Rule of St Benedict Reading for May 23,2009

January 22, May 23, September 22

Chapter 5: On Obedience

The first degree of humility is obedience without delay.
This is the virtue of those
who hold nothing dearer to them than Christ;
who, because of the holy service they have professed,
and the fear of hell,
and the glory of life everlasting,
as soon as anything has been ordered by the Superior,
receive it as a divine command
and cannot suffer any delay in executing it.
Of these the Lord says,
"As soon as he heard, he obeyed Me" (Ps. 17:45).
And again to teachers He says,
"He who hears you, hears Me" (Luke 10:16).


Such as these, therefore,
immediately leaving their own affairs
and forsaking their own will,
dropping the work they were engaged on
and leaving it unfinished,
with the ready step of obedience
follow up with their deeds the voice of him who commands.
And so as it were at the same moment
the master's command is given
and the disciple's work is completed,
the two things being speedily accomplished together
in the swiftness of the fear of God
by those who are moved
with the desire of attaining life everlasting.
That desire is their motive for choosing the narrow way,
of which the Lord says,
"Narrow is the way that leads to life" (Matt. 7:14),
so that,
not living according to their own choice
nor obeying their own desires and pleasures
but walking by another's judgment and command,
they dwell in monasteries and desire to have an Abbot over them.
Assuredly such as these are living up to that maxim of the Lord
in which He says,
"I have come not to do My own will,
but the will of Him who sent Me" (John 6:38).


Some thoughts:

Perhaps those of us in a religious community, we might substitute "Holy Spirit" for "superior" or "Abbot" and try that on for size. Then we could test drive the idea of obeying the Holy Spirit without delay. I wonder if you have the same experience as I. I often have the sense that God might be giving me some task or whatever and while I know it to be a good and holy thing, my response to the things I know I could do tends to start with " Yes, but...". "What if..." The thing I kick myself over and over for is that I know darn right well that there is nothing better for me than my Lord's will for me. But I would prefer to stay in my comfort zone of what I know well, even when it is no longer any good for me.

I think Benedict hits the trigger point, the pressure point, the place where it hurts the most when he says "The first degree of humility is obedience without delay." It's humility I lack. There is a certain arrogance, is there not, in saying to God "Yes, but..." or "What if...". It is really quite arrogant of me to think I might come up with notion that God had failed to consider. Would you agree?

Obedience

Obedience is a concept which is not very popular. For some reason we think only in terms of constraints rather than the freedom we gain. Here in the USA an popular expression is "I'm keeping my options open." The net effect of this, as i see it, is that one doesn't commit to anything and in waiting for something better to come along, truly fails to experience anything.

Is a train free to run anywhere it wants? Or does it do much better when limited to tracks where it can go a very long way indeed? Humans were created to be in relationship with God. There are those things which increase or decrease that relationship.

I think of obedience as a way to increase the relationship. It's His love which draws us to Him and love is something to cherish and protect. Just as in a relationship between 2 people, some things increase and others diminish or even damage the love they share, so this is also true of the love we share with God. We can increase, diminish or even damage our love for Him.

Obedience to His will, His commandments, replacing our wills in favor of His are all what will cause our love for God to grow and flourish.

What could possibly be a better option?

Reading for Jan 23, 2008

January 23, May 24, September 23
Chapter 5: On Obedience

But this very obedience
will be acceptable to God and pleasing to all
only if what is commanded is done
without hesitation, delay, lukewarmness, grumbling, or objection.
For the obedience given to Superiors is given to God,
since He Himself has said,
"He who hears you, hears Me" (Luke 10:16).
And the disciples should offer their obedience with a good will,
for "God loves a cheerful giver" (2 Cor. 9:7).
For if the disciple obeys with an ill will
and murmurs,
not necessarily with his lips but simply in his heart,
then even though he fulfill the command
yet his work will not be acceptable to God,
who sees that his heart is murmuring.
And, far from gaining a reward for such work as this,
he will incur the punishment due to murmurers,
unless he amend and make satisfaction.

Some thoughts:

It is not just obedience God wants from us, but a glad, happy obedience. How do we do that? Isn't just human nature to compare ourselves to others? Do we curse our someone on the highway for cutting us off and then forget to use our own directional?

The glad heart is crucial, Benedict says. So crucial that unless we have have it, our work, no matter how good, will never please the Lord. But what can we do about this? Our burdens are heavy. We feel as if it is all on our shoulders.

I don't have any answer. I am one who will meet all of my responsibilities but I do not always rejoice over them. Far from it.

Perhaps we can join together and help each other figure out how to obey without grumbling.

Reading for Jan 22

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

January 22, May 23, September 22
Chapter 5: On Obedience

The first degree of humility is obedience without delay.
This is the virtue of those
who hold nothing dearer to them than Christ;
who, because of the holy service they have professed,
and the fear of hell,
and the glory of life everlasting,
as soon as anything has been ordered by the Superior,
receive it as a divine command
and cannot suffer any delay in executing it.
Of these the Lord says,
"As soon as he heard, he obeyed Me" (Ps. 17:45).
And again to teachers He says,
"He who hears you, hears Me" (Luke 10:16).

