I've recently resumed the practice of reading a short excerpt from St Benedict's monastic Rule every day. I don't read the whole thing, just those parts I think are most relevant to a married Anglican layperson living in the so-called real world. So, for example, I skip Chapter 9, which deals with the arrangement of the Night Office (Vigils). The Book of Common Prayer makes no provision for a Night Office, and if it did, I wouldn't get up to do it anyway. But if you ever visit a monastery where it is done, by all means go to it, even if just for one time. The trauma of getting up at such a Godly hour shocks the psyche into being more receptive to the message of the psalms and canticles than it might otherwise be on a full night's sleep.

But I digress. The suggested readings below are based on the RB 1980, published in the same year by the Liturgical Press. This edition of the Rule contains the original Latin text, an excellent English translation on the facing page, and enough critical apparatus to keep a graduate student amused for years. IMHO, this is the gold standard for English-language critical editions of the Rule. The numbers in the citations refer to the versification in this edition. So, good reading and Pax et bonum.

Day 1 Prologue: 1-20

Day 2 Prologue: 21-38

Day 3 Prologue: 39-end

Day 4 Chapter 2 : 1-22

Day 5 Chapter 2 : 23-end

Day 6 Chapter 3

Day 7 Chapter 4: 1-43

Day 8 Chapter 4: 44-end

Day 9 Chapter 5

Day 10 Chapter 6

Day 11 Chapter 7 : 1-30

Day 12 Chapter 7: 31-43

Day 13 Chapter 7: 44-54

Day 14 Chapter 7: 55-end

Day 15 Chapters 19 and 20

Day 16 Chapter 27

Day 17 Chapter 31

Day 18 Chapters 33 and 34

Day 19 Chapter 36

Day 20 Chapter 48: 1-13

Day 21 Chapter 48: 14-end

Day 22 Chapter 49

Day 23 Chapter 52

Day 24 Chapter 53

Day 25 Chapter 57

Day 26 Chapter 58

Day 27 Chapter 62

Day 28 Chapter 68

Day 29 Chapter 71

Day 30 Chapter 72

Day 31 Chapter 73

Ignatius lived from 1807 to 1867. He was born into a noble landowning Russian family. After study at a military academy at St Petersburg he received a commission in the Tsar's army as an engineer. A few years later he resigned due to illness, and after recovering his health became a monk. He was soon recognized for his piety and became abbot of a monastery near St Petersburg when he was only 26. At the age of 50 he was consecrated a bishop but quite sensibly resigned his bishopric after only four years to become a hermit (Anglican bishops take note). He spent the remainder of his life as a spiritual father, often guiding his directees by means of letter-writing. He was canonized by the Russian Church in 1988. Here are two of his comments on the Jesus Prayer:

The name of our Lord Jesus Christ is a divine name. The power and effect of that name are divine, omnipotent and salvific, and transcend our ability to comprehend it. With faith therefore, with confidence and sincerity, and with great piety and fear ought we proceed to the doing of the great work which God has entrusted to us: to train ourselves in prayer by using the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...

Novices need more time in order to train themselves in prayer. It is impossible to teach this supreme virtue shortly after entering the monastery of following the first few steps in asceticism. Asceticism needs both time and gradual progress, so that the ascetic can mature for prayer in every respect. In order that a flower might bloom or the fruit grow on a tree, the tree must first be planted and left to develop; thus also does prayer grow out of the soil of the other virtues and nowhere else. The monk will not quickly gain mastery of his mind, nor will he in a short time accustom it to abide in the words of the prayer as if enclosed in a prison. Pulled hither and thither by its acquired predilections, impressions, memories and worries, the novice's mind constantly breaks its salvific chains and strays from the narrow to the wide path. It prefers to wander freely...to stray aimlessly and mindlessly over great expanses, though this be damaging to him and cause him great loss. The passions, those moral infirmities of human nature, are the principal cause of inattentiveness and absentmindedness in prayer...The passions are brought under control and mortified little by little by means of true obedience, as well as by self-reproach and humility--these are the virtues upon which successful prayer is built. Concentration, which is accessible to man, is granted by God in good time to every struggler in piety and asceticism who by persistence and ardor proves the sincerity of his desire to acquire prayer.

Here are some excerpts from a great post published today by Christopher on his site at http://thanksgivinginallthings.blogspot.com/. The title is "Creation laughs back: animals, theology and animal saints".

I now know what others must feel, after having been laughed at for mentioning animal theology in a conversation. I have long heard others talk about derisive and dismissive encounters with "serious" theologians and scholars when the topic of animal theology is mentioned.

