Forgetting and Remembering
If memory serves (an increasingly “iffy” if), I have posted annually on dotCommonweal to mark the Feast of St. Benedict. And I probably have quoted from Columba Stewart’s fine book, Prayer and Community: The Benedictine Tradition. Here is a reflection from the book:
Awareness of the presence of God pervades the Rule. No cosy intimacy between equals, this is very much a relationship of awe and utter dependence. Humility, the central monastic virtue, begins in “fear of the Lord,” which simply means acknowledging the divine omnipresence and acting accordingly. The corresponding vice is forgetting that one stands before God.
One must “flee forgetfulness and always be mindful of what God has commanded” (RB 7. 10-11). Thus Benedict’s emphasis on listening and on lectio divina: these are ways of mindfulness, of attuning the spiritual senses to the divine presence.
A joyful and mindful feast to all.
I have had the deep spiritual pleasure of making two retreats at the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA. The Cistercian Monks there share their passion for prayer and the Rule of St. Benedict so beautifully it has transformed my life.
Today, while praying the Office of the Readings it was another pleasure to open the book to a reading from St. Benedict’s rule on always beginning any endeavor with a prayerful request for Christ’s help. So simple. So meaningful.
I’m very grateful to have July 11 to commemorate this Saint’s presence!
Lovely! I am late to this as I was on retreat this weekend and computer free.
This reminds me of a lovely experience of vespers on the eve of the feast of St. Benedict in 2002. I was at Monte Cassino with 3 other friends, just having stopped by. There were many noisy tourists who arrived simultaneously and were all around the big baroque church. Suddenly they all left and the church was still, quiet and peaceful. Then the Benedictines came out for Vespers. It was a special moment.
I often wonder whether the Catholic contemplative tradition as formalized by St. Benedict isn’t a major mark of the Church founded by Christ. I mean that the Protestant Church rejected the contemplative life for a very long time, while so far as I can see the Orthodox prizes “divinizaiton” of the mystic and takes that term literally, which I think cannot be theologically sound.
At any rate, St. Benedict is one of the saints to be most grateful for. HOly, wise and most practical to boot. Hasn’t he ben made patron saint of the ecological movement/ . What a treasure he is.
Frances,
thank you for sharing the Monte Cassino experience.
Ann,
a friend who is engaged in theological conversations with a number of Protestants has remarked upon the nexus between a loss of the contemplative element and a loss of devotion to Mary. That seems right to me.