The Sweetness of the Lord’s Voice (Prologue 3)
PROLOGUE OF OUR MOST HOLY FATHER SAINT BENEDICT TO HIS RULE
3 Jan. 4 May. 3 Sept.
And the Lord, seeking His own workman in the multitude of the people to whom He thus crieth out, saith again: “Who is the man that will have life, and desireth to see good days. And if thou, hearing Him, answer, “I am he,” God saith to thee: “If thou wilt have true and everlasting life, keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips that they speak no guile. Turn from evil, and do good: seek peace and pursue it. And when you have done these things, My eyes will be upon you, and My ears will be open to your prayers; and before you call upon Me, I will say unto you, “Behold, I am here.” What can be sweeter to us, dearest brethren, than this voice of the Lord inviting us? Behold in His loving-kindness the Lord sheweth unto us the way of life.
3 January 2026
Prologue vv. 14-20
The text of the Prologue can be seen to present a chiasm: that is to say, the themes presented in the first half are presented in reverse order in the second half. These first three days of readings give us the opening series. On the first day there was first an invitation to hear the Master and to return to God by obedience, fighting for Christ (sec. A); then an exhortation to pray for the help of divine grace so that we may not be condemned to punishment as wicked servants (sec. B). Yesterday there was a call to act without delay (sec. C). Today we come to the heart of the matter: the Lord’s invitation to His would-be workman, stipulating the conditions under which he must work if he desires everlasting life (sec. D). These conditions are spelled out in the words of Psalm 33.
In the subsequent days, this themes will be repeated in reverse order: tomorrow we will hear a reiteration of the conditions for dwelling in the Lord’s tabernacle, again taken from a psalm, this time Psalm 14. (sec. D2) On Monday (sec. C2) Saint Benedict will repeat the insistence on responding with deeds without delay, since the Lord is waiting for us to respond and is giving us extra time in this world so we may repent. On Tuesday (sec. B2) he will repeat the need to ask God to supply by His grace what is beyond our strength, so that we may avoid the pains of hell. Finally on Wednesday (sec. A2) we will hear again an invitation to hearken to the Master by entering the school of the Lord’s service, and to follow Christ by sharing His sufferings.
But today, as this first half of the Prologue concludes, we come to an exclamation which functions, as it were, as the hinge between the two parts of the chiasm: ‘What can be sweeter to us than this voice of the Lord inviting us, dearest brethren? Behold, in His fatherly tenderness the Lord showeth unto us the way of life!’ This phrase, it seems to me, is the heart of the Prologue. And while most of this section may be taken from an earlier source, here there is a personal touch, for Saint Benedict adds the word carissimi to fratres, and in so doing he seems to want to express the love of his fatherly heart for his ‘dearest brethren’.
For this central part of the Prologue continues the tone set in the opening section: that of a dialogue with a loving father and teacher. God is presented as seeking us out personally. Just before this exclamation, after presenting the question from Psalm 33, ‘Who is the man that wants life?’, Saint Benedict suddenly changes to the second person singular: ‘And if thou, hearing, shouldst reply: Here I am…’
At the heart of the Prologue, then, is an intimate dialogue between God and the soul, and the perception of the sweet voice of God. Yet this is not pious sentimentalism, for it leads straight into a sober and unembellished presentation of very concrete requirements of conduct if we wish to have life. The requirements may seem fairly simple: the important thing, as Saint Benedict will stress in the upcoming sections, is that there be deeds, not just good desires and words. The Christian life is not simply a moral code; it is not simply about right action, since external righteousness is useless without charity. Yet Saint Benedict, like the Apostle Saint James, is ever the realist, and he wants those whom he is to school in the Lord’s service to show their love for Him in their deeds. Our Lord Himself tells us the same in His words in the Cenacle, which ever lived in the heart of His Beloved Disciple whose feast we celebrate: ‘If you love Me, keep My commandments.’