Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter

Readings of the day: RB 2:1-10 Gifts Needed by an Abbess or Abbot

Mass: Ac 18:9-18; Resp Ps 47; Jn 16:20-23

Sr Kathy DeVico, Abbess, Redwoods Monastery

DO NOT BE AFRAID. GO ON SPEAKING,

AND DO NOT BE SILENT, FOR I AM WITH YOU.

When I was introduced to the Rule of St Benedict some 20 years ago, I was especially struck by the chapter we begin today, that is, Ch. 2 ‘The Qualities of the Abbot or Abbess.’ I reflected on those I knew who held leadership positions, bosses I had over the years and others with similar responsibilities. My first thought was that the spiritual and temporal leader of a monastic community has the most difficult job description I have ever read. Still, there are qualities called forth in the Abbess or Abbot that are relevant for any Christian in a leadership role be it supervisor, teacher, catechist, mother, father, elder, aunt, older sibling, etc. Here are just a few: 

• She must never teach or decree or command anything that would deviate from the Lord’s instructions.
• She must point out all that is good and holy more by example than by words. If she teaches that something is not to be done, then neither must she do it.
• She should avoid all favoritism.
• She is to show equal love to everyone.
• Remember to what you are called, aware that more will be expected of a person to whom more has been entrusted.

The last quality included I find most challenging. Why not try it in whatever environment you find yourself in today. May the living and true God grant us the grace. 

• She must accommodate and adapt herself to each one’s character and intelligence.

It is not good when we look down on others like heartless judges, lording it over them and always trying to teach them lessons. That is itself a subtle form of violence. Saint John of the Cross proposed a different path: “Always prefer to be taught by all, rather than to desire teaching even the least of all”. And he added advice on how to keep the devil at bay: “Rejoice in the good of others as if it were your own, and desire that they be given precedence over you in all things; this you should do wholeheartedly. You will thereby overcome evil with good, banish the devil, and possess a happy heart. Try to practise this all the more with those who least attract you. Realize that if you do not train yourself in this way, you will not attain real charity or make any progress in it”.

(Gaudete et Exsultate, 117)

AMEN, AMEN, I SAY TO YOU,

WHATEVER YOU ASK THE FATHER IN MY NMAE HE WILL GIVE YOU.