Chapter 68
The Rule of St. Benedict December 26
Until one faces one's own resistance and overcomes one's own sense of inability, a human being is confined within the boundaries of personal desire, preference, and fear. We are often in need of a firm shove if we are to transgress those boundaries. Our Father Benedict desires to lead us beyond our self-imposed borders into an experience of Divine union wherein our personal identities are subsumed in God's creative work in the world around us. We are to become vessels of Spirit, channels of Power through which the Kingdom of Heaven flows into our circumstances.
Each small breakthrough in the matter of prayer practice, in study, in work frees us more and more to listen to and obey God's voice rather than the voice of our resistance. Each time we find that we were wrong about our inabilities, we find it easier to accept that we are not the designers of our own lives, that a larger Purpose is at play through us. Each step outside of our own boundaries confirms to our soul the opening line of Psalm 127: "Unless the LORD builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it."
Br. Chad 2012
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