For many years, one of my summer rhythms has been to read or study something different from what I do the rest of the year. I love that change of pace as the season shifts. Summer, for me, becomes a time of leisurely reading and deeper reflection.
This summer finds me focusing on Benedictine spirituality. Many of you know that I am an Ignatian-trained spiritual director, but you may not be aware that I am also a Benedictine Oblate with Subiaco Abbey here in Arkansas. Just as people sometimes ask about what I do as a spiritual director, I am often asked what a Benedictine Oblate is. I’d like to share a bit about that.
When I was in my mid-30s, life dealt me a very painful blow. I found myself divorced and a single mom of two young children. By God’s deep mercy and grace, I reached out to Him for the first time in many, many years. One way God answered my prayer was by placing a Benedictine nun in my life. Through Sister Audrey, I was introduced to Benedictine spirituality and spiritual direction. That encounter began a deep and lasting love for both.
Benedictine spirituality emphasizes balance, humility, stability, and attentiveness to God’s presence.
A Benedictine Oblate is someone who feels called to live the spirit of St. Benedict in everyday life without becoming a monk or nun. An oblate is connected to a particular Benedictine monastery and follows its spirituality while continuing to live at home, work, and care for family. In this way, Oblates bring the wisdom of the monastery into their homes, workplaces, and relationships, striving to seek God in all things.
Oblates seek to live a balanced life of prayer and work, rooted in the Rule of St. Benedict. This often includes simple practices such as daily prayer, Lectio Divina—a reflective way of reading Scripture—and attentiveness to God in ordinary moments. At its heart, it is about seeking God in all things and bringing a spirit of peace, hospitality, and humility into daily life.
To illustrate what draws me to Benedictine spirituality, I want to share a reflection on the Rule’s teaching on humility. Benedict devotes twelve chapters to this virtue. Full disclosure: I am very far from living this out—but I deeply desire to grow in it.
The eleventh step of humility teaches that we speak gently and without harshness, seriously and with becoming modesty, briefly and reasonably, without raising our voices, as it is written: “The wise are known by few words.”— The Rule of St. Benedict
Sister Joan Chittister, O.S.B., reflects on this:
“Humility, Benedict teaches, treads tenderly upon the life around it. When we know our place in the universe, we can afford to value the place of others. We need them, in fact, to make up what is wanting in us. We stand in the presence of others without having to take up all the space. We don’t have to dominate conversations or consume all the time or call all the attention to ourselves. There is room, humility knows, for all of us in life. We are each an ember of the mind of God, sent to illumine one another through the dark places of life, toward sanctuaries of truth and peace where God can be God for us—because we have relieved ourselves of the burden of trying to be God ourselves. We simply unfold and become.”
The Tao teaches:
The best people are like water.
They benefit all things
and do not compete with them.
They settle in low places,
one with nature, one with Tao.
“Settling in low places”—being gentle with others, soft in our words, kind in our hearts, calm in our responses—never heckling, never smothering others with noise or derision—is an aspect of Benedictine spirituality that the world might do well to revisit. (I would add—myself included.)
Other reflections from Sr. Chittister that move my heart and spirit:
• The humble person never uses speech to grind another person to dust. The humble person cultivates a soul in which everyone is safe. A humble person handles the presence of the other with soft hands, a velvet heart, and an unveiled mind.
• Prayer is to live always under the influence of Scripture and in the breath of the Spirit.
• Make no doubt about it: the ability to listen to another, to sit silently in the presence of God, to give sober heed, and to ponder is the nucleus of Benedictine spirituality.
I’m looking forward to spending more time with St. Benedict and Sr. Chittister this summer. If you are interested in learning more, two books I am reading and praying with are:
THE RULE OF BENEDICT—Insights for the Ages
WISDOM DISTILLED FROM THE DAILY
I’ll close with a prayer I began praying in my 30s, one that has marked my life:
My Creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen—Seventh Step prayer, Alcoholics Anonymous
