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.
“And let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices”. (verse 7) There is a great deal that runs through my mind as I reflect on this verse. I remember previous chapters in the Rule that have asked me to be attentive to my voice. Chapter 6 on restraint of speech, for example and another, Chapter 7 on humility with the specific verses being 56-61 which address speech and laughter. My “voice” is my speech in words. Do I mean what I say and pray? Do I pray and speak with love? In meditation, I come to being open to the Word of God, the Love of God, through the heart in silence. My mind and voice are to be in harmony-no thinking and no speaking. At this time, my mind and voice are brought together, stitched together, knitted together with and through the heart. When I get up from that meditation seat, may my mind and voice and heart joyfully and lovingly go with me.
“In the sight of the Angels I will sing praise to you.” Angels: it seems that my astrophysicist friend would have no difficulty accepting their possible existence. He and so many of his modern physicist colleagues speak so easily of “the infinite number of possible universes”. So, Abba, with your psalmist, I, too, will happily sing praise to you with these joyful invisible choirs all about me, throughout the gift of today.
“And let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices”. (verse 7) There is a great deal that runs through my mind as I reflect on this verse. I remember previous chapters in the Rule that have asked me to be attentive to my voice. Chapter 6 on restraint of speech, for example and another, Chapter 7 on humility with the specific verses being 56-61 which address speech and laughter. My “voice” is my speech in words. Do I mean what I say and pray? Do I pray and speak with love? In meditation, I come to being open to the Word of God, the Love of God, through the heart in silence. My mind and voice are to be in harmony-no thinking and no speaking. At this time, my mind and voice are brought together, stitched together, knitted together with and through the heart. When I get up from that meditation seat, may my mind and voice and heart joyfully and lovingly go with me.
ReplyDelete“In the sight of the Angels I will sing praise to you.” Angels: it seems that my astrophysicist friend would have no difficulty accepting their possible existence. He and so many of his modern physicist colleagues speak so easily of “the infinite number of possible universes”. So, Abba, with your psalmist, I, too, will happily sing praise to you with these joyful invisible choirs all about me, throughout the gift of today.
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