Category: Rule of St Benedict

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Taste and See…

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Today we’re celebrating the dedication of our Oratory. I had intended to write a new post, but events overtook me. So I’m reposting this from the archives. The scripture reading at the vigil was from the first letter of St Peter:

“Be sure you are never spiteful, or deceitful, or hypocritical, or envious and critical of each other. You are new born, and, like babies, you should be hungry for nothing but milk – the spiritual honesty which will help you grow up to salvation – now that you have tasted the goodness of the Lord.”

Several things resonate with me in in. It’s reminder of how we are called to behave and to treat one another seems especially important just now. Living through stressful and challenging times can give us all a short fuse and doesn’t always bring out the best in us. St Peter reminds us that, whatever challenges and uncertainties we face we are called not to give into the temptation to spitefulness and criticism. The call is still to become more Christlike whatever we face.

He goes on to tell us that as we have tasted the goodness of the Lord already our desire and long should be for those things that will help us grow into our salvation. This brings to mind a favourite psalm, psalm 34, “taste and see that the Lord is good”, and I’m reminded to keep seeking the goodness of the Lord in whatever challenges and uncertainties life is currently throwing at us.

Where are you tasting the Lord’s goodness in the challenging times you have to face?

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#ConsecrateLife #SimplyJubilee Benedictine Spirituality Gospel Jubilee Lectio Divina Liturgy Monastic Life Rule of St Benedict Scripture

Forgiven and Forgiving.

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Today I’m reflecting on forgiveness. It’s central to our human experience. Both our need to be forgiven and our need to forgive are deeply rooted in the reality of our daily lives, in both big and small things. It’s impossible to live connected to other people without at some point needing to both forgive and be forgiven.

This reality is reflected all the way through Scripture. As we continue to celebrate the jubilee of consecrated life, I’m reflecting on these words from the Our Father:

“Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive each one who is in debt to us.”

These words are so familiar that we sometimes overlook their significance. Yet, they have the power bring the healing that can reset our broken relationships.

St Benedict recognises this when he says that the Our Father should be said by the superior at Lauds and Vespers “because thorns of contention are likely to spring up”. It allows us to acknowledge before God that, whatever our intentions, we will have been hurt by others in the course of the day, and we will have hurt them.

St Benedict wanted the community to be reminded regularly both of their need for forgiveness and their need to forgive others in the course of their daily life.

These two are intimately linked. We begin by acknowledging our own need for forgiveness. When we know ourselves held in the loving forgiveness of God then we are able to reach out and offer forgiveness to the people who have wounded us.

Where are you being called to offer and accept forgiveness today?

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#ConsecrateLife #SimplyJubilee Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Jubilee Lectio Divina Prophetic voices Rule of St Benedict Scripture

Accepting freedom

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Today I’m reflecting on freedom. The biblical concept of freedom goes beyond that our human understanding of freedom. It is rooted first of all in our position as children of God. It’s an invitation to become the person God’s calls us to be. It also carries a challenge.

In the course of life’s ups and downs we encounter much that draws us away from that freedom. Much as we desire it, we find ourselves making choices that limit and curtail it. The prophet Isaiah promises:

“He has sent me… to proclaim liberty to captives, release to those in prison…”

Biblical freedom is communal as well as personal. One of the things I’ve learned in my time in the Monastery is that there is always a balancing act between individual freedoms and communal freedoms. No one is free to do exactly as they wish or need of the Rule at the expense of others. In chapter 72 Benedict says:

“No one is to pursue what the judge better for themselves, but instead what they judge better for someone else.”

Part of being free means that we have to choose to put aside some of our freedom for the good of others. In our individualistic times, with the concerns for personal freedoms and rights this can be a real challenge.

A jubilee calls us to revisit what it means to be free, to ask ourselves where we have set up barriers and limitations to this gift of freedom. It’s a time for asking what we have to let go of to allow ourselves to embrace in ways that are life-giving for us and for our communities.

What freedom is God inviting you to embrace today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel Lectio Divina Rule of St Benedict Saints Scripture

Challenged to hope.

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Today’s feast, St Hildegarde of Bingen, is giving me a helpful perspective on a challenging gospel. Jesus, perhaps fed up with a barrage of complaints, says to the people:

“‘What description can I find for this generation? What are they like? They are like children shouting to one another while they sit in the market-place: ‘We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn’t dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn’t cry.’”

