After Jane so graciously forwarded to us the propers used by the New Zealand Trappists, I used them all day in my prayers. The priveledge of working at home is that I am free to set an alarm reminding me to say Terce, Sext, and None. Lauds and Vespers I remember on my own, as well as the Office of Readings.
I can't help but feel a certain kinship with old Benedict these days, as I'm confronting his rule on a daily basis on behalf of my sisters and brothers of the Lay Cistercians of Gethsemani. Undoubtedly I'm not the first person to be amazed at how useful this rule is after more than a thousand years. Do you think anything you have done, or I have done will last a thousand years? Who knows? But fat chance.
Sue Kephart, who has termed herself the LCG Grandma, even thought she isn't the oldest member by a long shot, raised the question of whether or not Benedict ever existed. I answer it in the same way my professor of Greek answered the question, "was the Illiad really written by Homer?" He said, "If not, it was written by someone called Homer."
I think most medieval history, at least the not carefully examined history, is a bunch of malarkey. We didn't invent spin doctors, they had them aplenty in the ancient times. That's why Dan Brown, who spins a great tale but can't write his way out of a paper bag, has spun two magnificent novels using nothing more than the zillion "theories" that pass as history for someone. Heck, I could say that Jesus appeared to me in my backyard and told me to build a forty foot duck...and there would be plenty of people to believe it. And pilgrims would start showing up, too!
What's my point? That if Benedict didn't exist, then someone named Benedict wrote the Rule of Benedict, and he had a sister named Scholastica. And! I'm learning each day that this man Benedict, or someone named Benedict, knew what he was talking about.
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