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.

Sunday, April 10, 2016

Chapter 58: The reception of candidates for the community (paragraphs 4-5)

When the decision is made that novices are to be accepted, then they come before the whole community in the oratory to make solemn promise of stability, fidelity to monastic life and obedience. (From para. 4 of Ch. 58 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

St. Benedict teaches me that the monk is one who seeks God. Through meditation I've come to appreciate what he also teaches in the Rule, that that seeking is not simply solitary but is also done in community. The solemn promises Benedict names apply to both my journey inward, and to my journey outward.

1 comment:

WallyApril 11, 2016 at 7:15 AM
" . . . it is not perfection that Benedict insists on in a newcomer to the spiritual life; it is direction. 'The aim, if reached or not, makes great the life,' Robert Browning wrote." (Joan Chittister, (Rule of Benedict Daily Reading). Abba, you are the aim of my life. You make my life great, as imperfectly as I do my twice-daily meditation and everything else.
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