RB Reflection: 8 May 2--8

Today is a guest writer.

Holy Rule of St Benedict

Prologue Cont.

Jan 7, May 8, Sept 7

And so we are going to establish a school for the service of the Lord…

As LCG members and candidates we are pupils, disciples, learning to service the Lord. We are establishing a school to serve the Lord in the world. By our daily prayer. By our daily experiences. By the leading of the Spirit. By seeing God’s actions in the world. By Christ’s love. By loving our brothers and sisters. By loving our neighbors. By loving our enemies.

In founding it we hope to introduce nothing harsh or burdensome.

But if a certain strictness results from the dictates of equity

for the amendment of vice or the preservation of charity

do not be at once dismayed and fly from the way of salvation,

whose entrance cannot but be narrow (Matt.7:14)

I don’t even remember going up there. I had decided I wasn’t going to do it that year. But there I was getting my feet washed on Maundy Thursday. As I reflected back over the experience in the following days I recalled Jesus’ words to Peter, “Unless I wash you you have no part with me”. In what exactly, I pondered? The answer came: following Christ on the narrow path. Putting our feet into His Holy footprints. So not to fall off the path, to keep going, not to be afraid. To go where, He is going, to the cross.

For as we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand

and we run the way of God’s commandments

with unspeakable sweetness of love (Ps.118:32)

Oh, our expanding hearts. As God’s loved is pour in. To overflowing. Overflowing to family and to friends. To the nasty grocery clerk and to the people in the weird church. To the people in the mosque and…and ...and…

Thus, never departing from His school,

but persevering in the monastery according to His teaching until death,

we may by patience share in the sufferings of Christ (1 Peter 4:13)

and deserve to have a share also in His Kingdom.

We take our school to the world. To our homes, churches, workplaces and neighborhoods. To live as Christ lived. As servants to others, as teachers, as listeners, as healers, as lovers of all of God’s people.

…In Christ’s Peace,

A LCG Grandma