Chapter 54: The reception of letters and gifts in the monastery

Then it will be for the superior, after agreeing to the reception of the gift, to decide who in the community should receive the gift and, if it is not the one to whom it was sent, that should not give rise to recriminations lest the devil be given an opportunity. (From Ch. 54 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)

A generosity of spirit, an attention to my true needs and those of others, a detachment from using things to control others, and from being controlled by things myself: All of this is a liberating message to me in a season of commercial chaos.