I dare not speak for any other person.
I can speak about other people. I try, sometimes I fail but
I try, to avoid saying anything about other people that maligns their character
or diminishes them in any way. Even the worst examples of human beings still
possess within their beings elements of goodness as creatures created by God.
All of us, regardless of who we are or where we are at in our sojourn on earth,
yet have room for improvement in developing the goodness of God that abides
within us.
I can only speak for myself. I can only speak about where I
have come from, where I am at, where I hope to one day be, and the battles
within my own interior self that occur as I seek and pursue more of God and his
goodness – a goodness that will always be incomplete until my own mortality
takes on immortality.[1]
The Rule helps me keep life in balance. It helps me see
others as I should. It helps me see myself as I should. The Rule, by
continually revealing my own weaknesses, helps me to understand and empathize with
the weaknesses of others.
Personal confession.
There have been times during my Oblate journey that I have
been a poor example. I have, at times, been a miserable failure. How many times
have I had to start over and reclaim holy terrain that I allowed to slip from
my grip? More than I care to think about but, in honesty, must think about lest
pride take root and grow up to usurp humility.
I find a great amount of encouragement in a letter written
by Elder Joseph the Heychest regarding falling down and getting up. It
encourages me to know that I am not the only one with scars from skinned knees.
Abbot Benedict has this to say about the vocation of those
that enter into his school.
In the first place,
then, when thou dost begin any good thing that is to be done, with most
insistent prayer beg that it may be carried through by Him to its conclusion;
so that He Who already deigns to count us among the number of His children may
not at any time be made aggrieved by evil acts on our part.
For in such wise is
obedience due to Him, on every occasion, by reason of the good He works in us;
so that not only may He never, as an irate father, disinherit us His children,
but also may never, as a dread-inspiring master made angry by our misdeeds,
deliver us over to perpetual punishment as most wicked slaves who would not
follow Him to glory[2].
It helps to realize that this vocation is not something that
I can fulfill in my own strength. Earnest Ora
… insistent prayer … begins, sustains, and brings to conclusion the life of those
that enter into Benedict’s school. Only through prayer, and the infusion of
God’s grace through prayer, can I possibly honorably fulfill this holy calling.
I remind myself that this vocation as an Oblate of Saint
Benedict is a holy calling. It is, as a holy calling, bound to be met by
oppositional forces – both from within the realm of my own interior complex and
from the realm without that will always work to influence my interior complex.
This, I think, is one of the areas where our cloistered brothers and sisters
are given an advantage over Oblates living in the world. Monastery walls create
an environment that significantly limits outside influences.
I remind myself, too, that obedience is expected of me as a
life-long commitment and that disobedience will always produce consequences
that will deprive me of God’s blessings in the here and now this side of
eternity. Disobedience, if left unrepented of, will eventually lead to eternal
separation from God and the eternal blessings of those that faithfully persevere
in their calling.
These points of reminder affect all of us as disciples of
Christ, regardless of our denominational affiliation, Oblate or otherwise. We
are, after all, called to lives of holiness that separate us from the world and
its way of living.
Oblates of Saint Benedict enter into a Solemn Promise that
obligates us, out of love for Christ and love for our brothers and sisters in
Christ both inside and outside the monastery, to live in a way that reflects
the Light of Christ, the precepts of our Founding Abbot as found in the Rule of
Saint Benedict, the heritage of faithful Benedictines throughout the centuries,
and the examples now presented by our professed monastic brothers and sisters
living lives of ora et labora (prayer
and work) within monasteries around the world today.
We can, with God’s help, do this.
The words of the Apostle Paul come to mind.
“May the God of peace
sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and
blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful,
and he will do it.”[3]
“Forgive me, my dear Christ. I am human and weak.”
ReplyDeleteAs am I. As are we all.
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