Every night at Compline, we reflect on a short passage from the Rule to remind us of what we are striving to live, and to listen to what the Lord may have to say to us. We offer here our own personal and anonymous reflections, contributed to by the whole community. We hope that, by sharing in our spiritual life, you will be able to explore further your own.
Prologue 45:
What makes these final verses of the prologue so attractive is their humanity. A school of the Lord’s service is in St Benedict’s mind first of all a school of the Lord’s mercy: not only for learning to serve the Lord, but to serve as the Lord, to wash the feet of our brothers, remembering what we have already received ourselves. There is also something of the drop-everything-and-follow magnetism of the calling of the first disciples, attracted by a promise, as I think we monks are today: that the measure of holiness is not in what I do or achieve; the measure of my Charity is in what my heart can receive from God, in his Church, in the brethren, in the poor. God has chosen to put us through a school of mercy, that we be satisfied by his love.
