Daily Reading for November 13
Holiness, Benedict argues, is not something that happens in a vacuum. It has something to do with the way we live our community lives and our family lives and our public lives as well as the way we say our prayers. The life-needs of other people affect the life of the truly spiritual person and they hear the voice of God in that. . . .
Monastic spirituality depends on direction. It is a rule of life. Self-control, purpose, and discipline give aim to what might otherwise deteriorate into a kind of pseudo-religious life meant more for public show than for personal growth. It is so comforting to multiply the practices of the church in our life and so inconvenient to have to meet the responsibilities of the communities in which we live.
But the spiritual life is not a taste for spiritual consolations. The spiritual life is a commitment to faith where we would prefer certainty. It depends on readiness. It demands constancy. It flourishes in awareness.
The ancients say that once upon a time a disciple asked the elder, “Holy One, is there anything I can do to make myself Enlightened?” And the Holy One answered, “As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.”
“Then of what use,” the surprised disciple asked, “are the spiritual exercises you prescribe?”
“To make sure,” the elder said, “that you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.”
From The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages by Joan Chittister (Crossroad, 1996).