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, September 3, 2019

Prologue to The Rule (paragraph 4)

If you wish to have true life that lasts forever, then keep your tongue from evil; let you lips speak no deceit; turn away from wrongdoing; seek out peace and pursue it. If you do that, [God] says, I shall look upon you with such love and my ears will be so alert to your prayer that, before you so much as call on me, I shall say to you: here I am. (From para. 4 of the Prologue to The Rule of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

I understand that I must avoid speaking or acting unconsciously. Rather, I must seek peace in the silence of my heart. For me, this means to abandon my own fantasies and to live in the reality of God, to realize God in my heart.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersSeptember 3, 2019 at 4:55 AM
“And before you shall call upon me I will say: ‘Behold, I am here’.” Benedict’s words, like my daily meditation, remind me , Abba, of simple, but awesome, Reality: Your loving presence here and now, in me and with me at every moment.
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