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.

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

Chapter 56: The table for the superior and community guests

The superior's table should always be with the guests and pilgrims. (From Ch. 56 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

For me, this is a beautiful metaphor for expansion of being -- keeping the highest me accessible to what is the highest in others, especially in grace-filled and unexpected ways.

2 comments:

Melanie CondesApril 18, 2014 at 8:27 AM
To be a better companion or spiritual friend to others needs maturity. And that maturity can either be a grace or a product of faithfulness to the mantra.
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Wally SaundersApril 18, 2014 at 8:42 AM
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men”, wrote Lord Acton, restating what Lamartine and others have said before him. Power brings perks and temptations. “Authority”, etymologically, comes from the Latin, “augere, auctus” which means “to make to increase or grow”, to author. Help me, Abba, to use whatever authority you bestow on me as a professional or parent or employer or even as customer or client, as a call to service, as an invitation to love with humility--as you do, my Author, Creator, Lover--everyone I meet today.
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