{"id":4079,"date":"2025-07-11T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=4079"},"modified":"2025-07-10T18:49:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T18:49:55","slug":"celebrating-st-benedict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2025\/07\/11\/celebrating-st-benedict\/benedictine-spirituality\/4079\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating St Benedict."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Barrett Baker on unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Celebrating the feast of St Benedict, I\u2019m reflecting on Jesus\u2019 call to service. He interrupts the disciples\u2019 arguments about greatness by turning their perceptions upside down, telling them:

\u201cThe 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!\u201d
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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\u2019s easier to do in the big things of life. When we know someone is facing something really difficult or challenging it\u2019s 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 \u201clong for life and to see good days\u201d the only way is a life of loving service.

How are you being called to serve today?
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Celebrating the feast of St Benedict, I\u2019m reflecting on Jesus\u2019 call to service. He interrupts the disciples\u2019 arguments about greatness by turning their perceptions upside down, telling them: \u201cThe 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,461,239,271,537,492,245,246],"tags":[28,214,18,53,223,124,6,8,33,229,13,29,15,215,23,88,10],"class_list":["post-4079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-divine-office","category-gospel","category-lectio-divina","category-liturgy","category-rule-of-st-benedict","category-saints","category-scripture","tag-benedictine","tag-benedictinespirituality","tag-challenge","tag-christ","tag-christlike","tag-community","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-ruleofstbenedict","tag-service","tag-stbenedict","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4079"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4086,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4079\/revisions\/4086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}