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, October 4, 2018

Chapter 7: The value of humility (paragraph 13)

The sixth step of humility for monks or nuns is to accept without complaint really wretched and inadequate conditions so that when faced with a task of any kind they would think of themselves as poor workers not worthy of consideration and repeat to God the verse of the psalm: I am of no account and lack understanding, no better than a beast in your sight. Yet I am always in your presence. (Para. 13 of Ch. 7 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

The sixth step of humility teaches me to allow meditation to burn away selfish concern, to sharpen my vision of reality, and to realize that the Other is with me.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersOctober 3, 2018 at 5:44 AM
“To accept without complaint”: my stubborn, complaining heart is still very much a work in progress here. Through The discipline of the mantra, however, you are making it easier, Abba, one repetition at a time.
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