{"id":27726,"date":"2026-09-21T09:14:07","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T08:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/?p=27726"},"modified":"2026-09-26T09:14:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T08:14:46","slug":"todays-chapter-with-mary-in-the-workshop-of-nazareth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/2026\/09\/todays-chapter-with-mary-in-the-workshop-of-nazareth\/","title":{"rendered":"Today’s Chapter: With Mary in the Workshop of Nazareth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter 4: What are the Instruments of Good Works (vv. 63-78)<\/strong><\/p>\n

62. Daily to fulfil by one\u2019s deeds the commandments of God.<\/em>
\n63. To love chastity.<\/em>
\n64. To hate no man.<\/em>
\n65. Not to give way to jealousy and envy.<\/em>
\n66. Not to love strife.<\/em>
\n67. To fly from vainglory.<\/em>
\n68. To reverence the Seniors.<\/em>
\n69. To love the juniors.<\/em>
\n70. To pray for one\u2019s enemies in the love of Christ.<\/em>
\n71. To make peace with an adversary before the setting of the sun.<\/em>
\n72. And never to despair of God\u2019s mercy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Behold, these are the tools of the spiritual craft, which, if they be constantly employed day and night, and duly given back on the day of judgment, will gain for us from the Lord that reward which He Himself hath promised – \u201cwhich eye hath not seen, nor ear heard; nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive what God hath prepared for them that love Him.\u201d And the workshop where we are to labour at all these things is the cloister of the monastery, and stability in the community.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It is only today, at the conclusion of the list of instruments of good works, that Saint Benedict introduces the image of the workshop, which complements that of the school which marked the Prologue. Monks are always in school, and they are always at work. We have already considered the various ways in which Our Lady, by her attentive listening to God\u2019s word, is our mistress in the school of the Lord\u2019s service, and how her own \u2018Pentecost\u2019 at the Annunciation was the model for what happened to the infant Church gathered around her in the Cenacle. Today, we can consider how, in the house of Nazareth, she shows us how to exercise the spiritual art in the workshop of the enclosure:<\/p>\n

When fraternal communion is lived well, according to the spirit highlighted in Chapter 3 of the Rule<\/em>, everything becomes a channel of grace for the completion of the plan of salvation, and the entire monastery\u2014as we read in Chapter 4\u2014takes on the aspect of a \u2018workshop of the spiritual art\u2019, where every act, every work, every service assumes religious value, even the most everyday and repetitive things. The monks who labour there assiduously, availing themselves of the \u2018instruments of good works\u2019, are keepers of a great promise: \u2018Those things which eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor have ever entered into the heart of man, God hath prepared them for those who love Him\u2019 <\/em>(v. 77, citing 1 Cor 2:9).<\/p>\n

Now, the little house of Nazareth was, one could say, Mary\u2019s \u2018monastic workshop\u2019; there, putting into practice all the good works which the Lord, day by day, gave her to fulfill, she realized her marvellous adventure of grace; for this reason monks can and should feel her nearby as an encouraging presence, above all in the moments of weariness, or in which they feel themselves particularly inadequate\u2026Charles de Foucauld, who made Nazareth the ideal of his monastic life, wrote in the notes for a retreat: \u2018I am in the house of Nazareth between Mary and Joseph, bound like a little brother to my big Brother Jesus, night and day\u2019. (Charles de Foucauld, Opere spirituali<\/em>, Ed. Paoline, Rome 1983, p. 546) For this reason he wanted every house of the Little Brothers to be called \u2018Nazareth\u2019 and\u2026really to be so: \u2018Quomodo?<\/em> In what way? In silence, in hiddenness, in obscurity\u2026To pass unknown over the earth, like a traveller in the night; in poverty, in labour, in humility, in sweetness, doing good\u2019. (Charles de Foucauld, Diary, 17 May 1904, in Opere spirituali<\/em>, p. 331)<\/p>\n

How beautiful it is to serve God thus, working with the instruments of the spiritual art, in order to present ourselves one day to Him, having truly become an icon of His Son, and thus also resembling Mary, His and our Mother! (Anna Maria C\u00e0nopi, Nel \u2018S<\/em>\u00ec<\/em>\u2019 di Maria<\/em>, translation by a Benedictine monk, pp. 29-30)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The monastery, then, is for us the house of Nazareth, where we learn to live as sons of God with the Son, in the company of Mary. And at the same time it is also like the house of Ephesus, where Saint John is believed to have lived with Mary after the Ascension, as she looked forward to joining her Son in her heavenly home. Madre C\u00e0nopi concludes her comments on this Chapter:<\/p>\n

So we should be also: entirely stretched towards Heaven, burning with desire to see God unveiled. And if the awareness of our fragility and faults intimidates us, here is the last instrument: \u2018Of the mercy of God never to despair\u2019 (v. 74). Mary herself holds it out to us, turning to us her merciful eyes and welcoming us under her mantle of mercy. (C\u00e0nopi, p. 35)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter 4: What are the Instruments of Good Works (vv. 63-78) 62. Daily to fulfil by one\u2019s deeds the commandments of God. 63. To love chastity. 64. To hate no man. 65. Not to give way to jealousy and envy. 66. Not to love strife. 67. To fly from vainglory. 68. To reverence the Seniors. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":591,"featured_media":27730,"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":[498,73],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-holy-rule-2026","category-rule-of-saint-benedict"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vultuschristi.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Holy-Family-at-work.jpg?fit=439%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paVypq-7dc","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27726"}],"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=27726"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27731,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27726\/revisions\/27731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vultuschristi.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}