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.

Friday, December 1, 2017

Chapter 50: Those whose work takes them away from the monastery

Those whose work takes them some distance from the monastery so that they cannot manage to get to the oratory at the right times for prayer must kneel with profound reverence for the Lord and perform the work of God at their place of work. (From para. 1 of Ch. 50 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

For me, St Benedict's call to faithfulness in doing the work of God, echoes Fr John's teaching that the only progress in meditation is in growing fidelity to the practice. I think that in this faithfulness, the gap between "times of prayer" and daily life closes, and that a fruit of this fidelity might be continuous prayer.

1 comment:

Wally SaundersDecember 1, 2017 at 5:58 AM
In Dorothy Day’s first book about her conversion, “From Union Square to Rome”, she defines a mystic as someone in love with God: "Not one who loves God, but who is in love with God." Abba, I do not HAVE to pray, I do not HAVE to love, you throughout the day, I GET to do so. Help me to fall in love with you ever deeply through every moment of this day together.
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