Rule of St Benedict Reading for August 30, 2009

April 30, August 30, December 30

Chapter 72: On the Good Zeal Which They Ought to Have

Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness
which separates from God and leads to hell,
so there is a good zeal
which separates from vices and leads to God
and to life everlasting.
This zeal, therefore, the sisters should practice
with the most fervent love.
Thus they should anticipate one another in honor (Rom. 12:10);
most patiently endure one another's infirmities,
whether of body or of character;
vie in paying obedience one to another --
no one following what she considers useful for herself,
but rather what benefits another;
tender the charity of sisterhood chastely;
fear God in love;
love their Abbess with a sincere and humble charity;
prefer nothing whatever to Christ.
And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!

Some thoughts

This chapter is one of my favorites. I
mentioned yesterday that Two Ways was a genre of literature in the
ancient world and here we see it again reflected in today's passage.
The choices Benedict sets out are the zeal of bitterness and good
zeal. One can readily understand why Benedict would warn against the
evil zeal of bitterness. How many times have we seen the harm
bitterness leads to? Or the way people hold onto it?

In contrast, Benedict tells about good zeal which actively practiced
means we turn away from bad things. How hard this is to do in a world
which condones so much sin as normative and expected. How easy it is
to begin to think that as long as no one else finds out about it, it's
ok. How easy it is to slip into the sort of thinking that says as
long as I see no one coming it's ok to run the stop signs or the red
lights, for instance. Unfortunately for people who think this way, God
sees everything, not only our deeds, but our motivations and intents.

What I read today in Benedict's rule are the people I want to know and
whose lives I want to be a part of, people who have let go of ego and
sought to have love of God and love of neighbor be the central things
in their lives.

"Prefer nothing whatever to Christ." If I ever thought I'd have a
gravestone or any other marker that says I was here on earth for a
brief time, I would want it to say "She preferred nothing to Christ."
But I fear that it would be untrue because I see every day the many
things that I prefer to Christ. There are millions of examples, all
those mundane petty details of living in 21st century America. I have
to hope that it is true for me, as was with the cads and
scroundrels of the Hebrew Scriptures, that what is really important is that
I love God.

Daily Reading December 30, 2007

Today's reading from the Rule of St. Benedict http://www.osb.org/rb/

April 30, August 30, December 30
Chapter 72: On the Good Zeal Which They Ought to Have

Just as there is an evil zeal of bitterness
which separates from God and leads to hell,
so there is a good zeal
which separates from vices and leads to God
and to life everlasting.
This zeal, therefore, the sisters should practice
with the most fervent love.
Thus they should anticipate one another in honor (Rom. 12:10);
most patiently endure one another's infirmities,
whether of body or of character;
vie in paying obedience one to another --
no one following what she considers useful for herself,
but rather what benefits another;
tender the charity of sisterhood chastely;
fear God in love;
love their Abbess with a sincere and humble charity;
prefer nothing whatever to Christ.
And may He bring us all together to life everlasting!

Some Thoughts

If only every Christian practised this. If each of us put the other's welfare ahead of our own, we wouldn't have to worry for ourselves because someone else would be attending to our needs. None of that heretical "looking our for numero uno" nonsense. The whole point of this mutual dependence is to allow us to prefer nothing whatever to Christ.

I'll be honest, there is much that I often prefer to Christ. How about you?




Insight for the Ages: A Commentary by Sr Joan Chittister
http://www.eriebenedictines.org/Pages/INSPIRATION/insights.html

Here is the crux of the Rule of Benedict. Benedictine spirituality is not about religiosity. Benedictine spirituality is much more demanding than that. Benedictine spirituality is about caring for the people you live with and loving the people you don't and loving God more than yourself. Benedictine spirituality depends on listening for the voice of God everywhere in life, especially in one another and here. An ancient tale from another tradition tells that a disciple asked the Holy One:
"Where shall I look for Enlightenment?"
"Here," the Holy One said.
"When will it happen?"
"It is happening right now," the Holy said.
"Then why don't I experience it?"
"Because you do not look," the Holy said.
"What should I look for?"
"Nothing," the Holy One said. "Just look."
"At what?"
"Anything your eyes alight upon," the Holy One said.
"Must I look in a special kind of way?"
"No," the Holy One said. "The ordinary way will do."
"But don't I always look the ordinary way?"
"No," the Holy One said. "You don't."
"Why ever not?" the disciple demanded.
"Because to look you must be here," the Holy One said. "You're mostly somewhere else."

Just as Benedict insisted in the Prologue to the rule, he requires at its end: We must learn to listen to what God is saying in our simple, sometimes insane and always uncertain daily lives. Bitter zeal is that kind of religious fanaticism that makes a god out of religious devotion itself. Bitter zeal walks over the poor on the way to the altar. Bitter zeal renders the useless invisible and makes devotion more sacred than community. Bitter zeal wraps us up in ourselves and makes us feel holy about it. Bitter zeal renders us blind to others, deaf to those around us, struck dumb in the face of the demands of dailiness. Good zeal, monastic zeal, commits us to the happiness of human community and immerses us in Christ and surrenders us to God, minute by minute, person by person, day after day after day. Good zeal provides the foundation for the spirituality of the long haul. It keeps us going when days are dull and holiness seems to be the stuff of more glamorous lives, of martyrdom and dramatic differences. But it is then, just then, when Benedict of Nursia reminds us from the dark of the sixth century that sanctity is the stuff of community in Christ and that any other zeal, no matter how dazzling it looks, is false. Completely false.