The Motivation Behind Oblate Reflections

Dear Reader,

I think it is important, at this point, to take a few minutes to consider what it is that motivates me to invest myself in writing Oblate Reflections.

An explanation, such as this, is something that I feel I owe to each of you that read these pages.

Personal reflection … personal evaluation … is an important part of Benedictine spirituality. It is, for that matter, an important part of any spirituality – monastic or otherwise. As an aspect of my own Benedictine spirituality, this reflection and evaluation is also something that I owe to myself in order to continue moving forward in my own understanding and putting into action of what I consider to be the vocation that I am called to as an individual.

The answer, though it is a five-part answer, is honestly quite simple.

I am a writer. Writers write. Writing, for me, is something that I do.

It is something that I have done for many years. It is also something that, in my personal history, contains an element of humor considering that I hated writing and literature as a youth in high school. I did, in fact, quit school. Not once but three times before at last quitting. I completed my G.E.D. a few years later. I applied for and was accepted into the ministerial program at a conservative Evangelical Bible College a few years after that. Writing has, ever since, been something that I have done.

I have authored several blogs on differing subjects of interest to me over the years. The first blog was Oblate Offerings that I began in 2006 at the beginning of my journey as an Oblate of Saint Benedict. I still have three blogs that I maintain, Oblate Reflections, most recently begun, is one of them.

Maintaining Oblate Reflections is important to me because it is a continuing chronicle of my personal journey as an Oblate … a chronicle that now reflects an older version of the younger one that had first discovered Saint Benedict, one that had also coincidentally traveled the path of R.C.I.A. into the Catholic Church. I have, over these years, become both a mellower and a more resolved version of the younger one starting out.

I desire to encourage other Oblates, especially Oblates that live at a distance from their monasteries and are not afforded the blessing of being able to attend regular Oblate meetings at their monasteries or at local Oblate chapters. My own monastery is at such a distance that frequent trips are no longer feasible. I was privileged, during the early years of my Oblate formation, to have a Priest from the Abbey serving a small parish close by. A chapter of Oblates had grown in that parish under his leadership. I attended the monthly meetings for several years before he was transferred to serve a small parish closer to the Abbey.

Benedictine Oblate life, for many of us, can be quite the lonely solo affair with little encouragement from the parish or church body where we attend. It is not easy to solo. Yet, in many cases, that is what many of us must do. We all need encouragement. Oblates need encouragement. Oblates need to encourage one another. A platform to encourage others facing this Oblate dilemma is important.

I also want to introduce uninformed others to the wealth of spiritual vitality that is available to us in the Benedictine monastic tradition.

The world that we live in today knows pitifully little about monastic spirituality. It knows even less about Benedictine spirituality. There is, even in the Church at large, a terrible drought of things Benedictine.

One of the reasons Oblates live in the world outside of the monastery is to reveal to the world (and to the Church) the realities taking place within the monastic enclosure.

I also write and share this blog publicly for the sake of personal accountability.

This business of personal accountability is something that I take very seriously. There are too many loose cannon balls rolling around. I have no desire to be just another self-justifying loose cannon ball causing damage to whomever it rolls into.

Others are reading what I write. Other knowledgeable Benedictines are reading what I write. Other Catholics and Protestants alike (Saint Benedict invites and welcomes us all) are reading what I write.

Anyone, at any time, can question what I write and call me to account. I am approachable. Hence the feature that allows comments on this blog.

Thank you for taking the time to read these reflections. It is my prayer that these reflections, shared out of my own personal journey as an Oblate of Saint Benedict, serves to encourage and perhaps even challenge you in your own journey of faith in Christ.

“So that in all things God may be glorified.”[1]

Sincerely,

David A. Kralik

Please Note: Oblate Reflections is not an official publication of Saint Bernard Abbey. These are my own personal reflections as an Oblate of Saint Benedict.

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[1] RB 57:9 (1 Peter 4:11