December 14

Feast of St. John of the Cross

The Rule of St. Benedict December 14

St. Benedict's question from the Gospel of Matthew, "Friend, for what have you come?" is a question we must each consider regularly as we orient ourselves along the path we are called to follow.  Whether my vocation is religious, priestly, diaconal, lay, or some combination thereof, my soul's answer to this question looks no different than the answers of those to whom our Father Benedict posed the question in the sixth century.

A Benedictine's answer to this central question is found back in the Prologue to the Rule.  We come to be formed in the likeness of Christ--as souls in which God is fully at home--by means, as Sr. Joan writes, of "a way of life immersed in the Scriptures, devoted to the common life, and dedicated to the development of human community . . . simple, regular, and total, a way of living . . ."

When we have walked a long while on a certain path, it is to be expected that challenges will accompany us when we are called to change course and follow a different way.  Our ability to persist in the face of these challenges depends on the clarity of our our intention, on our firm answer to our Father Benedict's question, "For what have you come?"

Br. Chad 2012