His words challenge me to reflect on a very human tendency which we all recognize and fall into all to easily, grumbling. It can sometimes seem that whatever we have, even if we get exactly what we say we want, we are never content. We always hanker after something else.

His words take me back to the Rule of St Benedict. They almost perfectly illustrate one of the things he warns against at every opportunity. He repeatedly warns his community against “murmuring”, that low level discontent that can bubble destructively under the surface of our lives, sapping our appetite for real and constructive change.

St Hildegarde, a Benedictine nun, would have been familiar with the concept both from the Rule and from her own challenging experience of monastic life.

It’s easy to grumble in these challenging times when so much that we relied on seems to be broken or untrustworthy. This distracts us, helping us to avoid taking responsibility and appropriate action where we can. That’s never the call of the gospel.

Instead, Jesus’ words are a call to discernment. He calls us to look at where we fall into the temptation of grumbling instead of using our discontent to seek constructive solutions to our challenges.

Where is Christ challenging you to avoid grumbling today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Discernment Gospel Lectio Divina Rule of St Benedict Scripture

A whole hearted welcome

 
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It’s a very natural human tendency to judge both ourselves and others. In today’s gospel we see the guests making swift and sure judgements about who is most deserving of places of honour at the table. Jesus is quick to point out the dangers of this:

“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take your seat in the place of honour. A more distinguished person than you may have been invited, and the person who invited you may come and say ‘give up your place to this person.’”

Even with the best of intentions it’s very easy to cause more pain and discord by making wrong judgements. Reflecting on this has brought me back to two very basic Benedictine values, humility and hospitality. I think these can help us step back from the tendency to be judgemental.

Humility calls us to acknowledge that we are in no position to make judgements about how things should be arranged, or what others need or deserve. A humble attitude helps us to admit that we don’t know what is best for others and to be open to learning from them. However well intentioned our judgements can often cause hurt and distress.

Hospitality, the call to welcome everyone as we would Christ, offers us a way to avoid this. The first step in hospitality is to give another our whole attention, to allow them to tell us what they need, rather than assuming that we know. If we do that with open hearts, putting aside our own judgements, we will be able to discover what will make them feel truly welcome and accepted.

Where are you being called to put aside judgement today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Lectio Divina Liturgy Rule of St Benedict Saints Scripture

With hearts made new.

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Today we’re celebrating feast of St Bernard Tolomei, the founder of the Olivetan congregation. He was a 13th century lawyer who, with a few friends, left the city to live as hermits in the hills outside of Siena. However, things did not turn out quite as they planned.

Having being led out into one of those “desert places” where God speaks to the heart, they were called back into the city to nurse the victims of the plague in 1349. It was there that St Bernard fell ill and died.

This morning at Lauds we sang this from the prophet Ezekiel:

“A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will take out of your flesh the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

It seems to me to sum up both the essence of St Bernard’s life and of the call to contemplation that we all experience. Bernard was led to seek a life of contemplation and prayer. In turn his life of prayer softened the stoniness of his heart enabling him to leave his solitude to care for those in need.

His life suggests that there is no division between a contemplative life and one of active service, they are two parts of a whole. It is our time spent with God that enables and sustains our service to others. It is the love we discover in the heart of God that softens our stony hearts and enables us to love our sisters and brothers.

Where is God softening your heart today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Rule of St Benedict Saints Scripture

An open hearted welcome.

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Today we’re celebrating the feast of Martha, Mary and Lazarus, friends of the Lord, an important feast for Benedictines because of its link to hospitality. Luke tells us that Martha:

“Welcomed Jesus into her home.”

She offered him hospitality, a safe place to relax and have a meal with his friends in dangerous and uncertain times. However, John takes the hospitality she offers to a different level. He shows us a woman of faith, used to the theological reflection and conversation, and already a follower of Jesus.

Even as she grieves for her brother she is capable of questioning Jesus and of allowing his response to transform her whole life It is through their hard, challenging conversation that Jesus is both revealed and recognised as Christ:

“I am the resurrection and the life. If anyone believes in me, even though they die they will live, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”

Central as this revelation is it is not enough by itself, and he requires a response from Martha, asking her:

“Do you believe this?”

