Chapter 73: This Rule is only a beginning
Whoever you may be, then, in your eagerness to reach your Father's home in heaven, be faithful with Christ's help to this small Rule which is only a beginning. (From para. 1 of Ch. 73 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
This small Rule helps me to see what obscures the presence of God for me. And, this small Rule has helped me to address those blocks and say, "What matters is not what's between me and that problem anymore. What matters is what's between me and God."
“Simplify, simplify, simplify” proclaimed the college student’s T-shirt, quoting Thoreau and challenging the complicated world we “grown-ups” were asking him to enter. Benedict today issues to me the same challenge: follow “this minimum rule written for beginners”. Simplify. Remember always that the secret to life is to remain always a beginner. Turn again and again and become God’s little one.
ReplyDelete"This small Rule is only the beginning." Yes, Lord. St. Benedict reminds me to begin again. Today is a holiday here in the Philippines because we are celebrating the Labor's Day. In the Catholic Church, we are also celebrating the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. But in me, I am celebrating the start of another leg of this earthly journey towards the Beloved. Because I have no work I have more reflection time and I just realized how at midlfife I still am a baby in my spiritual journey.
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