{"id":4497,"date":"2026-03-04T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=4497"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:12:11","slug":"a-gospel-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2026\/03\/04\/a-gospel-blessing\/benedictine-spirituality\/4497\/","title":{"rendered":"A gospel blessing."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Love is at the very heart of the blessing of gospel living. It can be easy to see this love as an ideal, a valuable principle that we acknowledge then leave on a shelf as we go about the important daily business of living. If that is how we understand love it is unlikely to be a blessing to us or to others.

For love to be a blessing it has to be both the valuable and beautiful principle, and a practical reality in our daily lives. Jesus makes that clear to his disciples in today\u2019s gospel. Turning all our expectations on their heads he says:

\u201cAnyone who wants to be great amongst you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.\u201d<\/em>

His words make it clear that love of gospel living has to affect how we treat others. In chapter 4 of the Rule on the tools of good works St Benedict makes the same point. He reminds us \u201cnever do to another what you do not want done to yourself.\u201d

Together the gospel and the Rule bring the blessing of gospel living back to a very basic practice that we can live each day, to treat others as we would like to be treated.

I wonder how life might change if that became the guiding principle of all our interactions. While that might prove costly the blessing of gospel living offers the hope that it will also be a life enhancing experience.

Where are you being called to treat others as you would like to be treated this Lent?
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Love is at the very heart of the blessing of gospel living. It can be easy to see this love as an ideal, a valuable principle that we acknowledge then leave on a shelf as we go about the important daily business of living. If that is how we understand love it is unlikely to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,544,239,271,336,492,245,246],"tags":[28,214,191,18,6,498,8,33,229,13,41,888,767,29,15,215,10],"class_list":["post-4497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-discernment","category-gospel","category-lectio-divina","category-lent","category-rule-of-st-benedict","category-saints","category-scripture","tag-benedictine","tag-benedictinespirituality","tag-blessing","tag-challenge","tag-gospel","tag-gospelliving","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-lent","tag-lent2026","tag-lentpractices","tag-love","tag-newlife","tag-ruleofstbenedict","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497","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=4497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4503,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4497\/revisions\/4503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}