Transcript of Abbot Clement
=s Talk on Tuesday, April 26, 2005One of the images in the spiritual life is that of the mirror. If you want to be a good Christian you look at the mirror, that is, the Gospel and you let it shine on you. If you want to be a good Benedictine you look at the Rule, it
=s your mirror, look into the mirror and see what kind of Benedictine you are.The image is rather graphic. We look at mirrors to see how well our hair is groomed and how we look, etc. In the spiritual life the image needs to be somewhat modified it seems to me. But, nevertheless, it
=s still a very good image because it can be utilized to cultivate the spiritual life. A tree that=s not cultivated and cared for is not going to produce fruit in good time, so we need practices to cultivate the tree of our spiritual life so it bears fruit.Take for example the first degree of humility. First degree of humility as a mirror, just as you read it would say, it
=s very important to have the fear of the Lord in your life and that fear of the Lord should touch three major areas.It should touch the area of your thoughts, the area of your will, and should touch the areas of your desires. If you respond to these appropriately, that is keep them from evil, then your practicing the first degree of humility.
But what if you don
=t have the fear of the Lord? Then the light on the mirror is going to be black and you won=t see anything. There are people who walk through the world not considering that their thoughts need to be looked at and changed, or their desires, or their will.The first important thing is what
=s the light with which you look at the mirror? What=s the quality of faith that you have? And the quality of faith which the fear of the Lord implies is that we are aware that God sees us all the time, everywhere, no matter where we are or what we are doing. In the light of that, aware of the fact that he gives his stamp of approval to good deeds and his wrath to the opposite that is what causes the fear of the Lord.What happens if you go past that? The light that you can shine from the mirror can change. What if you really begin to realize that God gets up every morning and you are his concern. That you are a factor of what he
=s going to do today. That you are important to him. With that kind of light what do you do with the first degree of humility? How differently do you look at how you use your thoughts, how you use your will, and your desires? At which point it can be rather quite positive and strong or negative too, for that matter, revealing that even though you are a factor in God=s day, God is not a factor in your day. He doesn=t enter into your thoughts, into your will, or into your desires. Or if he does it=s superficial. He=s not allowed to come close and challenge and therefore evoke a response of love for love.You can use this image of mirrors in many ways. You can use it for the whole of Chapter 4 on all those instruments of good works. What would it be like to walk around today taking one of the instruments of good works as your mirror for the day. For instance, St. Benedict says to honor all men. How do you walk through today honoring all men? Or not to be gluttonous. Or not to be slothful. You can use that image to let it reflect on how you are called by the Lord to really reveal that God is really concerned about you and that he in fact is expecting fruit to grow from your life.
I think we need to reflect on this because the fact is that the Lord is in fact considering each of us as a factor in his day. And he
=s expecting us to bear fruit.