{"id":27718,"date":"2026-09-20T09:57:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T08:57:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/?p=27718"},"modified":"2026-09-25T09:59:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T08:59:18","slug":"todays-chapter-stretched-towards-heaven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2026\/09\/todays-chapter-stretched-towards-heaven\/","title":{"rendered":"Today’s Chapter: Stretched Towards Heaven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 4: What are the Instruments of Good Works (vv. 44-62)<\/strong><\/p>\n

44. To fear the Day of Judgment.\u00a0<\/em>
\n45. To be in dread of hell.<\/em>
\n46. To desire with a special longing everlasting life.<\/em>
\n47. To keep death daily before one\u2019s eyes.<\/em>
\n48. To keep guard at all times over the actions of one\u2019s life.<\/em>
\n49. To know for certain that God sees one everywhere.<\/em>
\n50. To dash down on the (Rock) Christ one\u2019s evil thoughts, the instant that they come into the heart.<\/em>
\n51. And to lay them open to one\u2019s spiritual father.<\/em>
\n52. To keep one\u2019s mouth from evil and wicked words.<\/em>
\n53. Not to love much speaking.<\/em>
\n54. Not to speak vain words or such as move to laughter.<\/em>
\n55. Not to love much or excessive laughter.<\/em>
\n56. To listen willingly to holy reading.<\/em>
\n57. To apply oneself frequently to prayer.<\/em>
\n58. Daily to confess one\u2019s past sins with tears and sighs to God, and to amend them for the time to come.<\/em>
\n59. Not to fulfil the desires of the flesh: to hate one\u2019s own will.<\/em>
\n60. To obey in all things the commands of the Abbot, even though he himself (which God forbid) should act otherwise: being mindful of that precept of the Lord: \u201cWhat they say, do ye; but what they do, do ye not.\u201d<\/em>
\n61. Not to wish to be called holy before one is so: but first to be holy, that one may be truly so called.\u00a0<\/em>(Note: the numbering of the list of Instruments of Good Works does not always correspond to the numbering of the verses in Chapter 4.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Having considered briefly the \u2018propedeutic\u2019 instruments which serve to purify the soul, Madre C\u00e0nopi proceeds to discuss the other groups in the list:<\/p>\n

Not being able hear to examine all the instruments, I will linger here on those which, as I said, seem to me most necessary for our monastic, Benedictine spirituality, and which are also the most \u2018Marian\u2019. It seems to me that they can be gathered into three main groups.<\/p>\n

In the first place are those regarding silence, listening, prayer: \u2018Not to have a taste for much speaking; not to say vain words or exciting to laughter; not to be too prone to laughter or to noise\u2019 (vv. 52-54). There is no desire, certainly, to condemn joy, holy gladness, fraternal joviality, but to avoid everything which could lead to noise and dissipation. For this reason, there are also other powerful instruments which favour recollection and create a climate that is recollected and full of peace: \u2018To shatter instantly, against Christ, the evil thoughts as soon as they appear in the heart, manifesting them to the spiritual father; also to keep one\u2019s lips from every evil or inappropriate word; to listen with all one\u2019s heart to holy readings; to prostrate oneself frequently in prayer\u2019 (vv. 50-51; 55-56).<\/p>\n

They are instruments which permit us to keep the memory of God alive during the course of our day, not to let ourselves be carried far off by the whirlpool of disordered thoughts, by fantasies, by so many distractions. \u2018Blessed is this soul!\u2019, writes Blessed Columba Marmion again. \u2018The Holy Spirit will make her hear those words of life which do not strike the ears of the body, but which the attentive soul gathers with joy within herself to make of them the nourishment of her life.\u2019 And immediately he adds: \u2018The Virgin lived thus, in interior recollection; the Gospel tells us so: Mary kept all these things, meditating on them in her heart<\/em> (Lk 2:19). She lived contemplating the ineffable mystery which had been carried out in her and by means of her.\u2019 (Christ the Ideal of the Monk. Spiritual Conferences<\/em>, Ch. 15) In reality, \u2018our monasteries are so many Nazareths where, in virgin souls, divine mysteries can also be realised. Let us live, then, in recollection and seek to remain intimately united to the Lord.\u2019 (Ibid.<\/em>)<\/p>\n

Closely bound to these instruments which help us to live silence are those which form in us a heart which loves silence. They are the instruments which purify the heart well, removing the weeds of presumption, battering down the walls of division, making the pinnacles of pride disappear: \u2018To make oneself a stranger to the world\u2019s way of thinking and acting; to attribute to God, not to self, the good of which one recognises oneself capable; on the other hand, to know how to impute the evil to oneself, in the awareness of having done it\u2026To hate one\u2019s own will; to obey in everything the orders of the abbot; not to want to be considered holy before being so, but to really become so, so that one may more truly be called so; to flee from pride\u2019 (vv. 20; 42-43;60-62;69). They are instruments of fundamental importance for living true humility, which is not a sense of inferiority, not a devaluing of self, but a joyous awareness of being creatures of God who have received everything from Him and who are and can do nothing of value without Him. Such was Mary, who, full of grace, made of her life a Magnificat<\/em>: a song of praise to the Lord Who worked great things in her life: in her, for others.<\/p>\n

I would like now to fix our attention on some instruments regarding the end of our life. We should never forget that we are pilgrims and strangers on this earth. But the final goal of our journey is decided moment by moment, step by step. For this reason, Saint Benedict recommends to his monks, as a father to his sons, to pay good attention, to \u2018fear the day of judgment, to think with dread on the reality of hell, to have every day before one\u2019s eyes the thought of death\u2019 (vv. 44-45;47), but above all he exhorts us to \u2018desire with all the ardour of the spirit eternal life\u2019 (v. 46). I recall that, in one of his last visits to our monastic community\u2014it was the solemnity of the Assumption\u2014the abbot and archbishop Monsignor Mariano Magrassi spent time with us meditating on this verse of the holy Rule<\/em>, and told us that it was the one most suited for penetrating into the Marian mystery which we were celebrating: \u2018Mary\u2019, he underlined, \u2018is an existence which has gravitated totally towards God, with a limitless love. All the fibres of her being vibrated for Him. Truly she loved Him with all her heart. She lived for Him alone\u2026.When Jesus ascended to Heaven, she followed Him with her heart. From that moment, her gravitation upwards was intensified to the limit. She had her feet on the earth, but her heart in Heaven.\u2019<\/p>\n

So we should be also: entirely stretched towards Heaven, burning with desire to see God unveiled. (Anna Maria C\u00e0nopi, Nel \u2018S\u00ec\u2019 di Maria<\/em>, translation by a Benedictine monk, pp. 33-35)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 4: What are the Instruments of Good Works (vv. 44-62) 44. To fear the Day of Judgment.\u00a0 45. To be in dread of hell. 46. To desire with a special longing everlasting life. 47. To keep death daily before one\u2019s eyes. 48. To keep guard at all times over the actions of one\u2019s life. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":591,"featured_media":27502,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[498],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-rule-2026"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vultuschristi.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Tizian_Assumption.jpg?fit=500%2C920&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-7d4","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27718"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/591"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27718"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27721,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27718\/revisions\/27721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}