Today we’re celebrating the feast of the passing of St Benedict. This post from the archives takes me back to the heart of the Rule, the call to listen…
Lent is the time for turning back to God. It encourages us to reassess our practices and to recommit ourselves to those that will draw us closer to God. With this in mind I’m reflecting on this from the prophet Jeremiah:
“Listen to my voice, then I will be your God and you shall be my people. Follow right to the end the way I mark out for you, and you will prosper.”
His words take me back to the Rule of St Benedict. He begins his rule by saying:
“Listen carefully to the master’s instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart.”
We all know that listening is central to our faith. We also know how that in the hubbub of challenges and anxieties that make up daily life we can easily miss that gentle voice of God calling us. St Benedict and Jeremiah both call us to take the time to tune the ear of our hearts to resonate with that gentle call.
Lent is certainly a good time to practice this listening, but there’s more to it than that. The listening that they require is a life changing experience. It starts with the attentive listening with the ear of our heart and moves on to action that affects every part of our life.
St Benedict carries on saying that having listened to the master’s instructions we are to “faithfully put into practice” what we hear.
Jeremiah’s call to listen and follow makes the same point. The listening we are called to is to is to shape how we live. The way we treat one another, the way we work, the way we treat our tools and utensils are all to be formed by this attentive listening to God in every circumstance.
As we move through Lent what are you being called to faithfully put into practice?