February – April, 2021 724-805-2291 Volume 74, Number 1 e-mail address:
[email protected] ; web site: http://www.svaoblates.org WATCHING FOR THINGS “HIDDEN UNDER OUR BEDS”: WELCOMING GOD TO CLEANSE US OF THE DARKESS WITHIN Dear Oblates, Oblate novices, and Friends, stipulates, “The [monks’] beds are to be inspected Darkness and weakness in monastic life frequently by the abbot, lest private possessions be What impression do people generally have of monks - found there.” In 33:1 and 33:7, the keeping of private or other vowed religious? At least for Catholic Christians possessions without the abbot’s permission is it is probably that those who profess religious vows are considered “this evil practice” and “this most evil spiritually strong, and there may be some truth to that. In practice.” How could monks who are so thoroughly order to profess vows of obedience, stability, and tested and trained in virtue become so vulnerable to the conversatio morum (or the better known vows of poverty, vice of greed - coupled with disobedience and lack of chastity, and obedience), a person must have achieved trust? Furthermore, we also find references in the Rule a certain degree of spiritual maturity and the ability to to monks’ giving in to “the evil of grumbling” (34:6, make sacrifices of lesser things for a higher good - among other occurrences), sick monks’ making ultimately for God Himself. St. Benedict says in his final “excessive demands” (36:4), a possible “spirit of vanity” chapter of the Rule that those who observe the Rule (38:2) in monks who are gifted to read well, the breaking “can show that we have some degree of virtue and the of rules of silence (42:9 and other passages), and beginnings of monastic life” (73:1).