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.
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Chapter 31: The qualities required by the cellarer
“If goods are not available to meet a request, the cellarer will offer a kind word in reply” so that “…no one may be disquieted or distressed in the house of God.”
Let me turn that around and say, as my experience has been, if goods are available but the offer for them is not accepted, then how do I act? Of course, I feel rebuffed in my “humble” offer. Do I go on blaming the other for not recognizing the value I put on what is being offered? There lies the pride and arrogance that Benedict steers me away from in the very first chapter. The guiding words are “no one must be disquieted or distressed.” and for me, in this case, it means the person who declined the offer. I cannot allow them to feel distressed. So as cheerfully and as humbly, as I have offered to do something, I need to learn to accept just as cheerfully and humbly the nonacceptance of my offer. Every day meditation brings me to a more “wise”, “mature”, and “humble” acceptance of myself before Christ who was rebuffed and rejected in the supreme offer of his life.
My disease of addiction to "more" is alive and well, reinforced daily by the consumer society all about me. Never let me forget, Abba, that you are my ever-present Cellarer. You always give me all I need when I do your work as well as I can, with all my heart.
“If goods are not available to meet a request, the cellarer will offer a kind word in reply” so that “…no one may be disquieted or distressed in the house of God.”
ReplyDeleteLet me turn that around and say, as my experience has been, if goods are available but the offer for them is not accepted, then how do I act? Of course, I feel rebuffed in my “humble” offer. Do I go on blaming the other for not recognizing the value I put on what is being offered? There lies the pride and arrogance that Benedict steers me away from in the very first chapter. The guiding words are “no one must be disquieted or distressed.” and for me, in this case, it means the person who declined the offer. I cannot allow them to feel distressed. So as cheerfully and as humbly, as I have offered to do something, I need to learn to accept just as cheerfully and humbly the nonacceptance of my offer. Every day meditation brings me to a more “wise”, “mature”, and “humble” acceptance of myself before Christ who was rebuffed and rejected in the supreme offer of his life.
My disease of addiction to "more" is alive and well, reinforced daily by the consumer society all about me. Never let me forget, Abba, that you are my ever-present Cellarer. You always give me all I need when I do your work as well as I can, with all my heart.
ReplyDelete