Chapter 27: The superior's care for the excommunicated

Therefore the superior should use every curative skill as a wise doctor does, for instance by sending in senpectae, that is, mature and wise senior members of the community who may discreetly bring counsel to one who is in a state of uncertainty and confusion; their task will be to show the sinner the way to humble reconciliation and also to bring consolation, as St Paul also urges, to one in danger of being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow and in need of the reaffirmation of love which everyone in the community must achieve through prayer. (From Ch. 27 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

I think what St. Benedict is offering is a compassionate response, or re-balancing, to an experience of penitential solitude. In solitude I can build a true relationship with myself, and with my Inner Teacher. But I can also be prone to the dilemmas that he observes: uncertainty, confusion, a need for humble reconciliation and consolation, being overwhelmed by excessive sorrow, in need of the reaffirmation of love. Thus, there seems to me to be a trinity of essential relationships: to myself, to God, and to others -- a trinity of redemptive relationships.