Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Chapter 51: Those on local errands or work


Any who are sent on an errand which will allow them to return to the monastery on the same day must not eat outside, in spite of pressing invitations whatever their source, unless the superior has approved this. (From Ch. 51 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

Too rushed, too tired -- I can be very quick to rationalize reasons why I can "skip out" on my meditation practice, or forgo attention for distraction. St. Benedict is reminding me to always return to my source.

1 comment:

  1. CHAPTER 51: MEMBERS ON A SHORT JOURNEY

    8/2/2017


    “Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed, by the masses.”
     Plato, 2,500 B.C.
    Coincidentally a friend just sent me these words of Plato. They seem to me to be relevant to what Benedict is warning about in Rule 51: beware the poisonous, distracting, trivializing, mindless culture all about me. Monastics, with or without walls, are monastics precisely because they are “able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture”. I must learn to be care-full when I take even a short “journey” Into this maddening, fast-paced world or even onto the internet, TV, or radio, etc.

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