Saint Benedict exhorts the monk to listen to the \u201cMaster\u2019s\u201d instructions.\u00a0 <\/span>Who is the Master?\u00a0 <\/span>On the one hand the Master is God.\u00a0 <\/span>On the other hand, it refers to those who hold divine authority, such as the Abbot, but also to other authorities like parents, government leaders, teachers, elders, etc.\u00a0 <\/span>In other words, God certainly instructs us directly, but He also instructs us through other people.\u00a0 <\/span>This principle is repeated several times in the Rule of Benedict and it is an extremely important one for our Christian lives.\u00a0 <\/span>Blessed Columba Marmion, OSB noted that the central theme of the whole Rule of Benedict is expressed in this idea found in Saint Benedict\u2019s exhortation: \u201cWe believe the divine presence is everywhere\u2026but beyond the least doubt we should believe this to be especially true when we celebrate the divine office\u201d (RB 19:1-2).<\/p>\n The beginning of our awareness of God generally happens in a religious experience.\u00a0 <\/span>Our communal celebrations, including the Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours and the other Sacraments, are important points of contact with God.\u00a0 <\/span>It is critical that they be celebrated in a reverent and devoted manner. When these great times of prayer are beautiful and prayerful, they can be a cause for conversion.\u00a0 <\/span>They should be bright with music, but balanced with times of silent reflection.\u00a0 <\/span>They must be led confidently, reverently and prayerfully.\u00a0 <\/span>These are the expectation of Saint Benedict when he reminds us that \u201cbeyond the least doubt we should believe\u201d the divine presence is to be found in the divine office (RB 19:2). \u00a0 <\/span>We must conduct ourselves in communal prayer and in the Church as we would conduct ourselves in the presence of a mighty ruler: \u201cWhenever we want to ask some favor of a powerful man, we do it humbly and respectfully, for fear of presumption\u201d (RB 20:1).\u00a0 <\/span>Rather than carrying on raucous conversations or irreverent worldly activities in Church we must always act in a manner that reminds ourselves and also shows others that the One True God is present there in His Flesh reserved in the Tabernacle.<\/p>\n Saint Benedict expects us to develop a sensitivity to the divine presence by celebrating the liturgy well and taking the words of God on our lips seven times a day.\u00a0 <\/span>\u201cLet us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices (mens concordet voci<\/i>)\u201d (RB 19:7).\u00a0 <\/span>Normally we first form words in our minds and then we speak them out with our voices.\u00a0 <\/span>When we pray the psalms, however, the words are given to us to speak, but then they begin to form our minds.\u00a0 <\/span>In this way, we allow the Word to form our way of thinking, which in turn can form our way of acting.\u00a0 <\/span>After repeating the words of the psalms, the liturgical prayers and the readings from Mass, our hearts become more and more sensitive to the divine presence.\u00a0 <\/span>We start to see his fingerprints and footprints all around us.\u00a0 <\/span>We see His presence in the lives of others\u2014in the lives of other monks and in the lives of the guests who come to the monastery.\u00a0 <\/span>We see His Presence in our work.\u00a0 <\/span>We see His presence in the sick members of the community.\u00a0 <\/span>We see His presence in the Abbot.\u00a0 <\/span>We see His presence at our meals.\u00a0 <\/span>By becoming sensitized to the Word of God and taking on the mind of Christ, we start to see the divine presence everywhere in our lives.<\/p>\n This brings us back to the question, \u201cWho is the Master?\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>The Master is God and we must take time in liturgical prayer and in personal prayer in order to begin hearing God and to sensitize our hearts to His presence.\u00a0 <\/span>As we do that, however, we also start to see Him in everything.\u00a0 <\/span>The monk is the one who arranges His day around repeated acts of attention to the divine presence.\u00a0 <\/span>He regularly interrupts every other activity because \u201cnothing is to be preferred to the Work of God\u201d (RB 43:3).\u00a0 <\/span>With his visits to the oratory and his celebrations of the liturgy of the hours at the center of his day, the monk makes acts of recollection throughout the rest of his day to renew his awareness of the divine presence.\u00a0 <\/span>In Saint Benedict\u2019s time it was already encouraged by St. John Cassian to recite the verse of Psalm 70: \u201cGod, come to my assistance.\u00a0 <\/span>Lord, make haste to help me.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>Cassian identified that verse as a defense against every attack of the Enemy and as a simple way to return one\u2019s attention to God throughout the day.\u00a0 <\/span>In the subsequent centuries, the Jesus Prayer served a similar purpose, \u201cLord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>With these brief prayers, the monk can bring his awareness of the presence of God, which is especially strong in the places of prayer, out into the rest of his life. He can learn to hear the instructions of the Great Master through every other little \u201cmaster\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span>Even in sinful men or atheists, the prayerful monk can learn to be aware of the Presence of God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Divine Presence – \u201cThe Master\u2019s instructions\u201d Saint Benedict exhorts the monk to listen to the \u201cMaster\u2019s\u201d instructions.