Chapter 33
The Rule of Benedict November 10
Our national culture places an unqualified positive value on a practice that Benedict here calls a "most wicked vice." The phenomenon generated within the human being by the act of private ownership is looked upon by Americans as a firm foundation on which to build a stable society. Benedict looks at this same phenomenon and instructs that it is "to be cut out of the monastery by the roots."
This striking disconnect prompts me to step back and question how it is that this phenomenon has generated within me that which father Benedict sees as so wicked and destructive. How is it that the roots of this vice have infiltrated the soil in which the Gospel has been planted in me? And how do I pull the roots up while living outside of a monastery?
These are incredibly important and difficult questions. Questions I have wrestled with my entire adult life. Not so much from the perspective of monasticism, but certainly the call to love the poor, love God (and not Mammon), live in community and that all we have is God's. What is the root of the evil and what is celebrating and living a life of gratefulness? Not enough time this morning for me to begin articulating the questions, but I think this is a discussion worth having. Love and Peace, Julie
ReplyDeleteJulie, you and Monty are among those to whom I look for some glimpse of an answer. Thank you for your wrestling with these questions. It has borne fruit for us all.
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