Chapter 59: Children offered by nobles or by the poor
Poor people may make the offering of a child in the same way. If they have no property at all, they simply write and offer the child with the document in the presence of witnesses. (From para. 3 of Ch. 59 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
I am poor, and the child I have to offer is myself, this day. I simply say my mantra in the witness of all creation.
Richard Rohr jolted me to attention recently with his definition of suffering. Suffering, he writes, is “being in control.” To me what he is saying is that suffering results from my playing God, becoming “large and in charge”, again. Abba, how much less painful parenting and grand-parenting and life in general are when I can give up control and let you love those I love, remembering that they are first of all your well-loved children.
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