May 27

Chapter 7 pt. 2

The Rule of Benedict May 27

Benedict chooses troublesome language to describe the first step of humility.  Words such as "fear" and "hell-fire" seem to fit better in a Flannery O'Connor story than in the Rule.  So what is Father Benedict getting at with such a vocabulary?  I don't want to dismiss or explain away his harsh words, but it's important, I believe, to peer through them to what lies deeper than the literal.  When I do this, I see the essence of the first step of humility to be a shifting of focus from the egocentric to the theocentric.  Of course, this first step is itself the ongoing work of a lifetime.