What Can Be Sweeter?

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An Ash Wednesday Quotation and Reflection
ProdigalSon

“And the Lord, seeking his workman among the multitudes to whom he thus crieth, saith again: ‘What man is he that desireth life and would fain see good days?’ (Psalm 33) And if hearing him thou answer, ‘I am he,’ God saith to thee: ‘If thou wilt have true and everlasting life, keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips that they speak no guile. Turn away from evil and do good: seek after peace and pursue it. (Ps. 33) And when you have done these things, my eyes will be upon you and my ears open unto your prayers. And before you call upon me, I shall say to you, ‘Lo, here I am.’ What can be sweeter to us, dearest brethren, than this voice of our Lord inviting us? Behold in his loving mercy the Lord showeth us the way of life.”
The Rule of St. Benedict, Prologue

Ash Wednesday. The sun rises this morning on hearts that are longing and searching. Yet who is searching for whom?

Benedict discovers in scripture a God who seeks, invites, and shows. The season of Lent is perhaps most of all a time to undertake practices to be better disposed to receive these divine advances.

Spring is a season for work of all kinds. Benedict says God is seeking among the multitudes for workers. But work is always about relationship. Isn’t God ultimately seeking relationship?

Perhaps the most important work of this season is to become better disposed: to be found, to answer the invitation, to be shown. What can be sweeter?

St. Benedict (480-543) is considered the father of western monasticism.

Originally Posted at Bacon from Acorns.

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John A. Cuddeback is a professor and chairman of the Philosophy Department at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, where he has taught since 1995. He received a Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Catholic University of America under the direction of F. Russell Hittinger. He has lectured on various topics including virtue, culture, natural law, friendship, and household. His book Friendship: The Art of Happiness was republished in 2010 as True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness. His writings have appeared in Nova et Vetera, The Thomist, and The Review of Metaphysics, as well as in several volumes published by the American Maritain Association. Though raised in what he calls an ‘archetypical suburb,’ Columbia, Maryland, he and his wife Sofia consider themselves blessed to be raising their six children in the shadow of the Blue Ridge on the banks of the Shenandoah. At the material center of their homesteading projects are heritage breed pigs, which like the pigs of Eumaeus are fattened on acorns, yielding a bacon that too few people ever enjoy. His website dedicated to the philosophy of family and household is baconfromacorns.com.

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