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.

Wednesday, August 21, 2019

Chapter 64: The election of an abbot or abbess (paragraphs 3-4)

They should not be trouble-makers nor given to excessive anxiety nor should they be too demanding and obstinate, nor yet interfering and inclined to suspicion so as never to be at rest. (From para. 4 of Ch. 64 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

My job is not to be busy about controlling people or events, but to "speak truth to power", as the Quakers say. May I be of service to others by allowing "the indwelling Spirit of Truth [to] continually influence and form" me (paraphrased from John Main, Silence & Stillness, p. 239).

1 comment:

Wally SaundersAugust 21, 2019 at 4:25 AM
“They should not be troublemakers nor given to excessive anxiety...”: fearfulness and timidity make me defensive, suspicious, and generally troublesome, a builder of walls. Love of You, Abba, reinforced by meditation, casts out fear and make me open-hearted and open-minded, a builder of bridges.
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