The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 7 pt. 5
In St. Luke's Gospel, Jesus describes the "good soil" in the Parable of the Sower as "the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance." Goodness in soil is a set of conditions that can come and go and that, without perseverance in maintaining them, are likely to be lost.
As our Father Benedict seeks to orient our hearts towards a pervasive awareness of God's presence in our every moment, he admonishes us to beware of the strong forces within us that would rather operate without the awareness of God. It is our lusts, our desires that overpower our ability to act reasonably from an honest and good heart, that compromise the conditions of our good soil and prevent us from bearing the fruit we are called to bear into the world. And if there is anything in the human experience that requires patient endurance and our best effort, it is dealing with the strong forces within us that pull our gaze from the steady gaze of God.
But God does not leave us alone in this effort. This passage mentions the role of angels as agents of God's care. The overwhelming theme of this first step of humility is that we are not alone in our lives, and we ought not pretend that we are. We move and have our being in realms seen and unseen.
Br. Chad
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