This morning, the day after Thanksgiving and the penultimate day of this Year of Grace (i.e., liturgical year), I seem to have both the time and the enrgy. It's made a bit easier by the fact that I hand-wrote what I was going to post last week.
In addition to Morning Prayer, my daily spiritual praxis consists of reading a chapter (or a portion of a chapter) of The Rule of Saint Benedict. I also usually listen to 24/7 Prayer's Lectio 365. I also pray the Rosary.
Saint Benedict, ca. 480-ca. 550
Several years ago, for a variety of reasons, I quit drinking alcohol. I won't bore you with the details of my long, winding relationship with that substance. Suffice to say that it will be three years this 26 December, the Feast of Saint Stephen, that I quit for good. Along with Saint Martin of Tours, on whose feast day I was born, Saint Stephen is my patron saint. My middle name is "Stephen" from birth. Stephen was my Dad's first name.
Of course, as a Catholic deacon I drink wine at Mass, even during the pandemic. Since I serve at 3-5 Masses weekly, my wine consumption probably amounts to one small-to-medium size glass of wine per week. So, whatever health benefits moderate wine and/or alcohol consumption might provide, I receive.
Last Thursday morning, my reading from The Rule of Saint Bendict was the fortieth chapter. The title of this section of the Rule is "The Quantity of Drink." At least for me, this chapter captures well the issue with alcohol consumption, especially as one grows older.
In his distinctive way, Saint Benedict begins by noting the problems that naturally arise from limiting how much another person can eat and drink. I start with this because I don't judge anyone who drinks. Since I am not their abbot, bishop, spouse, parent, etc., it is not my place to seek to place limits on anyone else. According to his moderate sensibility, Benedict does not prohibit monks from drinking wine. He does assert that "those to whom God grants the strength should abstain [from wine]."
Father Benedict goes on to state something rather interesting about those who abstain. He insists that they "earn a special reward." True to his grounded spirituality, I can only imagine that Benedict understands that abstaining from alcohol is its own reward. This is certainly true for me. As the late Scottish writer, William McIlvanney wrote in the final installment of his Jack Laidlaw trilogy, Strange Loyalties: "To pretend that subjective conviction is objective truth, without testing it against the constant daily witness of experience, is to abdicate from living seriously." Even though it is monastic, or maybe precisely because it is monastic, Benedictine spirituality is existential, that is to say, grounded in experience.
Our traditio for this last Friday of the Year of Grace 2021 is an the Introit for Mass for the First Sunday of Advent:
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