Chapter 14: The celebration of Vigils on feasts of saints
On the feasts of saints and on all other solemnities Vigils should follow the order laid down for the celebration of Sunday except that the psalms, antiphons and readings that are appropriate to the day should be recited; the order of the liturgy itself remains the same as that described for Sunday. (Ch. 14 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
My grasp of the "communion of saints" has grown and deepened and become personal, with my experience of being one in silence.
My grasp of the "communion of saints" has grown and deepened and become personal, with my experience of being one in silence.
Back tracking over the readings from Chapter 8 on to this Chapter 14, I am struck by how many times Benedict refers to the "community", the "members", "all", "everyone", "one another". Here we now have the "community of saints". In other words, I am part and parcel of community. When I pray, I do not pray alone even though that may be true physically. Christ brings it even further. I cannot claim God as Father for myself. He is "Our Father". God is community, "let all rise...in honor and reverence for the Holy Trinity",(chapter 9). I feel that I am being asked to extend, to stretch, the borders of my consciousness in prayer and in life to realize that not just me, but "we are precious in our collective frailty".(Mitch Finley's talk on Merton from a podcast). It is not easy when the ego demands that self is the doer even when it comes to prayer and to loving and to "thinking" about God.
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