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.

Saturday, May 27, 2017

Chapter 7: The value of humility (paragraph 4)

The first step of humility is to cherish at all times the sense of awe with which we should turn to God. It should drive forgetfulness away... (From Ch. 4 of St. Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Turning, awe-ing, cherishing -- this morning, these words strike me as energy-filled experiences, driving forgetfulness away. And, in driving forgetfulness away, driving self-will away. Fr John often speaks of the divine energy source, hidden in the silence, hidden in the heart, and always available, keeping me attuned to the present, and living daily life as a sacrament.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersMay 27, 2017 at 7:18 AM
I love Laurence Freeman’s suggestion of a personal response to Jesus’ “Redemptive question”, “But who do you say that I am”. In fact, his very last words in “Jesus The Teacher Within” (Ch12 Kindle Loc5176) are: “ . . . I say that you, Jesus, are the humility, the humanity of God.” This is the awesomeness and the touchstone of my faith: to believe that you, Abba, so loved the world and me personally to send your only beloved Son to take flesh, become a human being, so that we, I, might have everlasting life. Jesus is your humility, your humanity.
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