Chapter 59
The Rule of Benedict August 13
The term, "oblate," originally described children whose parents offered, or made an oblation of, them to a monastery as described in this chapter. Laying aside the manifold cultural and religious problems that our perspective perceives in such a practice, the tangible image of this exchange can help us make sense of what it is to be an oblate in our context. As I said in my Summer Letter, a Benedictine oblate offers her "secular" life to God by means of a particular "monastery" by endeavoring to give the practice of that "monastery" an expression in her own life.
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