Chapter 52: The oratory of the monastery
The oratory must be simply a place of prayer, as the name itself implies, and it must not be used for any other activities at all nor as a place for storage of any kind. (From Ch. 52 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
Jesus teaches me to pray contemplatively in my heart: "But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret" (Matt 6:6). My inner room is my heart, my oratory, where Jesus dwells. In practicing selfless attention to Him, there is no room for egotism or psychological baggage of any kind.
" . . . monasteries have so much to offer the world as places where the turning to Christ, the conversion to Christ, is the clear basis of everything that is done in them." (John Main, "Letters from the Heart"). Abba, help me make my life clearly based on you. May I constantly and consistently turn to you in everything I do.
ReplyDelete"There is, in other words, such a thing as a spiritual well where simply being in that place can tap open that special part of our souls and enable us to touch the sacred in the secular." (Joan Chittister "Rule of Benedict Daily Reading"). So, you invite me to simply show up twice daily for the job you, in your mercy, offer me, Abba. You invite me to go to that spiritual well within me and thereby do your Work, the Work of God. You invite me tap open that special part of my soul and touch and taste you, taste "paradise here within", as Thomas Merton calls it.
ReplyDelete