Chapter 37: Care for the elderly and the young
Human nature itself is drawn to tender concern for those in the two extremes of age and youth, but the authority of the Rule should reinforce this natural instinct. (From Ch. 37 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
Tender concern for the two extremes of age and youth is not, it seems to me, a hallmark of our contemporary culture. Listening to the mantra has helped me become more alert to the call of frailty.
Tender concern for the two extremes of age and youth is not, it seems to me, a hallmark of our contemporary culture. Listening to the mantra has helped me become more alert to the call of frailty.
In this reading of the Rule, "tender concern" gives me food for much reflection. When I water and care for my plants, I am tenderly concerned. I "tender' as in giving my full attention, pruning, adding more life-giving dirt and water, moving them into or away from the sun. Every human life requires attention. It is an attention of reverence. There is often difficulty in giving this attentive reverence to others which requires on my part letting go of judgments about behaviors or appearances. My plants soon let me know if my actions are productive-they live and thrive or wither and die. With the young and the elderly, it is not so easy or is it? If love lies at the root of my reverence requiring from me just a touch or a glance or a word of recognition, others can bloom and thrive. Often, it takes only that simple action as Christ shows me in today's reading with the royal official in Cana(John 4:50).
ReplyDelete“And what love means is rejoicing in the otherness of the other . . . .” (John Main, “Word Into Silence”). I just spent a week with my son and his family, including two grandsons, six and 19 months. Abba, once more forgive me! It takes a lot for this old, still judgmental guy that I am, to accept, let alone rejoice in the “otherness” of those closest to me. How often they can fail to meet my expectations. Once more I have to relearn how ego-centered expectations, and particularly mine, are. Expectations truly are, indeed, “resentments under construction”. The daily surrenders of the mantra are, on the contrary, “joys under construction”.
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