March 25, July 25, November 24
Should a monk make a mistake in a psalm, responsory, refrain or reading, they must make satisfaction there before all. If they do not use this occasion to humble themselves, they will be subjected to more severe punishment for failing to correct by humility the wrong committed through negligence. Children, however, are to be whipped for such a fault.
In a meditating and monastic community, the oratory is the meditation room, and the meditation room is the oratory. There is, at least, morning, midday, and evening prayer all based around the psalms, antiphons, and readings. The communal meditation practice is then integrated into these prayer times.
Mistakes made in prayer are much like mistakes made in the rest of life. We will have a response to them, perhaps even a reaction. However, because people of faith generally reverence prayer, mistakes in the intimacy of communal prayer can at times magnify our responses/reactions to mistakes in general.
There is a difference between making a mistake while learning something new and making a mistake while practicing something known enough. All responses and reactions, however, can tell us something about our motivations and what is influencing us – if we notice them.
In this chapter, Benedict shows us, once again, that he wants us growing in attention at communal prayer. Negligence and carelessness can reveal that attention is elsewhere. Our responses to this negligence and carelessness can rise out of many things – performance anxiety, inner harshness, disinterest, self-compassion, and healthy humour among them. What Benedict wants to see in all this is a person choosing humility in response to error.
Failing or even refusing to express humility can show pride. Pride can mean that someone is, for some reason, not reverencing the God within them and in community. It can mean that they are somehow too caught up in themselves when communal prayer is about attention on communal prayer. Communal prayer sets the tone for the rest of community life. All community life is a practice of love and love grows humbly. And to grow in love is to grow in God.
Humility is a sign that this journey into God is being engaged. To humbly acknowledge a mistake, there and then, is a sign that the person is, in some way, in touch with humility and choosing it. Acknowledgement is simply a small yet significant display of this. It may be a bow of the head, a hand placed on the heart, a small ‘sorry’. It says that there is something going on within and around us that is bigger than us. Communal prayer helps us leave egocentricity behind.
This chapter shows us that any work of love requires attention. True love can only be in the present moment. Cooking the family meal, doing the housework, eating together, comforting each other – all these things and more become prayer in themselves when we attend to them now in and with love.
Since by your obedience to the truth you have purified yourselves for genuine mutual love, love one another steadily from the heart; for you have been born anew, not from any perishable but from imperishable seed, the living and enduring word of God. For all flesh is as grass, and all its glory like the wild flower’s. Grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of the Lord remains for ever. And this is the word that has been proclaimed to you. (1 Peter 1:22-25, RNJB)
Thank you Andrew for this post. Looking forward to reading and reflecting when I have printed this. P.S. I bought a ‘file’ to keep all your posts in order. Much better than popping them quickly in the filing cabinet. Lent will be with us next week, it seems only yesterday when we welcomed the birth of the Christ child. Wishing you blessings and peace and thank you again for your postings. Trish
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Thanks Trish. Great to hear that you are valuing our reflections here at the house.
Andrew
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Andrew .. thanks for your exposition of this chapter, which I have found to be both freeing and a salutary reminder. Freeing, in that it acknowledges human mistakes ( mine and others) as part of the experience and sometimes a doorway into the sacred) and salutary in that it places the reason for this kind of prayer at the heart of community and gives it a reverence that includes the one and the all of life – hence the need for a humble outlook (what I as an individual may experience is only a very small part of the picture and all needs to be directed towards God, the object of our worship)
Julia Bee (oblate)
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Hi Julia..
So happy to hear that you are getting much from the wisdom of the Rule. It’s a real joy for us here at the house to see fruit of our experience with community and the Rule being appreciated by the community at large. Thanks Julia
Andrew
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Dear Andrew, I want to say thank you to you for your posts on the rule of St. Benedict. I appreciate reading, pondering, learning and hopefully growing as I reflect on your writings. I find I look forward to your posts. You are fortunate to have the gift you are receiving this year at the Meditatio House. I’m sure you appreciate it as you grow in gratitude for this opportunity in your life. I live and teach in northern California – San Francisco Bay Area. Dee (Dolores Copeland rscj)
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Hi Dolores…
Thanks for the comment. We are greatly encouraged here to know that our communal reflections are being valued – and looked forward to! Yes, the gift of the time here is a wonderful thing. As an oblate, as a Christian living in the Benedictine spirit, it is a life altering thing being here at the house and soaking in the spirit of the Rule.
Andrew
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