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, June 21, 2016

Chapter 18: The order for reciting the psalms (paragraph 3)

These same psalms are repeated daily until Sunday and the identical arrangement of hymns, lessons and verses is retained everyday. (From para. 3 of Ch. 18 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

I believe that what I do every day has the power to change me, especially something as rigorous (and loving) as the practice of meditation. Routine can become discipline at these depths -- a discipline that builds confidence, casts out fear, and affirms forgiveness -- a discipline that becomes transformative.

1 comment:

valJune 8, 2016 at 10:36 AM
Praying the psalms daily keeps me close to the Word of God, the Wisdom of God. This quote from Sirach 14:20-27, compares for me the praying of the psalms, , and the practice of meditation to one who "pursues" wisdom(God/Christ/the Love of the Trinity) like a 'scout", watching, peeping,
listening "at her doors". I want to "encamp" near God's house, "fasten" my "tent pegs next to her(his) walls"; "pitch my tent beside her(him), and dwell in a good place". I want to "build my nest" in the leaves of Wisdodm's/God's branches and take refuge from the heat in the shade of God's love and dwell in God's home. Sirach very poetically describes for me what praying the psalms and meditation can be.

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