Listen My Son. Dwight Longenecker

further reference and meditation. The reader who wishes to push further into Benedict's wisdom will do well to read this commentary with the Scriptures close at hand. It may do to simply pick out one Scripture reference for the day and read it along with its whole context. This will weave Scripture reading into Benedict's Rule in a way which will not only improve the reader's Bible knowledge, but will also help him apply the living Scriptures to his daily life in a dynamic way.

      Finally, this book is not meant to be an easy or a quick read. The tradition of lectio divina is that of prayerful, slow and meditative reading. So each day's text from the Rule, the meditation and the Scripture references are meant to key a somewhat longer time of meditation and contemplation. In a busy life it may not be possible to take more than a few lines. There is nothing wrong with that as long as those few thoughts are taken with the reader through the day. Since a slow and meditative reading is recommended it should also follow that one read through is not enough. It should be read through at least three times in one full year. The monks read the Rule over and over again. It wouldn't hurt us to do the same.

      This book may also be the start for more laymen and women to follow the Benedictine way in their own homes. To follow the way most fully it is a good idea to establish contact with a monastery or convent close to home. Most religious houses are pleased to welcome men and women for retreats and will guide newcomers to this tradition. In addition there is the opportunity to become an oblate of a Benedictine convent or monastery. An oblate is similar to a third order Franciscan: they maintain a close link with the religious house, supporting the monks or nuns in their vocation and drawing strength from the friendship and support which the monastery has to offer. Thus together the religious celibate and the married layman complement one another's calling as they run together on the ‘path of God's commandments with an inexpressible delight of love’.

      The Rule of St Benedict, translated by Abbot Parry OSB (Gracewing, Leominster, 1997).

      January 1

      May 2

      September 1

      THE PROLOGUE (A)

       Listen my son to the instructions of your Master, turn the ear of your heart to the advice of a loving father; accept it willingly and carry it out vigorously; so that through the toil of obedience you may return to him from whom you have separated by the sloth of disobedience.

       To you, then, whoever you may be, are my words addressed, who, by the renunciation of your own will, are taking up the strong and glorious weapons of obedience in order to do battle in the service of the Lord Christ, the true King.

       First of all, whenever you begin any good work, you must ask of God with the most urgent prayer that it may be brought to completion by him, so that he, who has now deigned to reckon us in the number of his sons, may not later on be made sad by our wicked actions. For we must at all times use the good gifts he has placed in us, so that he will not later on disinherit us as an angry father disinherits his sons; nor like a feared lord, who has been roused to anger by our sins, hand over to eternal punishment us wicked slaves for refusing to follow him to glory.

      From the first words of the Rule, Benedict speaks to us as a loving father and calls us into a relationship with our heavenly Father. The theme of fatherhood runs through Benedict's whole Rule, for the abbot is the father of the monastic community. As such he stands in the place of Christ, and in Benedict's day theologians spoke much of Christ as the ‘father’ of the new humanity. Like the abbot, the cellarer too is called to be ‘a father to the whole community’. So Benedict sees the monastic community as a loving Christian family, and his Rule can be read as an invaluable guide for the Christian family even today.

      As our loving father in God Benedict calls us first of all to engage our will, so we may set off on the path of holiness. The main obstacle to our spiritual progress is inertia, or sloth. Sloth is not just slovenly laziness. Instead it is a state of mind which is unable to take spiritual action. It is a spiritual torpor, disinterestedness and complacency. Benedict makes clear that this spiritual condition is a deadly downward spiral. Such inertia is caused by disobedience and causes further disobedience.

      If disobedience is the cause of spiritual torpor, then obedience is the remedy (cf. Bar. 4.28). So Benedict rouses us with a new call to take up ‘the strong and glorious weapons of obedience in order to do battle in the service of the Lord Christ’. It is unfashionable in an age of relativistic individualism to call for obedience, but the gospel has always called individuals to submit their will to God's (Matt. 6.10). Benedict calls us to engage our will, but he also encourages us because it is God who is at work in us bringing his will to completion in us (Phil. 2.12–13).

      This call to obedience is one of the three foundation stones of the Benedictine life. The Rule opens by calling us to attention with the word ‘listen’ and it is no coincidence that the root of the word ‘obey’ is ‘to hear or listen’. So the kind of obedience called for is not the childish, mindless obedience of the military drone, but an obedience which first attentively seeks to understand. So we are to ‘turn the ear of [our] heart to the advice of a loving father’.

      As Christian fathers we rightly expect obedience from our children (Eph. 6.1). The fool expects mindless obedience by virtue of force. But the loving father – like Benedict himself – nurtures an open-hearted, attentive and intelligent obedience in which the will is fully engaged and attracted by love.

      January 2

      May 3

      September 2

      THE PROLOGUE (B)

       Let us then at last arouse ourselves, even as Scripture incites us in the words, ‘Now is the hour for us to rise from sleep.’ Let us, then, open our eyes to the divine light, and hear with our ears the divine voice as it cries out to us daily. ‘Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts,’ and again, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the Churches.’ And what does the Spirit say? ‘Come, my sons, listen to me; I shall teach you the fear of the Lord.’ ‘Run while you have the light of life lest the darkness of death overwhelm you.’

      Benedict calls us from spiritual inertia to spiritual initiative; from complacency to action. But there is more here than the summons to a life of faithful good works. Benedict's call to holiness is an alarm – a wake-up call. Like St Paul, Benedict is calling us to rise out of sleep (Rom. 13.11).

      All the spiritual traditions teach that the unenlightened state is like being asleep. It has never been more true than in contemporary Western society. Sometimes it seems that the whole modern world is conspiring to weave a magical spell over us. Television, advertising, and all the tools of popular culture continually bombard us with seductive and hypnotic false images. If we are not careful, this false culture can dull our senses and lull us into a kind of trance, and we begin to exist in a nether world of attractive lies and half-truths.

      Benedict calls us to awake out of this dozy world and face reality. Beginning the spiritual journey means we must wake up and see ourselves and our world for the first time. We must listen intently to the divine voice which cries out daily (Ps. 95.8). This profound openness to God's voice and God's way of seeing requires a radical transformation in our whole viewpoint. It is like seeing in colour when once we saw in black and white.

      To live in this wakeful state is the work of a lifetime, and for the first time Benedict says we must ‘run’ in this path. Run, while you have the light, he says, lest the darkness of death overtake you (John 12.35). Running is an apt metaphor for the spiritual life because running is a discipline which is both exhausting and exhilarating. To run in Benedict's way is to practise the difficult art of contemplation – the art of being spiritually awake and alert.

      This sounds the stuff of mystical retreats in caves, but the alert