Day 27 : 27 March

Hear our voice, O Lord, according to your faithful love.

Lectionary readings (Click the links to see the readings):
| Wisdom 2.1,12-22 | Psalm 34.15-22 | John 7.25-30 |

Seoraksan, South Korea.

Humility (cont.) extracted from: Joan Chittister: The monastery of the heart: an invitation to a meaningful life. Blue Bridge, 2011, ch. 21, pp. 169-186

… continued from yesterday

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The warning is directed at
the loud and boisterous
who take all the air out of the room,
who make real conversation impossible,
who draw all attention to themselves,
who lack gravity and reflection
and make it impossible for everyone else, as well.

Here humility leads us
to learn what a really good time is
for everyone else,
and never to use ridicule of another
as the counterfeit of it.

The eleventh step of humility
is that "we speak gently and without laughter…,
briefly and reasonably."

Humility requires that our conversations
and never barbed or bitter,
that we use no group, no community,
for the sake only
of the personal agendas of the self.

Benedictine spirituality leads us
to free ourselves
from recrimination
and the acid of revenge.

The eleventh step of humility says that
to be Benedictine,
we must speak words of peace
peacefully,
and words of care
carefully,
and words of love
lovingly,
and all words gently.

continued tomorrow …

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Dmitry Stepanovich Bortniansky (1751- 1825). The Cherubic Hymn no. 7, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, dir. Paul Hillier.

May God our Redeemer show us compassion and love. Amen.