Brueggemann, Benedict: Christians living in the new year
Edward Seward
“The gift of Christmas contradicts everything we sense about our own life. Our world feels unsavable, and here is the baby named Jesus, ‘Save.’ Be ready to have your sense of the world contradicted by this gift from God.”—Walter Brueggemann, Devotions for Advent, Abundance, p. 67.
We listen to the news. We become depressed. Every day, something more terrible happens. We feel helpless and powerless. The gift of love and the gifts of Christmas and Epiphany bring hope. I keep thinking about St. Benedict. The world is crashing all around him. Rome is being destroyed by Germanic invaders who have taken over the country. He tries to escape and become a hermit. It doesn’t work. He joins a community. He decides the community needs an alternative way to live together in love and with consideration for others, and he develops The Rule of Benedict.
War Memorial Chapel National Cathedral
This is, of course, an oversimplification of this part of history.
The beginning of the prologue to the rule is, Listen with the ear of your heart. This is the call I hear this Christmas season. I am being called to a more intentional living of the Rule of Benedict in community. I recently reviewed the rule for a presentation for the Community of Hope training. This is training for lay people in pastoral care, steeped in Benedictine Spirituality. I thank those friends who made the commitment to learn and live Benedict’s Rule. They may think I was helping them. Maybe so, but in reality, they are and continue to retrain me to live intentionally in love now and in the coming new year.
St. Benedict shared the love that came down at Christmas, learning to live in a community. My Epiphany prayer is that we can also share that love with others.