UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

INSPIRATION

This Lent devotional is partly inspired by Esther de Waal’s (1) Lent book, ”Seeking God’ (that was the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Lent book, 40 years ago in 1984)  and her comments on Benedict’s Rule,(2) which was written just under 1,500 years ago for disciples following Christ in a prayerful community. Benedict was born in AD 480, and life was not easy in the fifth century AD. Esther de Waal writes: ‘The world into which St Benedict was born was a troubled, torn apart uncertain world … The fall of Rome seventy years before the birth of Benedict had been a traumatic shock to the entire civilized world … successive barbarians begun to dismember the empire and the church too was torn apart.’ (3) Benedict wrote a Rule in AD 540 for monastic living, which helped chart many through these stormy waters. Benedict’s small group of monks in his lonely outpost in Monte Cassino, ‘may have seemed irrelevant to the troubling social and political realities of the day. It soon became a major attraction to those seeking spiritual renewal, wholeness and stability. Even barbarian kings came to witness the distinctive life of the monastery.’ (4) Obedience is a strong theme in the Rule: following this Rule was not for the fainthearted!

This was a call to a deep and challenging life focused on prayer and laying down one’s life, following biblical Christian principles living in community with a committed body of believers. It wasn’t explicitly evangelistic, but these small groups of believers became like a beacon set on a hill. Many were drawn to the light and culture of the Western European nations and were transformed by the biblical Christian worldview.

There are many approaches to cultivating a ‘prayer life’. Esther de Waal says, ‘Prayer lies at the heart of the Benedictine life; it holds everything together, it sustains every other activity … prayer can never be set apart from life, it is the life itself. Prayer is opus dei, the work of God and nothing whatsoever is to be preferred to it.’(5)

RECOMMENDED APPLICATION

The monastic prayer life was both corporate and private. I would recommend contextualizing for today in the following way. If possible over this season of Lent, if you want to use these daily blogs inspired by the ancient practice of reading the Psalams in community, I recommend that you read the 5 psalms for the day with your spouse or your household, maybe taking it in turns to read the Psalms out loud. When you have finished, read the psalm that is being focussed on, for that day, once more. Next, in silence each person on their own should then look at the 1,2 or sometimes 3 verses to be focussed on for the day, asking the Lord what those words in the psalm actually mean. Then spend a further 2 minutes in silence asking the Lord what He is saying to you personally through those verses. Finally share with your spouse or your household what the Lord has been saying to you, (as appropriate) and then pray for one another. In this blog I share my reflection on the verses for the day, that you could read at some point, towards the end of these steps.                

References

1 De Waal, E. Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict. Liturgical Press, 1.

2 Benedict. The Rule.

3 De Waal, E. Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict. Liturgical Press, 1.

4  De Waal, E. Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict. Liturgical Press, 1.

5  De Waal, E. Seeking God: The Way of St Benedict. Liturgical

Press, 129.