Chapter 54: The reception of letters and gifts in the monastery
Then it will be for the superior, after agreeing to the reception of the gift, to decide who in the community should receive the gift and, if it is not the one to whom it was sent, that should not give rise to recriminations lest the devil be given an opportunity. (From Ch. 54 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
A generosity of spirit, an attention to the true needs of others, and a detachment from controlling or being controlled by things: All of this is a liberating message to me in a culture of commercial chaos.
The challenge of the Rule to own nothing but you is nothing more or less than the challenge of your Gospel, Abba. You invite me to love you with all my heart and soul and mind and strength, to go, sell what I have, give to the poor and follow you. You invite me to see everything I have as gift, beginning with this moment of my existence, of my being. Repeating the mantra is slowly teaching me how to give it all away and rest for a moment with you, here within me and how to rest myself here within you.
ReplyDelete