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.

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Chapter 36: The care of the sick in the monastery

The care of those who are sick in the community is an absolute priority, which must rank before every other requirement, so that there may be no doubt that it is Christ who is truly served in them.

(From para. 1 of Ch. 36 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

I hear St. Benedict suggesting that it is the sick who most truly represent Christ, and that their care is an absolute priority. This coincides with my own experience that the sick or the frail are sometimes the most "transparent" in a sense, revealing something about creation, that creation is animated not by ego but by love.

1 comment:

Melanie CondesMarch 16, 2018 at 7:11 AM
"let the use of meat be granted to the sick who are very weak," This is a refreshing view on eating meat. I don't usually like red meat so I oftentimes suffer from deficiency anemia. And this is a good reminder for me to eat meat when I am sick.
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