\u00a0 Who is the Master?\u00a0 On the one hand the Master is God.\u00a0 On the other hand, it refers to those who hold divine authority, such as the Abbot, but also to other authorities like parents, government leaders, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":666,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[20],"tags":[68,72,71,40,69],"class_list":["post-664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spiritual-reflections","tag-benedictine","tag-contemplation","tag-divine-providence","tag-prayer","tag-rule-of-benedict"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/master2.jpg?fit=1278%2C590&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7bfMR-aI","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":667,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/spiritual-reflections\/benedictine-spirituality-iii-the-ear-of-your-heart\/","url_meta":{"origin":664,"position":0},"title":"Benedictine Spirituality III: The Ear of Your Heart","author":"fatherboniface@gmail.com","date":"July 11, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The Ear of the Heart - \u201cattend to them with the ear of your heart\u201d Saint Benedict teaches the monk in the first verse that there is a deeper way of listening.\u00a0 We take in reality through our five external senses (sight, hearing, etc.) but we also learn to detect\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spiritual Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Spiritual Reflections","link":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/category\/spiritual-reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/heart2.jpg?fit=1200%2C668&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/heart2.jpg?fit=1200%2C668&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/heart2.jpg?fit=1200%2C668&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/heart2.jpg?fit=1200%2C668&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/heart2.jpg?fit=1200%2C668&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":659,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/spiritual-reflections\/benedictine-spirituality-i-listen-my-son\/","url_meta":{"origin":664,"position":1},"title":"Benedictine Spirituality I: Listen, my son","author":"fatherboniface@gmail.com","date":"July 9, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Introduction \u201cListen my son to the Master\u2019s instructions and attend to them with the ear of your heart\u201d (Prologue 1). These are the first words Saint Benedict speaks to his monks through his Rule of life.\u00a0 The Rule of Benedict (RB) establishes three important spiritual attitudes already in the first\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spiritual Reflections"","block_context":{"text":"Spiritual Reflections","link":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/category\/spiritual-reflections\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Listen2.jpg?fit=1200%2C761&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Listen2.jpg?fit=1200%2C761&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Listen2.jpg?fit=1200%2C761&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Listen2.jpg?fit=1200%2C761&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Listen2.jpg?fit=1200%2C761&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6453,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/spiritual-practices\/fathers-day-this-sunday-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":664,"position":2},"title":"Father\u2019s Day . This Sunday","author":"monks4christ","date":"June 13, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Reflections on Father\u2019s Day Rod Dreher proposed \u201cThe Benedict Option\u201d as a way to move forward in our challenging times. He described how the Rule of Saint Benedict provides the culture-changing wisdom that could create a leaven to transform our world from the ground up. In my own reflections, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Spiritual Practices"","block_context":{"text":"Spiritual Practices","link":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/category\/spiritual-practices\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/june19-Fathers-Day.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/june19-Fathers-Day.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/june19-Fathers-Day.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/june19-Fathers-Day.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":3527,"url":"https:\/\/www.fatherboniface.org\/wordpresshome\/spiritual-practices\/happy-fathers-day\/","url_meta":{"origin":664,"position":3},"title":"Happy Father\u2019s Day","author":"monks4christ","date":"June 18, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Reflections on Father\u2019s Dayby Fr Boniface Hicks OSB Rod Dreher proposed \u201cThe Benedict Option\u201d as a way to move forward in our challenging times. He described how the Rule of Saint Benedict provides the culture-changing wisdom that could create a leaven to transform our world from the ground up. 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