Prologue to The Rule (paragraph 3)
However late, then, it may seem, let us rouse ourselves from lethargy. That is what the scripture urges on us when it says: the time has come for us to rouse ourselves from sleep. Let us open our eyes to the light that can change us into the likeness of God. Let our ears be alert to the stirring call of his voice crying to us every day: today, if you should hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. (From para. 3 of The Prologue to The Rule from Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
However late, then, it may seem . . . it is time for me to begin again. I know that the transforming light is always within me, even as the smallest, unseen particles in the darkness. What could it mean for me to change into the likeness of God except to have faith in the existence of that light and attune myself to it, again and again? And to discover how, in every twist of fate, to be awake, to be love, to be free.
However late, then, it may seem . . . it is time for me to begin again. I know that the transforming light is always within me, even as the smallest, unseen particles in the darkness. What could it mean for me to change into the likeness of God except to have faith in the existence of that light and attune myself to it, again and again? And to discover how, in every twist of fate, to be awake, to be love, to be free.
Meditation and the mantra paradoxically awaken me from the sleep of my frenetic, multitasking, workaholic, busy-ness. I awaken to simplicity, silence, stillness—to You, here within me and to me, here within You.
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