Australian Community Aidan & Hilda

What’s Good About A Rule Of Life?

I chose some of your people to be prophets, and some to be Nazirites … but you made the Nazirites drink wine, and ordered the prophets not to speak my message. Amos 2: 11, 12

Certain Christians, not just monks and nuns, follow what they call a Rule or a Way of Life. This sets out the values and goals they choose to make their priority, and a check-list, suited to their circumstances, of practices which help them to live these. Some Christians argue that they want to be rid of rules and regulations, and, since no two situations are alike, all they need is the Holy Spirit to guide them. Here is some advice to consider:

In a single day we make so many decisions we cannot possibly weigh up the good and evil consequences of each decision. We are liable to make foolish and wrong decisions. For this reason we need a rule, a simple set of moral principles that we can apply to each decision we make. This will not be foolproof, but with a good rule, our decision will far more often be right than wrong.

Another reason for a rule is this: Jesus tells us to pray always; yet sometimes we love to devote much time to prayer whereas at other times we are dry or feel far too busy to pray. A rule prevents us from making excuses; it spurs us to pray at a particular time even when our heart is cold towards God.

The teaching of Jesus must be the primary general guide for any disciple, but Jesus himself did not give rules. The source of a rule is inside your own heart. What we call conscience is a kind of rule which God has written in your heart. If you wish to formulate a rule you must listen to your conscience and write down on paper what God has written on the heart.
Pelagius

Eternal God
our beginning and our end
accompany us through the rest of our journey.
Open our eyes to praise you for your creation,
and to see the work you set before us.
Based on St. Finbarr’s Cathedral Midday Prayer, Cork

Old And Young

You elders … should not try and dominate those who have been put in your care, but you should be examples for them to follow…. In the same way you younger people should give yourselves to the older ones. And all of you must put on the apron of humility, to serve one another. 2 Peter 5: 3, 5

Old people often envy the vigour and good health of the young, their greater capacity to enjoy physical pleasures, and the length of years they have ahead of them. The truth is young people should envy the old.

Although old people have less physical and mental energy, they have greater spiritual reserves. Although they can enjoy fewer physical pleasures, they have greater capacity for spiritual enjoyment. Thus the old are better prepared for death, and for life beyond death. So the fewer years that are ahead of them should be a reason to celebrate, not to indulge self-pity.

Although a young person like yourself may assume that you have many years ahead of you, you cannot be sure. The soul is attached to the body by a fragile thread which can snap at any moment. So although you are younger than I am, you may die before me. Do not, therefore, merely envy old age: imitate its virtues. Direct your physical energies into spiritual matters, let these become your major source of pleasure. In this way you will be ready for death whenever it comes.
Pelagius. To a young friend.

O God, to whom to love and to be are one
Hear my faith-cry for those who are more yours than mine.
Give each of them what is best for each.
I cannot tell what it is.
But you know.
I only ask that you love them and keep them
With the loving and keeping
You showed to Mary’s son and yours.
Collected by Alistair MacLean in Hebridean Altars

Avoid Presumption

Pride comes before a fall. Proverbs 16: 18

A brother began to pester Abba Theodore with all sorts of questions and opinions about aspects of God’s work, none of which he had seriously engaged in himself. The old Abba said to him: ‘You have not yet found the ship you are to sail in, or put your baggage in it, so how is that you seem to be already in the city you plan to sail to? When you have first worked hard in the thing you talk about, then you can speak from the experience of the thing itself.’
Desert Sayings.

Three brother came to an Abba in Scete. The first proudly told him ‘I have committed the Old and New Testament to memory’. ‘You have filled the air with words’ the Abba told him. The second informed him: ‘I have transcribed the Old and New Testaments with my own hands’. ‘And you have filled your windows with manuscripts’ was the reply. The third, who felt he had devoted so much time to prayer and study that he had no time to spare for household jobs announced that ‘The grass grows on my hearthstone’. The Abba said: ‘And you have driven hospitality from you’.
Desert Sayings

An Englishman is a self-made man and worships his maker.
English saying

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
British proverb

Speak up to but not beyond your experience.
Frank Buchman

Almighty, I’m steeped in the ‘I know best’ mentality.
I invite your Holy Spirit to convict me of presumption,
To expose every lingering bit of it in any corner of my life
And to winkle it all out.
Give to me the wisdom of humility

Critical Spirits

My servant will not crush a bruised reed or quench a smouldering flame. Matthew 12: 20

In a world of right and wrong, in which we are free spirits, it would be foolish to ask Christians never to criticise. But think of the occasions when Jesus criticised; they were very few, always timely, and he never crushed a bruised reed. He always affirmed the people who lacked it. Criticism should only be made on rare occasions, as a last resort, in a kindly spirit, after prayer and thought, to the person concerned, and only if it is both true and necessary.

