Daily Reading for February 20

Your way of acting should be different form the world’s way; the love of Christ must come before all else. You are not to act in anger or nurse a grudge. Rid your heart of all deceit. Never give a hollow greeting of peace or turn away when someone needs your love. Bind yourself to no oath lest it prove false, but speak the truth with heart and tongue. —The Rule of St. Benedict

The end of Benedictine spirituality is to develop a transparent personality. Dissimulation, half answers, vindictive attitudes, a false presentation of self are all barbs in the soul of the monastic. Holiness, this ancient rule says to a culture that has made crafty packaging high art, has something to do with being who we say we are, claiming our truths, opening our hearts, giving ourselves to the other pure and unglossed. Shakespeare’s Hamlet noted once: “A man can smile and smile and be a villain.” Benedict is intent on developing people who are what they seem to be.

From The Rule of Benedict: Insights for the Ages by Joan Chittister (Crossroad, 1996).