Chapter 7: The value of humility (paragraph 8)
The second step of humility is not to love having our own way nor to delight in our own desires. Instead we should take as our model for imitation the Lord himself when he says: I have come not to indulge my own desires but to do the will of him who sent me. (From para. 8 of Ch. 7 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
Benedict tells me that Jesus acknowledged his own desires: his ego and his will. But acknowledgement is not the same thing as either indulgence or disdain. Acknowledgement leaves room for compassion, and compassion leaves room for growth and transformation. When I am compassionate with my humanness, my short-comings, my mistakes, I leave room for growth. In this growth, my ego and will can also be transformed, like Jesus', into vehicles of service, of sacrifice, of love.
Benedict tells me that Jesus acknowledged his own desires: his ego and his will. But acknowledgement is not the same thing as either indulgence or disdain. Acknowledgement leaves room for compassion, and compassion leaves room for growth and transformation. When I am compassionate with my humanness, my short-comings, my mistakes, I leave room for growth. In this growth, my ego and will can also be transformed, like Jesus', into vehicles of service, of sacrifice, of love.
The thirteenth century theologian Duns Scotus distinguished natural causality from free causality. Lined up dominoes falling in order is an example of natural causality. The unique, the one and only in the universe, example of free causality is free will, divine and human. The God who is Love freely chose to create and now freely, gently, and lovingly, continues to create this universe including our planet earth and us human beings. He/She creates me with free will, the ability to choose, the ability to love. In meditation, focusing on the mantra, laying aside all thought and images, I freely choose to be with Love, being with and let myself be loved by Love, here, now, in the present moment.
ReplyDeleteThese steps on the ladder of humility are not easy. They do not just involve me but others as well. And it is in this very involvement, that humility, at this step of submitting to the will of God, knowing what is God's will, is difficult and sometimes downright painful. For me humility is knowing that I do not know. For me humility is imitating Christ and resting in the love relationship between God and me that Christ lived and died to show me. I pray in the words of a reflection on The Cloud of Unknowing, " With your extravagant love, Lord God, light up the darkness of our(my) unknowing."(Where Only Love Can Go : The Cloud of Unknowing ed. John Kirvan , Ave Maria Press,2009)
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