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.

Monday, May 22, 2017

Chapter 4: Guidelines for Christian and monastic good practice (paragraphs 9-13)

You should take delight in listening to sacred reading and in often turning generously to prayer.

(From para. 9 of Ch. 4 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

Delight in listening, and turning generously. It seems to me that St Benedict describes what it is like to live with selfless attention, and an expanding sprit.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersMay 22, 2017 at 7:16 AM
"No, Benedict says, you can't get the spiritual life by waiting for it. You have to reach for it. Read things that gild your soul. Turn your mind to prayer, to a conscious response to the God present here and now." (Joan Chittister, "Reflections on the Rule of St. Benedict"). Waiting for you, Abba--to use Simone Weil's term--does not mean that I can avoid watching with what I "gild" my soul. Sister Joan reminds me that the spiritual life is a reach, a reaching. Life with and in you requires me to stretch. In addition to my twice-daily meditation, life with you requires me to learn how to reach beyond the distractions of trivia and to choose books and other media that nourish that life.
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