The easiest sin to commit is to criticise a brother, calling him a fool. We are usually cautious about accusing a brother of a major sin; we feel we must have sufficient evidence before making such an accusation. But to accuse a brother of doing something stupid hardly seems to matter. So we lightly toss off such critical remarks.

Yet such criticism can wound deeply. It can stay with a person for years after the person who uttered it has forgotten about it. This is because so many people lack a sense of self-worth, and fear failure. So a critical remark can destroy their confidence completely, discouraging them so much that they may never again attempt the task that was criticised.

So we must be far more vigilant against committing this easy sin than against the more obvious and serious sins.
Pelagius. To an elderly friend.

Lord,
let our memory provide no shelter
for grievance against another.
Lord,
let our heart provide no
for hatred of another
Lord,
let our tongue be no accomplice
in the judgement of a brother.
Northumbrian Office

Blind Spots

Why do you point out the speck in the other person’s eye and pay no attention to the log in your own eye? … First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will be able to see clearly to take the speck out of the other person’s eye. Matthew 7: 3, 5

Even the best and holiest of people have stubborn areas in their lives. Perhaps a person eats or drinks to excess and refuses to restrain their appetite; perhaps a person has a quick and harsh temper and refuses to restrain their anger; perhaps a person needs to be the leader in every situation, and cannot take advice or criticism, nor defer to the better judgement of others.

Compared with the other areas in which a person is good and holy, these stubborn areas may seem quite trivial. Yet if they remain unchecked they can corrode a person’s soul and blot their record.
Pelagius To a mature Christian

O Saviour of the human race
O true physician of every disease
O heart-pitier and assister of all misery
O fount of true purity and true knowledge
Forgive.

O star-like sun
O guiding light
O home of the planets
O fiery-maned and marvellous one
Forgive

O holy scholar of holy strength
O overflowing, loving, silent one
O generous and thunderous giver of gifts
O rock-like warrior of a hundred hosts
Forgive
Attributed to St. Ciaran (adapted)

Choose Good Or Evil

If you carry out the commands I give you today you will receive a blessing. If you turn away from these commands, to go after false gods, you will receive a curse. Deuteronomy 11: 27, 28

God created all human beings in God’s image, to be like God. God has made animals more powerful than human beings, but we have been given intelligence and freedom.

We alone are able to recognise God as our maker, and therefore to understand the goodness of God’s creation. We alone have the capacity to distinguish between good and evil, right and wrong. This means that our actions need not be compulsions, we do not have to be swayed by our immediate wants and desires, as are the animals. Instead, we can make choices. Day by day, hour by hour, we have to make decisions. In each decision we can choose either good or evil. This freedom to choose make us like God. If we choose evil, that freedom becomes a curse. If we choose good, it becomes our greatest blessing.
Pelagius

There is no evil in anything created by God, nor can anything of His become an obstacle to our union with Him. The obstacle is in our ‘self’, that is to say in the tenacious need to maintain our separate, external, egotistic will.
Thomas Merton

Toothache starts in a rotten tooth,
Then the pain spreads through the jaw
Until one’s whole head starts to throb.
Every thought is filled with toothache.
Sin starts with a rotten action,
Then the pleasure spreads through the body
Until the soul itself becomes enslaved.
Every feeling is filled with sinful desire.
Pull out the aching tooth.
Root out the sinful action
Robert Van de Weyer Celtic Parables

Each day, Lord, help me to throw out some of the bad
and to draw out some of the good.

Why Do Good People Suffer?

Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when all kinds of trials come your way, for you know that when your faith succeeds in facing such trials, the result is the ability to endure … so that you may be complete, lacking nothing. James 1: 2, 3, 4

There is no follower of Christ who is not at times perplexed by the suffering of good men and women. When we see a bad person suffer, we can interpret it as punishment for sin. So if an evil person contracts a painful and fatal illness while still young, if their house burns to the ground, if they lose their wealth in some dishonest transaction, we feel that justice is being done. But if a good person falls fatally ill in their youth, if an honest and hardworking person becomes destitute, we are indignant. We cannot understand how God can permit such injustice.

Our indignation arises from superficial knowledge. We look at pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy, in shallow, material terms. Yet a good person, even if undergoing great physical distress, still senses the serene peace of God deep within their soul. The loyal disciple of Christ who is compelled to live in poverty knows that they are sharing the poverty of Christ. And the Scriptures assure us that in poverty and in agony the soul of Christ knew the heavenly joy of God.
Pelagius

When a person who is both good and young is struck down it causes particular distress. One such person was the Northumbrian King Oswald. A generation after his death, when new Christians in the south of England were devastated by plague, God used his example to transform a dying boy and bring faith to bear on the problem of innocent suffering. The onset of plague prompted the monastery to begin a vigil of fasting and prayer. On the second day of the vigil two apostles appeared to this small boy and said ‘Do not let the fear of death trouble you. We are going to take you to the heavenly kingdom… Call the priest and tell him the Lord has heard your prayers and not one more person from the monastery or the estates linked to it will die of this plague; all sufferers will be restored. God has granted this in response to the prayers of the saintly King Oswald. It was on this very day that he was slain in battle and taken to heaven’. All this came to pass. The boy died in bliss, and the faith of the people grew stronger.

