Читать книгу Listen My Son - Dwight Longenecker - Страница 30

In the first place to love the Lord God with all one's heart, with all one's soul and with all one's strength.

Then to love one's neighbour as oneself

Then not to kill

Not to commit adultery Not to steal

Not to covet

Not to bear false witness

To honour all men

Not to do to another what one would not wish to have done to oneself

To deny oneself in order to follow Christ

To punish one's body

Not to seek pleasures

To love fasting

To relieve the poor

To clothe the naked

To visit the sick

To bury the dead

To give help in trouble

To console the sorrowful

To avoid worldly behaviour

To set nothing before the love of Christ

This chapter is full of riches, and four lifetimes would be too short to plumb its depths, much less four days. Like all of Benedict's Rule, chapter four reads like common sense, but on closer reading we see a deep inner logic. We see how it is imbued with Scripture, and how its simple wisdom flows from a profound understanding of God's grace working within and through the complexities of human nature.

The first part of the chapter can be broken down into two sections. The first opens with two general rules: Jesus’ summary of the law to love God and our neighbour (Matt. 22.37–39; Mark 12.30–31; Luke 10.27). Then flowing from this are the commands not to injure others by killing, stealing, coveting, and lying. The section is summed up with two other general rules: to honour everyone (1 Pet. 2.17), and to treat others as we wish to be treated (Tobit 4.16; Matt. 7.12; Luke 6.31).

The second part of the reading has to do with self-control. It starts with this verse: ‘To deny oneself in order to follow Christ’. So we should discipline the body. And the later verse which reads ‘Not to seek pleasures’ has been charmingly translated by Catherine Wybourne as, ‘Not to hug good things to oneself’. Finally, we exercise self-control with fasting. The practice of fasting is a discipline which opens windows of the soul. Just one aspect of the benefit of fasting is a greater identification with those in need. So we are called to minister to the physical and emotional needs of others before being reminded to ‘set nothing before the love of Christ’.

This is no mere list of do's and dont's. Instead the order of the list shows us not only what to do, but how to do it and why to do it. The first part of the list gives us a high command to love God and our neighbour. We do this by learning self-control. The monk disciplines himself physically in order to learn inner control. The fruit of this self-control is the active love of others, and eventually the ability to ‘set nothing before the love of Christ’.

The family gives us the context to use these ‘tools of good works’. We have to share, we have to get up in the middle of the night for a crying infant. We have to sacrifice ourselves to support our family. In addition, the family is a unit which can administer these virtues in the world. Together the family can reach out to others and minister God's love, so fulfilling Christ's twofold command to love God and our neighbour – remembering that in our needy neighbour Christ himself is found (Matt. 25.31–46).