Such as these, therefore,
immediately leaving their own affairs
and forsaking their own will,
dropping the work they were engaged on
and leaving it unfinished,
with the ready step of obedience
follow up with their deeds the voice of him who commands.
And so as it were at the same moment
the master's command is given
and the disciple's work is completed,
the two things being speedily accomplished together
in the swiftness of the fear of God
by those who are moved
with the desire of attaining life everlasting.
That desire is their motive for choosing the narrow way,
of which the Lord says,
"Narrow is the way that leads to life" (Matt. 7:14),
so that,
not living according to their own choice
nor obeying their own desires and pleasures
but walking by another's judgment and command,
they dwell in monasteries and desire to have an Abbot over them.
Assuredly such as these are living up to that maxim of the Lord
in which He says,
"I have come not to do My own will,
but the will of Him who sent Me" (John 6:38).

Some Thoughts;

Reminded of one of the sayings in the collection, _Sayings of the Desert Fathers_ about a disciple named Mark who was loved by his abba for the obedieince he showed the abba. One time Mark was writing the letter omega, which looks sorta like a w. As the story goes, the abba called for Mark and so instant was his obedience that he put down his pen () a quill I suppose) and left the letter unfinished.

In the film "The Nun's Story", Sr Luke (played by Audrey Hepburn) consistently demonstrates an inability to obey, especially when it comes to leaving patients in order to obey the bell summoning her to a daily office. Eventually she realizes that she will never be able to master obedience like this and she leaves the community.

In today's reading from the RB we see Benedict insisting on obedience. By the time he wrote the Rule, the story about mark was already known and that may have been in his mind when he wrote this section. We'll never know of course. What does Benedict emphasize? Which points does he repeat in various ways? What metaphors does he use?

The obedience asked by Jesus was to love and go on loving

> I was reading Sister Gloriamarie's offering for the 3rd Sunday after
> Pentecost and came across this:
> "God graciously blesses His servants, but He gives all good things
> contingent upon our obedience."
> I wonder how you react to this? Out of context, it doesn't work for me.
> However, I note that the author goes on:
> "Yes, it is true, the Lord blesses the good and the evil, the just and
> the unjust (Mt. 5:45). However, He particularly blesses those who obeyHis
> commandments."
> The writer is commenting on a reading from Deuteronomy with regard to
> Israel.
> It seems to me that the obedience asked by Jesus was to love and go on
> loving.
> Just wondering what you think?


Yesterday's daily meditation sparked the above comment:

My first thought is what specifically is mean by "the obedience asked by Jesus was to love and go on loving."? I ask this because I live in the USA and a lot of people think they are being loving if they experience the warm fuzzies.

To love and to be loving has to have a shape, I think. Jesus tells us that all the Law and the prophets can be summed up in what we now call the 2 Great Commandments: loving God with everything we are and have and loving our neighbors as ourselves. But what does that look like? Evelyn Underhill tells us that love of God is genuine only when it overflows the bounds of our bodies, flows from our pores onto other people. The truest mystic is one who is out and about doing what needs to be done.

The author of the piece quoted above is writing about orthopraxy, right practice, something we don't hear too much about in our post-modern emphasis on love and loving. Once upon a time, orthdoxy and orthopraxy were so intertwined you couldn't have one without the other. Right belief led to right practice, i.e. lifestyle and right practice demonstrated a solid understanding of right belief. Here in the USA, I get the sense that such a way of thinking is viewed as sterile, works for the sake of works.

My own thought is that we have a trinity: love and loving, right belief, right practice. All intertwined and interconnected so that it is really not possible to say where one starts and the other ends. Three concepts; one reality. I think this is what Jesus speaks of and about which Paul wrote. As i see it, in any relationship of love there are those thoughts, words and deeds which can either decrease or increase the love between God and a person, between a person and other people. So it seems to me that we can't separate loving rightly from believing rightly from living rightly. If we truly love God with everything we are and if we truly love our neighbor as ourselves, if we really believe this with all of our being, then love and loving will compel us, without giving it even much thought, to act for the greater good.

Please see the quote in my sig for a much better way to express all this.
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May the Holy Spirit dance in our hearts!

Sister Gloriamarie Amalfitano, S/FC
http://knitternun.blogspot.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SanDiegoFiberFolk

Daily Meditations: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/KnitternunMeditation/

LET US BEGIN TO SEE BEYOND race, beyond culture, beyond gender, beyond sexual orientation, beyond religion, beyond, beyond all these externals and see each other as God’s beloved. When we relate to others as God relates to us, our sense of being God’s beloved deepens even more.

From page 25 of The Way of Transforming Discipleship by Trevor Hudson and Stephen D. Bryant. Copyright © 2005 by Upper Room Books.