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.

Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Chapter 65: The prior or prioress of the monastery (paragraph 1)

There have been instances when some of these officials have conceived out of an evil spirit of self-importance that they also are superiors and for that reasons have assumed the powers of a tyrant, so that they encourage scandalous divisions in the community. (From para. 1 of Ch. 65 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

St. Benedict teaches me that self-importance is a tyrant that ruins both inner and outer harmony. Self-importance, it seems to me, is the opposite of true self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is experiencing my relation to my divine source, and so discovering my true purpose.

2 comments:

Melanie CondesAugust 22, 2017 at 4:11 AM
Scandalous divisions is very common in the corporate world which is ruled by greed, fear and envy and where superiors feel superior. The challenge is to be rooted in the knowledge that I am called to be a humble servant of God.
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UnknownAugust 22, 2017 at 6:34 PM
In this part of his Rule, St. Benedict reminds me that we are here to give power to, not have power over others; we are here to bring unity, not divisiveness.
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