Chapter 58: The reception of candidates for the community (paragraphs 4-5)
When the decision is made that novices are to be accepted, then they come before the whole community in the oratory to make solemn promise of stability, fidelity to monastic life and obedience. (From para. 4 of Ch. 58 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
These precepts, as they apply to my life, are tools of self-knowledge. They remind me that I'm not called to be perfect, but that I am called to be faithful.
It is a "promise" made, which is a commitment to living a life not in a monastery as a monk or a religious but as a married person with spouse, and family and grandchildren and visiting and being disrupted and uprooted and trying to find a spot for meditation practice and trying to keep to the hours of the Opus Dei amidst all of the chaos of family life. But I have come to accept that stability is a dance with God through life. A lot of times I am out of step, and off the dance floor but I trust (and this is a hard lesson for me) in God's words, that "I have carried (you) from your infancy...and I will carry you to safety." (Isaiah 46:1-13) I just have to keep dancing even if it is with two left-feet!
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