L I S T E N carefully, my child, to your master's precepts, and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20). Receive willingly and carry out effectively your loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.
To you, therefore, my words are now addressed, whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the Lord Christ, the true King, and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of obedience.
And first of all, whatever good work you begin to do, beg of Him with most earnest prayer to perfect it, that He who has now deigned to count us among His children may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds. For we must always so serve Him with the good things He has given us, that He will never as an angry Father disinherit His children, nor ever as a dread Lord, provoked by our evil actions, deliver us to everlasting punishment as wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory.
Let us arise, then, at last, for the Scripture stirs us up, saying, "Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep" (Rom. 13:11). Let us open our eyes to the deifying light, let us hear with attentive ears the warning which the divine voice cries daily to us, "Today if you hear His voice, harden not your hearts" (Ps. 94:8). And again, "Whoever has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches" (Matt. 11-15; Apoc. 2:7). And what does He say? "Come, My children, listen to Me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord" (Ps. 33:12). "Run while you have the light of life, lest the darkness of death overtake you" (John 12:35).
Many of you will realize that I lifted the two days of readings directly from the OSB website.
"That by the labor of obedience you may return to Him from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience." The thought rises that perhaps this is the reason we have decided to become Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani, in order to put off that "sloth of disobedience." We do this by adopting the Rule of Benedict, and the Rule of Life, designed for the LCG, by the LCG and Fr. Michael.
Every Christian might well say, but by following Christ we are already doing Christ's will. That may be, it may also be that you are stronger than I am who needs the Rule of Benedict, and the Rule of Life, just to stay faithful long enough to allow Christ's redemptive work to have a chance in me.
As human beings we are prone to think of ourselves as somewhere between, I am a worm; or, I don't need any help, thank you very much. The Rule today is saying if you have made your decision to take up the battle of renouncing your own will in order to follow the will of Christ, then you have "chosen the better part." Salvation is open to all, and attainable by many paths, but we are a group who need the Rule of Benedict and the Rule of Life to keep us on the right path.
May God bring us altogether to everlasting life.
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