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Finding Balance – The Holy Rule of St. Benedict with Fr. Mauritius Wilde OSB
Using the Holy Rule of St. Benedict, Fr. Mauritius Wilde defines soberness not merely as abstinence but as living with balance and attentiveness to one’s true needs, avoiding unhealthy compensations such as overeating, excessive internet use, or addictive behaviors. We must discern the authentic responses to feelings like stress, loneliness, or powerlessness, rather than turning to substitutes that fail to address the root issues. Drawing on St. Augustine’s insight that “our hearts are restless until they rest in God,” he stresses that addressing one’s deepest spiritual and emotional needs with humility and reliance on God’s grace leads to true peace and freedom.
Conversion, or turning back to God, is a laborious process requiring persistent effort, humility, and trust in divine grace. Using St. Benedict’s teachings, he reflects on the need to shed the “layers” of compensations and bad habits that obscure our true selves.
Discerning Hearts Reflection Questions
- Identifying Compensations: Reflect on areas in your life where you rely on substitutes, such as distractions or addictions, instead of addressing your true needs.
- Recognizing Restlessness: Consider moments when your heart feels restless and how this reflects a deeper longing for God.
- Seeking Balance: Examine how you strive for balance in your physical, emotional, and spiritual life and whether your responses are appropriate.
- Embracing Soberness: Evaluate how you practice the virtue of soberness by living attentively and avoiding excess or indulgence.
- Responding to Needs with Grace: Ponder how you can bring your needs humbly before God and respond to them in a way aligned with His will.
- Labor of Conversion: Acknowledge the work involved in spiritual growth and how you can patiently cooperate with God’s grace to shed unhealthy habits.
- Listening to God’s Call: Reflect on how you listen to God’s voice in daily life and strive to align your actions with His loving guidance.
- Trusting in God’s Providence: Contemplate how you trust in God to provide for your needs and how this trust can deepen your relationship with Him.
From the Holy Rule of St. Benedict
Prologue (50 lines total):
1. Listen carefully, my son, to the master’s instructions, and attend to them with the ear of your heart. This is the advice from a father who loves you; welcome it, and faithfully put it into practice.
2. The labor of obedience will bring you back to him from whom you had drifted through the sloth of disobedience.
Matthew 7:7-10
“Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
Revised Standard Version (RSV)
Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1946, 1952, and 1971 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Father Mauritius Wilde, OSB, Ph.D., did his philosophical, theological and doctoral studies in Europe. He is the author of several books and directs retreats regularly. He serves as Prior at Sant’Anselmo in Rome. For more information about the ministry of the Missionary Benedictines of Christ the King Priory in Schuyler, NE
