Chapter 2: Gifts needed by an abbot or abbess (paragraph 4)

They should not select for special treatment any individual in the monastery. They should not love one more than another unless it is for good observance of the Rule and obedience. (From para. 4 of Ch. 2 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Saint Benedict describes for me a radical society based on not on status, but on mutual poverty of spirit. Observance of the Rule is a way of observing that I come into the world, and leave the world, with nothing except the grace of God. In between, obedience helps me to listen to the truth of God's unifying reality.