WCCM Oblate Blog: Reflections from Daily Reading of the Rule of St. Benedict

WCCM Benedictine Oblates are encouraged to read a designated portion of the Rule daily, and to write a brief, personal response. I hope that this blog will support our Oblate community in this practice. Please, keep blog entries brief and in a first-person ("I") voice. Refrain from discussing, offering an opinion, or commenting on other entries. Simply consider how a particular section of the Rule is speaking to you in your present circumstances.

Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Chapter 66: The porter or portress of the monastery

At the entrance to the monastery there should be a wise senior who is too mature in stability to think of wandering about and who can deal with whatever help is required. (From para. 1 of Ch. 66 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. By Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

At the entrance to my heart is a mantra which can root me and guide me and radiate a stable, helpful presence to others.

2 comments:

Wally SaundersApril 21, 2015 at 5:33 AM
“The experience of prayer, the entry into the silence of Jesus, is first presented to us as an invitation that it takes nerve to accept.” (John Main, “Letters from the Heart”). Take away my timidity, my fear, Abba, and let me enter wholeheartedly into my time with you in meditation. Make me a port, an entryway, for your love and pardon and peace and faith and hope and light, that channel that Francis so beautifully prayed to become.
ReplyDelete
Replies
valApril 23, 2015 at 4:56 AM
Who is the porter and to what does he open the door? The porter for me is Christ. He stands at the entrance to the "limitless being of God." He has always said He is the way. It is a way that requires "nothing less than leaving the self behind." (Silence & Stillness, April 23)But I remember something else with great joy--He leaves the door to find the one who has lost the way to the door. I am ever thankful.
ReplyDelete
Replies

Add comment