Prologue
LISTEN carefully, my child, to your master's
precepts, and incline the ear of your heart (Prov. 4:20).
Receive willingly and carry out effectively your
loving father's advice, that by the labor of obedience you may return to Him
from whom you had departed by the sloth of disobedience.
To you, therefore, my words are now addressed,
whoever you may be, who are renouncing your own will to do battle under the
Lord Christ, the true King, and are taking up the strong, bright weapons of
obedience. And first of all, whatever good work you begin to do, beg of Him
with most earnest prayer to perfect it, that He who has now deigned to count us
among His children may not at any time be grieved by our evil deeds.
For we must always so serve Him with the good things
He has given us, that He will never as an angry Father disinherit His children,
nor ever as a dread Lord, provoked by our evil actions, deliver us to
everlasting punishment as wicked servants who would not follow Him to glory.
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I begin on this
first day of the year with a solemn promise and desire: to grow closer to the
path a I chose as an Oblate of Mt. Angel Abbey, a monastery of the Order of St.
Benedict. This is my first step but I invite whoever might read these words to
travel with me on this path of faith. My prayer an my intent for me to grow
ever less and less so the will, word and love God can grow more and more within
me.
I have frequently
considered these first few words of the rule. The first word can often times
simply free me in place. Listen! To
listen to the master's precepts should be easy enough but there is a cautionary
note for me.
When I listen, what
am I actually hearing? The word's of my master or words of my own? Worse yet
are they words of another to whom I should never listen but who often seems to
be at the edge of my ear?
What I hear, see and
experience cannot be trusted without careful study. I have learned that my
feelings are driven by emotions projected out of my past and they can subtly,
or profoundly morph, what is real and true into something colored by the
peculiar construct of my individual reality. I no longer wish to listen to what
is from me but only to what He wish for me the hear.
To listen is my
desire, my hope and my new focus and direction but I must learn to discern what
is from the master from what is not. I am reminded that the word obedience
descends from the Latin word obedire which
means to listen but not just listen but to listen deeply to where listening
becomes a transformative encounter.
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