The angel spoke to me,
saying, “Come here. I will show you the
bride, the wife of the Lamb.” He took me
in spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming
down out of heaven from God. It gleamed
with the splendor of God. Revelation
21:9-11a
Nathanael said to him,
“How do you know me?” Jesus answered and
said to him, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.” Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the
Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Do you believe because I told you that
I saw you under the fig tree? You will
see greater things than this.” John
1:48-50
Piety
Father, through the labor of obedience, help us to turn away
from our habits. Jesus, using the tools
you provide and exhibited in your life on earth, help us to take on those
practices. Holy Spirit, bestow upon us a
new identity, so that we can see greater things than just the grass under our
fig tree. Amen.
Study
To what heights can we climb from under the fig tree of our
existence? To emerge from our grounding,
we, like Nathaniel will have to leave behind our contradictory human nature –
our thoughts, words or actions which are driven by our self-ish ego.
Like Nathaniel, we are invited to share in the vision of the
Kingdom. To climb those stairs, we must
surrender. Surrender self. Surrender ego. Surrender expectations. To gain heaven, we must lose this world. Leave it behind as we climb Jacob’s ladder.
In the Benedictine Rule, the primary quality of the Christ-follower
is humility. We do not have to enter a monastery to exhibit
those qualities. But the path into the
monastery is a path of growth in one direction.
The Rule and the community, guided by Scripture and practices – help to
form the member along the way. Every
step of entering into community and living there depends upon the follower
renouncing their selfish desires and following God’s desires. Humility has stages or steps in order to achieve
it to the highest degree.
Along with vows, one step for a monastic is to renounce even
the very name in which they were known and to take on a new identity in Christ,
in the church and in the Christian community.
That new identity pledges mutual
obedience, humility and restraint to the community. Then, they go through stages in to the
community – postulants, novices, temporary profession and then solemn
vows.
Action
We are not expected to go leap to the top of the ladder in a
single bound distancing ourselves from the ways we have known for our whole
lives. Habits of 55 years – in my case
-- have taken root and are hard to supplant.
However, to grow in a new direction, we have to get out from under the shade
of our fig trees so we can grow in a new direction. Like a young vine is pruned to grow along the
lines of a trellis, we can grow away from our habits, neglect, and laziness
into new virtues of piety, study and action
But, to get to the top of the ladder, we have to take it one
rung at a time. Take small steps – like being
the first to show respect or patience for others. Then
we can all become beginner’s again -- postulants to a new way of living.
“After that, you can set out for the loftier summits of the
teachings and virtues we mentioned above, and under God’s protection you will
reach them. Amen.” (Conclusion, Chapter 73, RB1980: The Rule
of St. Benedict in English).
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