St. Benedict and My Slow, Slow Surrender to Heaven

Posted on 07/10/2019 20:00 PM (Word On Fire Blog Feed) Having made my first promises in 2002 (after three years of dallying), I will this upcoming September celebrate seventeen years as a fully professed Benedictine Oblate. I’m sure my Holy Father Saint Benedict is rolling his eyes, rather unimpressed. After all these years, I can’t say I’m an impressive Benedictine, and I am sure he asks from heaven, “Have you gotten that Rule down yet?” Erm, well, no, Father. Not yet. Especially not that part about receiving all guests as Christ. “Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for He is going to say, ‘I came as a guest, and you received Me’” (Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 53). I became a Benedictine, rather than a Secular Franciscan, because my instincts have always been to the quiet side of life. I have always preferred prayerful contemplation and reading to almost anything else, and my instinct has always run…