Chapter 7: The value of humility (paragraphs 10-11)
The fourth step of humility is to go even further than this by readily accepting in patient and silent endurance, without thought of giving up or avoiding the issue, any hard and demanding things that may come our way in the course of that obedience, even if they include harsh impositions which are unjust. (From para 10 of ch. 7 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
I have finally come to realize that patient and silent endurance in the face of harsh and unjust impositions is not necessarily humiliation. It's an opportunity for humility that allows me to go much deeper than reactivity, so I can face the issue in a new and more realized way.
I am a long way from patient and silent endurance, but as I meditate day after day I see a little of my natural impatience and unwillingness to suffer leave me. Thankfully God is patient with me.
ReplyDeleteHow much violence continues to fascinate me, in “guy flicks”, in football, in gossip (that “polite form of murder”). Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez and you, Lord Jesus, followed the path of nonviolence. Silence and simplicity, love and forgiveness you all showed in the face of noise, abandonment, aggression. pain and hatred. Lord, grant me the humility to learn how to love and to forgive as you do and as these role models of nonviolence did.
ReplyDeleteEven if I think it is the better way, Paul in I Cor. 13, tells me that love does not insist on its own way. It is not easy for the likes of my arrogant, know-it-all ego, to let go even if the way shown to me by someone else is "harsh" and "demanding". Benedict even has the nerve to suggest to me that I go "two" miles not just "one" patiently and silently all for love and humility. I stand in wondrous amazement and gratitude at Christ who shows me the way of love for love in total silence, patience and humility.
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