arrogance, the “arrogance of low self-esteem.” This produces, among other things, my writer’s block, my terror of the typewriter. I become arrogant enough to think, Abba, Spirit of Love and Mercy, that you cannot use me just as I am, warts and stuttering and all, simply because I feel inarticulate. This is also called, of course, that insidious form of pride called perfectionism. Offering these few words, this comment on the Rule of Benedict, is, for me, a small step toward my healing. Once more I am reminded that, as St Paul put it, when I am weak, then I am, indeed, strong.
ReplyDeleteWhen I oppose Abba I am in the pigsty with the Prodigal Son until I return to my mantra falling into his opened arms.
ReplyDelete