First of all, every time you begin a good work, you must pray to him most earnestly to bring it to perfection. In his goodness, he has already counted us as his sons and daughters, and therefore we should never grieve him by our evil actions. With his good gifts which are in us, we must obey him at all times that he may never become the angry father who disinherits his sons and daughters, nor the dread lord, enraged by our sins, who punishes us forever as worthless servants for refusing to follow him to glory.

Let us get up then, at long last, for the scriptures rouse us when they say: It is high time for us to arise from sleep (Rom 13:11). Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God, and our ears to the voice from heaven that every day calls out this charge: If you hear his voice today, do not harden your hearts (Ps 94:8). And again: You that have ears to hear, listen what the Spirit says to the churches (Rev 2:7. And what does he say? Come and listen to me, sons; I will teach you the fear of the Lord (Ps 33:12). Run while you have the light of life, that the darkness of death may not overtake you (John 12:35).

Comment

The following is adapted from Esther de Waal's A Life-Giving Way. De Waal is a marvelous author, who has been writing for years about the way the spirit of the Rule can affect the daily life of a great variety of people. She has directed week-long session in England and the US, in which people live in the pattern set up by the Rule, and reflect on its implications for their lives.

Now comes the second step, the service itself, that succeeds the decision to renounce my own self-will and to follow Christ as Lord. After that first step, that moment of decision, comes the determination and the perseverance, having put my hand to the plow, not to turn back but to follow this through to the end. Without constant prayer this will never be possible. Prayer will remind me all the time that whatever I do is a matter of grace. Perseverance itself is a special grace, and to receive it we have to pray constantly. Benedict is telling me now that both the beginning and the end of my way to God are in God's hands. There is always the danger that I may attribute or appropriate to myself what is really the work of God in me.

This is the new order into which I am incorporated because of my adoption as son or daughter by this loving father. It is not merely that I am legally adopted, I am also physically adopted, an adoption that is a real creation, a real transformation, so that now I may use my gifts wisely and well. God found me wandering and lost and brought me into his own family and gave me a home. But there is always the danger that I may go wandering off again, or that I may not use these gifts that God has put at my disposal. Benedict does not mince words: evil actions show the seriousness of sin. In that case I risk disinheritance or punishment. Whether I think of this in terms of the imagery of being turned out of the Garden of Eden, or in the more specific terms of what it would have meant in sixth-century Italy to lose all security, to be cut loose from any sort of base in society, this is an extremely vivid warning.

Here now comes the reveille, the rousing call: Now is the hour! How well Benedict knows human nature. Even though he has so vigorously presented me with these alternatives and asked me to make choice, I could still so easily drift, put off decisions, coast along living and half living. "Let us open our eyes to the light that comes from God," let us listen to the divine voice. The light that comes from God is the sacred Scriptures. Time and time again later on in the Rule the Scriptures will be affirmed as the source of life. The whole life to which it is pointing us is a search for God under the guidance of the Gospel. The Rule itself is simply gospel teaching. It is the Word itself that arouses us. The Word is a two-edged sword that will not let us sleep, that brings us to life, and it is so that we may hear the Word at work in our lives that Benedict has written the Rule. What he is asking us to do is simply to listen, listen totally, be changed by the power of the Scriptures. When Benedict creates here a virtual mosaic of scriptural quotation, it is so that we may once again be reminded of this voice addressing us, calling and searching us out, trying to arouse us from sleep, trying to open our eyes and to unstop our ears. This is no once-and-for-all call, but a daily occurrence. It would be only too easy to fail to hear, to forget that each day the Word is there. It is up to me to listen for it, for I might well be tempted instead to harden my heart, which would mean that I cease to be vulnerable and open.

For listening to the Word is listening to the Spirit, and that asks a great deal of me. There are only brief references to the Holy Spirit in the Rule, and it is vital not to neglect them. We are reminded of "the Joy of the Holy Spirit" in chapter 49 in the context of the extra demands of Lent. At the end of chapter 7 we are told that the whole action of the purification of our motives and the cleansing from sins and vices has been the action of the Holy Spirit in his workman. This helps me to appreciate Benedict's thinking here. The Spirit is the one who cleanses and who leads. Above all, it is the Spirit within us who leads to growth. The growth process is therefore not separated from the cleansing process, and it is a process that will never end but go on until death. This is the initial hurdle, and we cannot achieve any further kind of perfection until we have gotten over this, the essential foundation, which is why we find it placed here.

The final quotation here speaks of running, light, life. Benedict is offering me the chance to move from slavery to freedom, the freedom of the life of the new person in Christ. This is never going to be simple, straight-line progress, in life or in prayer. It is a matter of many invitations of grace, some accepted, some ignored, some accepted half-heartedly, some later nullified by inconstancy. It is not easy to accept the invitation to freedom in the risen Christ, to walk freely in the Spirit. This invitation opens up vistas too big for us, and we feel safer clinging to our prison bars, where at least we know where we are. No doubt it was hard for some of the people whom Jesus set free from bondage of body or spirit to accept their freedom, to pick up their stretchers and walk, or to relinquish an accustomed way of life as a blind beggar.

Response

I especially appreciate the light that Esther de Waal sheds on Benedict's writing. The commentary this week that gave me a new idea to think about was this: "Perseverance itself is a special grace, and to receive it we have to pray constantly." As being truly disciplined in matters of the spirit has been an ongoing struggle for me, this thought brought a new way of thinking about my difficulty as well as the realization that, as with anything else that God sees fit to give, this also is a matter of His grace. The idea of physical as well as spiritual adoption by God was a new concept for me-- one that I really like, as certainly the "new creature" or "new creation" that we become in Christ does affect every part of us. And, of course, we would be hard-pressed to actually separate body, soul, and spirit-- though I sometimes inadvertently try to compartmentalize.

Thank you for sharing these teachings/commentaries. The peace of the Lord be with you, and with all who read this.

The series on The Rule may be something that alums and supporters of St. Gregory's University would like to receive. Do we have the capability to send to alums and others? A St. Gregory's ListServ with lifelong learning opportunities, chat rooms, information--might be a different type of marketing/recruiting/educational tool/lifelong learning electronic conferences in the same manner we will provide online instruction.