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.

Sunday, June 30, 2019

Chapter 23: Faults which deserve excommunication

If even this does not bring reform then excommunication should be the next penalty, provided that the meaning of such a punishment is really understood. (From Ch. 23 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Benedict identifies the point at which separation from community is necessary to help a troubled soul appreciate the grace and purpose of community. In my own life, habits of mind like judgment and alienation carry their own self-isolating misery, as divided states of mind. Meditation helps me to recognize these self-centered mindsets so that I, too, can appreciate the grace and purpose of community.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersJune 30, 2019 at 5:05 AM
Self-centered fear leads me to isolate, to excommunicate myself, to hide myself as Adam did in the Garden. You-centered love rekindled in my meditation in community, Abba, casts out this fear.
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