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 31, 2019

Chapter 25: Punishment for more serious faults

None of the community should associate with or talk to the guilty person, who is to persevere alone in sorrow and penance in whatever work has been allotted, remembering St Paul's fearful judgement when he wrote to the Corinthians that such a one should be handed over for the destruction of the flesh so that the spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. (From Ch. 25 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Contemplative solitude is a way of both purification and power, of becoming present to our true selves in God, and so to the vitalizing energy of life and love.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersOctober 31, 2019 at 4:34 AM
“Learn of me that i am meek and humble of heart,” You tell me, Lord Jesus, Image of the Father. “He who sees me, sees the Father,” You told Philip. So, Abba, help me to learn to mete out and accept community discipline with the humility, gentleness, and love You model for me.
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