Considering animals in relationship to God is not something extra or foreign to Christianity. In my opinion, a serious doctrine of Creation cannot ignore the rest of the living world and the Creation as a whole and finally be Christian. Even rocks glorify God. And frankly, neither can a complete doctrine of Redemption or Sanctification. Indeed, to set up one's "serious" theology in such a way that one can ignore, dismiss, or deride creatures great and small, organic and inorganic, is a sign of the Fall and the effects of sin, alienation, and division. The rest of Creation pays dearly and regularly for our lack of relational recognition and failures in thankfulness...

When I'm driving and I notice a dead deer, raccoon, seagull, squirrel, or the like, I offer a prayer of thanks to God for the life of this creature and that God will greet him or her in His Kingdom...

I am part of a strand of tradition, the Benedictine, that honors this connection to the rest of Creation and is not threatened by the suggestion that God cares for each creature. A raven, after all, is God's messenger to Abba Benedict in his early monastic life and is often shown in iconography as friend and companion. We may not know the name of that raven, but given the desert penchant to understand that Christian life was to be lived in return to the Garden, I can imagine that Abba Benedict gave the raven a name. And as the icon shows, I'm certainly within tradition to imagine that not only Abba Benedict, but also the raven is raised up, is a saint.

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

This is what happens by divine power in this sacrament; for the whole substance of bread is converted into the whole substance of the body of Christ, and the whole substance of wine into the whole substance of the blood of Christ. Hence this conversion is not formal, but substantial; nor is it contained within the categories of natural motion, but may be called by its proper name, transubstantiation.

Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

In the presence of Jesus in the Holy Sacrament we ought to be like the Blessed in heaven before the Divine Essence.

Odo Casel (1886-1948)

When we go with Christ in his way he becomes contemporary with us. He is neither past nor to come but present to us; he is always with us. And not only his person but also his saving act belongs to this present. There can be no deeper communion of living than that we should share the essential life and action of another.

Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Vatican II)

...the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the fountain from which all her power flows.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

1325. The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God by which the church is kept in being. It is the culmination both of God's action sanctifying the world in Christ and of the worship men offer to Christ and through him to the Father in the Holy Spirit.
1396. Those who receive the Eucharist are united more closely to Christ. Through it Christ unites them to all the faithful in one body--the Church. Communion renews, strengthens, and deepens this incorporation into the Church, already achieved by Baptism. In Baptism we have been called to form but one body. The Eucharist fulfills this call: "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread" (1 Cor 10: 16-17).
1404. The Church knows that the Lord comes even now in his Eucharist and that he is there in our midst. However, his presence is veiled. Therefore we celebrate the Eucharist "awaiting the blessed hope and the coming of our savior, Jesus Christ, asking to share in your glory when every tear will be wiped away. On that day we shall see you, our God, as you are. We shall become like you and praise you forever through Christ our Lord.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

The humility of Jesus can be seen in the crib, in the exile of Jesus, in the inability to make people understand him, in the desertion of his apostles, in the hatred of his persecutors, in all the terrible suffering and death of his passion, and now in his permanent state of humility in the tabernacle, where he has reduced himself to such a small particle of bread that the priest can hold him with two fingers. The more we empty ourselves, the more room we give God to fill us.

When you look at the crucifix, you understand how much Jesus loved you then. When you look at the Sacred Host you understand how much Jesus loves you now.

Here is a string of short texts dealing with the Eucharist that I think would be useful to have in one place. They are not meant to be a research tool for academic theology but rather as aids for spiritual contemplation. Regular participation in the Eucharist is a crucial part of my own spiritual practice and I go on the assumption that Jesus is somehow really present in the consecrated bread and wine. When we receive the Eucharist we establish a mystical but very real connection with Jesus, and since Jesus is divine, with God himself. The Eucharist is thus a path to theosis or union with God. I will try to follow this up with other posts dealing with Anglican and Roman Catholic Eucharistic teaching.

Ignatius of Antioch (d. between 110-117)

Each one individually and all of you together are united in one and the same faith in Jesus Christ, Son of Man and Son of God, in obedience to the bishop and the priests, in harmony, breaking one loaf of bread which is the medicine of immortality, an antidote to death that gives eternal life in Jesus Christ.

Irenaeus of Lyons (130-208)

As far as we are concerned, our thinking accords with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist in its turn confirms our thinking. We offer to God what is his own, as we proclaim the communion and union of flesh and Spirit. For in the same way that earthly bread, after having received the invocation of God, is no longer ordinary bread but Eucharist, made up of two components, one earthly the other heavenly, so our bodies that share in the Eucharist are no longer corruptible, because they have the hope of the resurrection.

