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by Brant Pitre October 17, 2019 0 Comments
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Transcript:
In closing I’d like to end here with one of the most famous interpretations of the gospel for today from one of my favorite saints. It’s from St. Benedict of Nursia. I don’t know if there are any Benedictines out there watching the videos, but this one goes out for you here. In the rule of St. Benedict, there’s a very famous chapter in St. Benedict’s rule. This document was the foundation of Monasticism in Western Christianity. Saint Benedict is widely regarded as the father of Western Monasticism. In his Rule of Life that he wrote for his Benedictine monks, is this very short powerful book: The Rules of St Benedict. It’s very short, but there’s a lot in it. And one of the most famous chapters in the book is his chapter on humility. And many people are familiar with that chapter, but what they often miss is that Benedict anchors his famous teaching on humility in the gospel for today; in Luke 14. So let’s look at what Saint Benedict has to say. In the Rule of St Benedict, he says this:
Holy Scripture proclaims to us brothers: “Everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted” (Lk. 14:11)...
So the quote we just saw from Jesus’ parable of the banquet that he gave to the guests. Saint Benedict continues:
Therefore, brothers, if we wish to reach the highest peak of humility and soon arrive at the heavenly heights, we must, by our good deeds, set up a ladder like Jacob’s, upon which he saw angels climbing up and down.
So you remember Jacob’s ladder from Genesis 28? How do we get this ladder? How do we reach up to Heaven?
Without doubt, we should understand that climbing as showing us that we go up by humbling ourselves and down by praising ourselves... We may think of the sides of the ladder as our body and soul, the rungs as the steps of humility and discipline we must climb...
So pause there. St. Benedict’s famous image of the rungs of Jacob’s ladder to Heaven being rungs of humility is based on his interpretation of Luke 14, Jesus’ words in the parable for today). But what’s fascinating is he goes on to give 12 steps. Well you might be thinking, “Well how many rungs are there in this ladder?” Well there are 12 steps. So I thought this was funny. This is like the first twelve step program. You thought the twelve step program was invented in the 20th Century for alcoholics, people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs, but actually St Benedict invented the first twelve step program and it’s for those of us who are addicted to ourselves. Sorry, I can’t help it. I had to get that in there; I was waiting all day for that. So the twelve step program for those who are addicted to themselves is a program that’s oriented around humility. I’m going to read the steps to you because you might think, “Ok, that’s great Jesus, I want to be humble. I want to humble myself. How exactly do I do it?” Here are the steps that St. Benedict gave, in brief:
Anyway, that’s from Chapter 7 of the Rule of St. Benedict if you want to look at it. I just thought it was fascinating because what you see here is how the living tradition will take a single saying of Jesus: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, whoever humbles himself will exalt the exalted.” And then uses that to draw out the deep meaning of this very short parable and explain practically speaking, how do we as Christians, how do we as disciples of Jesus, live this out in our state of life (in our everyday life), so that we can cultivate both humility (the virtue of humility) and also the virtue of charity through almsgiving? And if we do both those things (hopefully), we’ll get a good seat at the table in the kingdom of Heaven.
I am given a better way of understanding the Bible . It makes listening the the gospel more interesting
The Mass Explained + The Mass Readings Explained <Main Product>
Always goes well. Never a problem with getting CP orders
Very happy
The Mass Explained + The Mass Readings Explained
I am given a better way of understanding the Bible . It makes listening the the gospel more interesting
The Mass Explained + The Mass Readings Explained <Main Product>
Always goes well. Never a problem with getting CP orders
Very happy
The Mass Explained + The Mass Readings Explained