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.
Monday, December 14, 2015
Chapter 60: The admission of priests into the monastery
What does a “priest” being received into the monastery have to do with me? It is about not having any specialness attached to where I am now because of where I think was before. It is about the need to be “open to being formed again”(Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, “The Admission of Priests To The Monastery” p. 258)
Being subject to meditation means that everytime I meditate, I am being formed again and again and again. The limiting past, whether the previous moment or the previous week, or year, tries to sneak into meditation with me quite successfully. What consoles me are John Main’s words that the, “energy of God cannot be” bound “by any human limitation. It is the eternal life-source,…always expanding in each one of us”(Silence & Stillness in Every Season , p.349). Those are consoling words,that God can work through, around and beyond my limitations.
So like the priest in today’s reading of the Rule there are no special recognitions for where I was or even where I think I am . Humility levels the playing field. There are no home runs, no points, no deafening cheers for a catch. I am just happy to be standing in the field of God with Christ in the present moment.
What does a “priest” being received into the monastery have to do with me? It is about not having any specialness attached to where I am now because of where I think was before. It is about the need to be “open to being formed again”(Chittister, The Rule of Benedict, “The Admission of Priests To The Monastery” p. 258)
ReplyDeleteBeing subject to meditation means that everytime I meditate, I am being formed again and again and again. The limiting past, whether the previous moment or the previous week, or year, tries to sneak into meditation with me quite successfully. What consoles me are John Main’s words that the, “energy of God cannot be” bound “by any human limitation. It is the eternal life-source,…always expanding in each one of us”(Silence & Stillness in Every Season , p.349). Those are consoling words,that God can work through, around and beyond my limitations.
So like the priest in today’s reading of the Rule there are no special recognitions for where I was or even where I think I am . Humility levels the playing field. There are no home runs, no points, no deafening cheers for a catch. I am just happy to be standing in the field of God with Christ in the present moment.