Chapter 52: The oratory of the monastery
The oratory must simply be a place of prayer, as the name itself implies, and it must not be used for any other activities at all nor as a place for storage of any kind. (From Ch. 52 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
Moving from a house to a new home -- a time for me to let go of much of the emotional and material baggage that clutters my heart, my oratory, and keeps me from growing in prayer. My life becomes more and more about living in that creative space with God.
“In essence, meditation is simply being still at the center of your being. Being still. The only problem connected with it is that we live in a world of almost frenetic movement, and so stillness and rootedness seem quite foreign to most of us.” (John Main, “The way of Unknowing”, loc 393 Kindle). How much my frenetic mind reflects the frenetic world about me, Abba! By your grace, however, and by the support of my fellow meditators, yesterday I was able to enter that foreign land of stillness, silence and simplicity for thirty minutes, both in the morning and in the evening. Given that my monastery has no walls, you invite me to meet you daily, to provide my own oratory, my own sacred space, wherever I am.
ReplyDeleteAt home, I designated a particular place as my prayer space. But the invitation to me now is to bring and keep my oratory in the sacred space of my heart. There I will pray without ceasing.
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