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.
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