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, March 22, 2016

Chapter 43: Late-comers for the work of God or in the refectory (paragraphs 4-5)

In the refectory all must come to table together so as to offer their grace together as one community. (From para. 4 of Ch. 43 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Here, grace means thanksgiving, and Benedict instructs me to offer my grace together as one with others. In this way, I also understand grace to mean the way the way the Spirit is present and active in loving community.

1 comment:

WallyMarch 22, 2016 at 7:11 AM
"No matter how tired we are or how busy we are or how impossible we think it is to do it, Benedictine spirituality says, Stop. Now. " (Joan Chittister, Rule of Benedict Daily Reading).
An elderly friend of mine is fond of reminding me that "Growing old is not for wimps." At 81 I begin to identify more and more. Stopping is never easy for me, even as my aging bones and brain have begun to slow me down. Embracing this enforced stopping really means, for me, embracing death, keeping death as my proverbial "Close Advisor". Twice-daily meditation brings me a rhythm of regular "stops" that reminds me that embracing death is the path to life and true rest.
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