The recognition of her response completes the revelation as she proclaims:

“Yes Lord… I believe that you are the Christ, the son of God, the one who was to come into this world.”

I don’t think it would have been possible for Martha reach this recognition if she had only welcomed Jesus into her home. To recognise him as the Christ she must also have opened her heart to him.

By welcoming him into the very centre of her being she was able to allow him to transform her whole life. We too are called to offer the risen Christ hospitality in the depths of our heart, allowing him to enter and transform our lives with light, love and hope

How might inviting Christ into your heart change your life?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Rule of St Benedict Saints Scripture

Celebrating St Benedict.

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Celebrating the feast of St Benedict, I’m reflecting on Jesus’ call to service. He interrupts the disciples’ arguments about greatness by turning their perceptions upside down, telling them:

“The greatest among you must be as the youngest, the leader as the one who serves. For who is greater: the one at table or the one who serves? The one at table surely? Yet, I am among you as one who serves!”

His words remind his disciples that they are called to put the needs of others first. That was a startling call to his disciples. It can seem an even more challenging call to us living in a time when individual fulfilment and satisfaction are so much to the fore.

St Benedict puts the call to service at the very heart of his Rule, telling us that we should pursue what is better for others instead of for ourselves. He knows that this is not an easy call, and reminds us that we should bear patiently with one another as we strive to fulfil it.

Community life offers us many opportunities to practice both service and patience throughout the day, whether in big things or small. I often find it’s easier to do in the big things of life. When we know someone is facing something really difficult or challenging it’s easy to be loving and supportive.

It can be much harder in the myriad of little mistakes and annoyances that make up the bulk of most days. However hard it might feel St Benedict is clear that if we “long for life and to see good days” the only way is a life of loving service.

How are you being called to serve today?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Divine Office Eastertide Gospel Lectio Divina Resurrection Rule of St Benedict Scripture

Discovering Glory.

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Beginning with Jesus’ prayer for his disciples the word “glorify” repeats again and again throughout today’s gospel:

“Jesus said: ‘Father, the hour has come: glorify your Son so that your son may glorify you; and, through the power over all humankind that you have given him, let him give eternal life to all those you have entrusted to him.’”

In an age that sees itself as egalitarian his words seem baffling or even downright uncomfortable. We’ve seen too many misinterpretations of glorification to be comfortable with it. But John’s Gospel is not speaking of the human glory that we’ve seen misused and abused in so many areas.

The glory of the gospel is discovering the reality of divine presence in the midst of ordinary life. We’ve seen that unfold in Jesus’ in miracles and life transforming encounters. Now Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure and the coming of the Spirit. His prayer for them is that the presence of God will continue to break through into their lives.

That presence won’t remove the challenges, difficulties and dangers they face. Instead the presence of God with them will transform them, giving them courage to move forward in hope and trust. In our own challenging and uncertain times that presence still has the power to break through and transform our lives.

It is unlikely (though not impossible) that we will see it in grand gestures and actions. It’s more likely to be apparent in glimpses and glimmers in the midst of the most ordinary and mundane activities of life. If we are attentive and alert it will come to us in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Where is God calling you to be attentive to the presence of God’s glory in your life?

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Benedictine Spirituality Christ Eastertide Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Resurrection Rule of St Benedict Scripture

Chosen to bear fruit.

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“You did not choose me: no, I chose you; and I commissioned you to go out and to bear fruit, fruit that will last…”

We live surrounded by choices that often require a lot of time, thought and effort. This can give us a sense of control, but if I’m honest it can also feel overwhelming and limiting. As is so often the case Jesus’ words draw me to a deeper reality that is both truer and more liberating. Going to the heart of our Christian vocation they recall the words of psalmist quoted by St Benedict:

“Is there anyone here who yearns for life and desires to see good days?”

I find these gospel words both hopeful and humbling. They remind me that my role is to listen and respond. They call me back to humility, telling me that control is not in my hands, but in the hands of Christ. They fill me with hope as they tell me I am already chosen, Christ has already chosen me, and each one of us, and is waiting with love for us to respond to his call to life.

How are you listening and responding to the call of Christ in your life today?