December 26

Feast of St. Stephen, Deacon and Martyr

The Rule of St. Benedict: Chapter 68

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 it is not our personal identities, but God's creative work in the world around us that guides our movement.  We are to become vessels for 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 the truth of the opening line of Psalm 127: "Unless Adonai builds the house, their labor is in vain who build it."

Br. Chad