Friday, December 16, 2016

Chapter 63: Community order (paragraph 1)


So, apart from those whom the superior has promoted for a more cogent reason or demoted for specific faults, all the others retain the order of their conversion to monastic life so exactly that one who arrived at the monastery door at the second hour must accept a place junior to another who came an hour earlier, whatever their age or former rank may have been. (From para. 1 of Ch. 63 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

This order created a radical social equality for Benedict's time. In my own life, order is created every time I convert, I turn again, to the presence of the Spirit dwelling within me.

1 comment:

  1. Benedict tells me not to worry about my order in the world, but to be satisfied with the order I have been assigned because of factors over which I have little control.

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