Chapter 63: Community order (paragraph 1)
So, apart from those whom the superior has promoted for a more cogent reason or demoted for specific faults, all the others retain the order of their conversion to monastic life so exactly that one who arrived at the monastery door at the second hour must accept a place junior to another who came an hour earlier, whatever their age or former rank may have been. (From para. 1 of Ch. 63 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
This order created a radical social equality for Benedict's time. In my own life, order is created every time I convert, I turn again, to the presence of the Spirit dwelling within me.
I have the privilege of living in a small fishing village in South America for most of the year. There I can watch the fishermen, down-to-earth workingmen, mending their nets, tending their boats, selling their catch of fish and shrimp, raising their families in simplicity. I watch them in wonder of Jesus’ choice of his disciples, his future teachers and leaders from such as these. Make me humble and keep me alert, Abba, to your joyful, upside-down, ordering of things.
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