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.

Monday, June 5, 2017

Chapter 7: The value of humility (paragraph 14)

I was raised up high in honor, but then I was humbled and overwhelmed with confusion. (From para. 14 of Ch. 7 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Confusion would be an unhappy end to the story, if I remained demoralized forever. But the humbling I experience, when I can confront loss with an open heart, brings me, through grace, to a radical acceptance of what is, and thus to a redemptive experience.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersJune 5, 2017 at 8:22 AM
"It is good for me that You have humbled me,
that I may learn Your commandments" (Ps. 118[119]:71).
You, Abba, in the past, have gifted me with yourself, as G-O-D, the GIFT OF DESPERATION. As the Rule and the Evangelicals and the Twelve Steppers put it, “Our mess becomes our message”. Help me to embrace whatever humbles me today, beginning with the distractions in my meditations, as my entryway to you and into your loving arms and into the hearts of my fellows.
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