Ephraim of Syria (306-373)

Fire and the Spirit are in our baptism. In the bread and the cup also are fire and the Spirit.

Cyril of Jerusalem (315-387)

We pray God to send the Holy Spirit on the gifts laid here, to make the bread the body of Christ and the wine the blood of Christ. For the Holy Spirit sanctifies and transforms all that he touches.

Gregory of Nyssa (330-395)

What then is this remedy? Nothing other than that glorious body which showed itself stronger than death and has become the source of life for us. Just as a little leaven, according to the Apostle's words, is mixed with all the dough, so the body that was raised by God to immortality, once it is introduced into our body, wholly changes it and transforms it into his own substance...

The Word of God...once it became incarnate...provided his body with the means of subsistence in the usual suitable ways: he maintained its substance with the help of...bread. Even in normal conditions, when one sees bread, one sees in a sense the human body, since bread absorbed by the body becomes the body itself. So here, the body in which God had become incarnate, since it was fed on bread, was in a sense identical with the bread--the food transforming itself, as we have said, to take on the nature of the body. It was recognized, in fact, that this glorious flesh possessed the property common to all human beings: like them it was maintained with the help of bread. But this body partook of the divine dignity because of the indwelling of the Word. We are therefore entitled to believe that the bread hallowed by the Word of God is transformed to become the body of the Word...

As the bread transformed into that body was thereby raised to divine power, a similar change happens to the bread of the Eucharist. In the former case the grace of the Word hallowed the body that drew its substance from bread, and in a sense was itself bread. Likewise in the Eucharist the bread is hallowed by the Word of God and prayer...It is transformed at once into his body...as expressed in these words: "This is my body"...

That is why, in the economy of grace, he gives himself as seed to all the faithful. His flesh composed of bread and wine is blended with their bodies to enable human beings, thanks to their union with his immortal body, to share in the condition of incorruptibility.

Ambrose (334-397)

You here it said that every time the sacrifice is offered, the Lord's death, resurrection and ascension are represented, the forgiveness of sins is offered, and yet do you not receive this bread of life every day? Anyone who is wounded looks for healing. For us it is a wound to be liable to sin. Our healing lies in the adorable heavenly sacrament...

If you receive it every day, every day becomes for you Today.

If Christ is yours today, he rises for you today. Today has come.

John Chrysostrom (344-407)

On high, the armies of the angels are giving praise. Here below, in the Church, the human choir takes up after them the same doxology. Above us, angels of fire make the thrice-holy hymn resound magnificently. Here below is raised the echo of their hymn. The festival of heaven's citizens is united with that of the inhabitants of earth in a single thanksgiving, a single upsurge of happiness, a single chorus of joy.

Just as the head and the body constitute a single human being, so Christ and the Church constitute a single whole...This union is effected through the food that he has given us in his desire to show the love he has for us. For this reason he united himself intimately with us, he blended his body with ours like leaven, so that we should become one single entity, as the body is joined to the head.

Do you wish to honor the body of the Saviour? Do not despise it when it is naked. Do not honor it in church with silk vestments while outside you are leaving it numb with cold and naked. He who said, "This is my body", and made it so by his word, is the same that said, "You saw me hungry and you gave me no food. As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me." Honor him then by sharing your property with the poor. For what God needs is not golden chalices but golden souls.

The following comment by Fr John-Julian of the Order of Julian of Norwich (a small Anglican religious order) appeared October 22, 2007 in Derek Olsen's excellent site Haligweorc. I'm reproducing it here almost in full because I think it can stand being read, marked, and inwardly digested by the Marys and Marthas of the church--especially the Marthas, who tend to control the institutional aspects of it. Take it away, Father:

I went into my last parish with the commitment that I would place sacramental ministry (including its quality, nature, and frequency) in absolute primary place; secondly, I would preach/teach solid history, theology, and prayer--in the pulpit and in adult forums. I would refuse to promote other projects or programs of social service or justice or "mission" (including those of the diocese or the national church--and I filled the circular file with a whole lot of brochures).

Attendance almost doubled in 18 months! Pledges more than doubled. A ten-year loan was paid off in two years.

It took a little less than two years of this kind of focussed ministry before the questions started to be asked: "Shouldn't we be doing some kind of outreach ministry? Is there some way we can apply the Gospel to the community outside our parish? Could we undertake support for a missionary? (etc)".

It was on-the-ground proof of my conviction that deepening spirituality and theological learning will automatically produce a concern for social justice and action. (And my second conviction is that primary emphasis on good works does not tend to produce deepening spirituality and/or learning).

I know this position is considered heretical by many, but for me there really is a cause-effect paradigm here...True spiritual development will eventually not ALLOW one to ignore the social justice needs.