We do not have to be Biblical scholars, theologians, or
scholars on Benedict and The Rule to see this.
Even from a casual reading of the Gospels and The Rule,
it is easy to garner that the post-modern Church lives in a way that is a wide
cut away from the Christianity founded by Christ and lived by his Apostles and
disciples beginning in those early years and following through until after the
turn of the Twentieth Century.
The problem is not in finding a legitimate basis for
granting some mental assent to what the Gospels and the other New Testament
writings say. The problem is in honestly and sincerely emulating [imitating] these
portrayed lives and their teachings clearly spelled out in these divinely
inspired Writings and Sacred Traditions that have been handed down to our generation.
Not many modernites want to meet the Christ who said to
the rich young man … If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions,
and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then
come, follow me. [Matthew 19:21] Not many modernites want to surrender
their egos, wills, and personal ambitions to a life of complete dependence on
one another as did the early believers where … All who believed were
together and had all things common; they would sell their possessions and goods
and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. [Acts 2:44-45] Not
many modernites want to meet the Apostle Paul who looks them in the eyes and
says … Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ. [1 Corinthians 13:1]
Not many, anymore, choose the Saints as their role-models.
Perhaps because the Saints, without fail, lived lives that represent and
promote the ideals contained in the above references?
In writing this piece, I am not thinking about the
secular world outside the Church. I am not particularly thinking of the Protestant
realm; though these issues apply on both sides of the Protestant/Catholic Divide.
I am thinking more so about how the outside world has so made its way into the
Church to lure and seduce until those outside the Church see little difference between
themselves and us.
I have to continually remind myself of whom I am
representing, both as a Christian and as an Oblate of Saint Benedict, and make
every conscious effort to hopefully represent them in a way that they – the
Lord Jesus, Abbot Saint Benedict, and all the Saints of all ages – are not
offended by my example. I must not only give some mental assent to what Jesus tells me in
the Gospels, the Apostles tell me in the Epistles, and Saint Benedict tells me
in The Rule. I must accept it, integrate it, and practice it in this life I have
been given to live in the Twenty-First Century. Saint Benedict’s Rule [based on
Scripture] instructs me …
(29) Not to return
evil for evil (cf 1 Thes 5:15; 1 Pt 3:9).
(30) To do no
injury, yea, even patiently to bear the injury done us.
(31) To love one's
enemies (cf Mt 5:44; Lk 6:27).
(32) Not to curse
them that curse us, but rather to bless them.
(33) To bear
persecution for justice sake (cf Mt 5:10).[1]
I readily admit that it is not easy to take these mandates
at their face value and to integrate them as lifestyle reactions that keep me
from retaliating toward those that render me evil, injure me in one way or
another, show themselves as enemies of my physical and spiritual welfare, curse
me, and persecute me.
I also admit that there are times when I fail to live up
to these holy standards of conduct. I am doing much better now
than at the beginning. But, even now, as the old ones were known to say when
asked how they were doing … I fall down. And I get up.
Here, once again, we discover the importance of the Third Vow of
Benedictine monks and Third Promise of Oblates of Saint Benedict … this business
of committing ourselves to continual conversion of life – a continual
conversion of our morals whereby we are slowly and progressively perfected in
our image of the Image of God who gave himself so totally on the Cross.
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