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.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Chapter 49: How Lent should be observed in the monastery

Therefore we urge that all in the monastery during these holy days of Lent should look carefully at the integrity of their lives and get rid in this holy season of any thoughtless compromises which may have crept in at other times. (From para. 1 of Ch. 49 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

My ego can creep into absolutely anything, and it can creep fast if it thinks it's going to be gratified. My practice of meditation is a timeless corrective to thoughtless compromise.

2 comments:

UnknownNovember 30, 2016 at 4:47 AM
The guidance here is also apropos to the advent season we have entered. Letting go of thoughtless compromises makes room in the manger of my heart for the birth of Christ in it. Be gentle, simple, quiet, for the Baby is coming. Maranatha. ..
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Wally SaundersNovember 30, 2016 at 6:31 AM
" . . . the life of a monk
ought to have about it at all times
the character of a Lenten observance,
yet . . . few have the virtue for that . . . ".
Lent is the Church's springtime, a time of blossoming and reawakening, of new life and new adventures here on Sister Earth. Abba, Great Artist, make my life today a fresh new adventuring with you. Let us make of it an art piece that you and I joyfully co-create.
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