Lord, help me offer to you
the gift of deep but not bitter suffering

Why Is There Evil?

I have given you the choice between a blessing or a curse. Deuteronomy 30: 1

By granting us the wonderful gift of freedom, God gave us the capacity to do evil as well as do good. Indeed, we would not be free unless God had given us this ability: there is no freedom for the person who does good by instinct and not by choice. Likewise, as the holy Welsh monk Pelagius taught, there is no freedom if it is impossible for us to do good. In this sense the capacity to do evil is itself good; evil actions, although God does not want them, are themselves signs of the goodness of God in allowing them.

Some Christians developed the idea that ‘original sin’, which affects us all, means that people who do not listen to God in nature or in human beings, and who therefore damage them, are not responsible, because only born again Christians can be expected to know God’s ways. Pelagius taught that each person is capable of both good and evil, and is responsible for their choices. He was accused of also teaching that human beings are born without sin, and fatalistic Christians thought that ruled out the need for a Saviour. That certainly would not be a true Christian belief, but the extracts from Pelagius in this book provide sound Christian guidance.

A person might say that the world would be a better place if everyone within it were always good and never evil. But such a world would be flawed because it would lack one essential ingredient of goodness, namely freedom. When God created the world he was acting freely; no other force compelled God to create the world. Thus by creating humans in his image, God had to give them freedom. A person who could only do good and never do evil would be in chains; a person who can choose good or evil shares the freedom of God.
Pelagius To Demetrius.

In the strength of the Warrior of God
I oppose all that pollutes.
In the eye of the Face of God
I expose all that deceives.
In the energy of the Servant of God
I bind up all that is broken.

Circling

God divided light from darkness by a circle. Job 25: 10

Flocks with shepherds huts burgeoned around Ninian’s community at Whithorn, for the brothers, pilgrims and poor people all needed to be fed. Ninian wanted to bless these as well as the monastery, so when the flocks were gathered in at night he would walk right round them, marking a circle on the earth with his staff. Then he would raise his hand and ask God’s protection on everything within the circle.

On Michaelmas Day at Iona all the humans and even the animals walked sunwise around the Angels Hill to seek God’s blessing on the island for the coming year. We know that abbots of Iona such as Columba and Adamnan practised the circling prayer. Adamnan tells us that when Columba sailed from Loch Foyle he blessed a stone by the water’s edge and made a circuit round it sunwise. It was from that stone that he went into the boat. Columba taught that anybody going on a journey who did the circling prayer round the stone would most likely arrive in safety.

In Wales you can still see traces of the circles of stones that surrounded monasteries and other holy places. They marked a place dedicated to Christ like human sentries, protecting the inhabitants from evil forces.

What is the significance of the circle for Christians? Celtic Christians carried on the Druids’ understanding that the Devil was frustrated by anything that had no end, no break, no entrance, because they knew that God is never ending both in time and in love, and the Three Selves within God form an ever encircling Presence. One of the chief rites of the sun-worship of pagan Celts was to turn sunwise in order to entice the sun to bless their crops. The Christians said to them, in effect: ‘The Creator of the sun is now amongst us, we will continue to circle our crops, but now we do it in the name of the Sun of Suns. The Creator had built the circling of the sun into creation, which reflects something of its Creator, so it is good for us’. This is not magic, it is an expression of the reality of the encircling Presence of God. To say the Caim or Circling prayer, stretch out your arm and index finger and turn around sunwise calling for the Presence to encircle the person or thing you pray for.

Circle me, Lord
Keep love within, keep strife without
Keep hope within, keep despair without
Keep peace within, keep harm without.

Sing With the Sun

Praise the Lord, sun, moon and shining stars. Praise the Lord highest heavens and the waters …. Praise the Lord strong winds … all animals and … all peoples … Psalm 148: 3, 4, 8, 10, 11

Praised be you, my Lord, with all your creatures
Especially Sir Brother Sun
Who is the day, and through whom you give us light.
He is beautiful and radiant, with great splendour
And bears a likeness of you, Most High One.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Wind
And through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather
Through which you give sustenance to your creatures.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Sister Water
Who is very useful and humble, precious and pure.

Praised be you, my Lord, through Brother Fire
Through whom you light the night
He is beautiful and playful, robust and strong.

Praised be you, my Lord, through our sister, Mother Earth
Who sustains and governs us
And who produces varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Francis of Assissi Translation based on that of Armstrong and Brady

Blessed Lord
as Francis found joy in creation, in beauty and simplicity
but perfect joy in sharing the sufferings of the world
so may we, abiding in your love
receive your gift of perfect joy
and by the power of your Spirit
radiate your joy
and find, even in suffering,
the glory of God.
A prayer at the Franciscan Priory, Almouth