WCCM Oblate Blog: Reflections from Daily Reading of the Rule of St. Benedict

WCCM Benedictine Oblates are encouraged to read a designated portion of the Rule daily, and to write a brief, personal response. I hope that this blog will support our Oblate community in this practice. Please, keep blog entries brief and in a first-person ("I") voice. Refrain from discussing, offering an opinion, or commenting on other entries. Simply consider how a particular section of the Rule is speaking to you in your present circumstances.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Chapter 8: The Divine Office at Night

It seems reasonable that during wintertime, that is from the first of November until Easter all should arise at the eighth hour of the night. By that time, having rested until a little after midnight, they may rise with their food well digested. (From Ch. 8 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Regular habits of sleeping and eating, even arising with my food well digested -- St. Benedict reminds me that the ways of seeking God include care and attention to my body. Christian meditation is the most incarnational form of prayer there is -- one of total integration of my entire being in my heart, and this absolutely includes my physical being.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersFebruary 10, 2015 at 5:44 AM
“Prayer belongs less to time than to eternity”. (Thomas Merton, “A Book Of Hours”, Tuesday, Dawn.) Meditating, being, with you, reminds me, Abba, that I, too, belong less to time than to eternity.
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