Chapter 2: Gifts needed by an abbot or abbess (paragraph 2)
In fact they should remember that they will have to account in the awesome judgement of God both for their own teaching and also for the obedience of their disciples. (From para. 2 of Ch. 2 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
My hunch about the judgment of God is that it's "awesome" because it's somehow inclusive, and probably the term "judgment" doesn't really apply at all. I'm treading on mysterious territory here, but the contemplative experience helps me see that so-called judgment may actually be more of a purification -- a burning away of all that causes individual separateness -- but not of individual responsibility. I'm responsible for my own actions and the infinite ways they reverberate in the universe.
For me it takes a strange sort of courage to write this comment, today, knowing how imperfect it is and how imperfect I am. But it is what it is and I am what I am. and, by your grace, you are who you are, Abba. This is simply part of our strange and wonderful adventure together. That's the attitude I would love my ideal abbess or abbot to have: that of a child at play in your garden.
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