Readings of the Day
RB: Ch 43:13-19
Mass: Macc 4:36-37, 52-59; Resp Ps (1 Chr 29); Lk 19:45-48
We praise your glorious name, O mighty God.
MY HOUSE SHALL BE A HOUSE OF PRAYER, BUT YOU HAVE MADE IT INTO A DEN OF THIEVES.
ALL THE PEOPLE PROSTRATED THEMSELVES AND ADORED AND PRAISED HEAVEN, WHO HAD GIVEN THEM SUCCESS.
With today's readings from the Gospel and the first Book of Maccabees, my thoughts went straight to a commentary on Ch 52 of the Rule of Saint Benedict, "The Oratory of the Monastery". The comments are on the first verse where Benedict tells us, "The oratory ought to be what it is called, and nothing else is to be done or stored there."
"Let the oratory be what it is called," Benedict said. Have a place where you can go in order to be about nothing but the business of being in the presence of God so that every other space in your life can become more conscious of that Presence as well. More than that, Benedict asks us to be there in a special way-with quiet and with awareness, not laughing or talking or lounging or distracting but alert and immersed and enshrouded in the arms of God. Americans, of course, have made of God a casual circumstance. We have prayer meetings with coffee cups in our hands and listen to psalmody with our legs crossed and our arms spread-eagled on the backs of our pews. We avoid churches and say that since God is everywhere, any place is good enough. All of which is true, at one level. But Benedictine spirituality says also that to know God in time and space we must regularly seek to find God in one time and space that enables us to recognize God more easily in every other one.
(Joan Chittister, The Rule of Benedict: Insight for the Ages, pp. 139-40)
Somehow I don't think St Cecilia would be too disappointed with this reminder.
On that very day the altar was reconsecrated with songs, harps flutes, and cymbals.
(1 Macc 4:54)
SAINT CECILIA, PRAY FOR US.
Today's photo: Courtesy of our chaplain.
© Gertrude Feick 2019
© Gertrude Feick 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment