Today’s Chapter: God Seeking Our Response
Chapter 7: Of Humility (vv.24-30)
Let us be on our guard, then, against evil desires, since death hath its seat close to the entrance of delight; wherefore the Scripture commandeth us, saying: ““Go not after thy concupiscences.” Since, therefore, “The eyes of the Lord behold the good and the evil,” and “The Lord is ever looking down from heaven upon the children of men, to see who hath understanding or is seeking God, and since the works of our hands are reported to Him day and night by the angels appointed to watch over us; we must be always on the watch, brethren, lest, as the prophet saith in the psalm, God should see us at any time declining to evil and become unprofitable; and lest, though He spare us now, because He is merciful and expecteth our conversion, He should say to us hereafter: “These things thou didst and I held my peace.”
As we conclude the 1st Degree of Humility, Saint Benedict once again reminds us of God’s continual contemplation of His creation, and His search for our response to Him. In the Prologue He cried out seeking His workman in the midst of the people. Today again we hear how His eyes behold all men to see if anyone understands or seeks God. The love of God, which longs to find a response in the heart of man—this is the beginning of the story of every vocation. The Psalmist goes on after the verse quoted by Saint Benedict to lament that all have gone astray, that there is no one who does good. But we know that in the fulness of time, God’s unrequited love finally received the response He sought: He looked down from Heaven and saw the Heart of Mary, understanding and seeking Him, and the Angels, watching in wonder, reported to Him all the deeds of this fairest of the children of men.
As God sought the response of Mary, so He seeks ours. Madre Cànopi comments:
Like that of Mary, the life of the monk begins with a gratuitous call of God, before which he feels himself inadequate, and nonetheless drawn. Having crossed by faith through the door of the monastery, there awaits him a journey of humility and hiddenness which is illumined only in the light of faith: woven of prayer and work, of attentive listening to the Word and silent service, his days insert him ever more deeply into the great furrow of the tradition, of the sacred history of which he too is called to write, along with his community, a new page, participating each day, with his meek suffering, in the sufferings of Christ, in order to merit to share also His glory in His Kingdom (cf. Prologue v. 50). (Anna Maria Cànopi, Nel ‘Sì’ di Maria, translation by a Benedictine monk, pp. 48-49)
Conscious that the eyes of the Lord are constantly looking for a response of love from us and awaiting our conversion, let us each day, with Mary, allow Him to find in us, despite all of our frailty, a heart that desires understanding and seeks Him, so that the angels may rejoice to report to Him our little deeds of love.