Join The Underlines // The Best Of What I Read
A batch of the best highlights from what Joshua's read, .
while both St. Augustine’s and St. Benedict’s rule have all kinds of tiny habits that we might either consider too inane to matter or too strict to be appropriate, we should notice that both of them had the same goal in mind: love. Both were obsessed with taking the small patterns of life and organizing them towards the big goal of life: to love God and neighbor. St. Augustine’s rule began with this sentence: “Before all things, most dear brothers, we must love God and after Him our neighbor; for these are the principal commands which have been given to us.” St. Benedict’s rule opens declaring that it means to establish “nothing harsh, nothing burdensome,” but goes on to describe walking in God’s commandments as being in the “ineffable sweetness of love.”
The Common Rule
Justin Whitmel Earley
Jesus is more than an example to be followed; he’s a Savior to be trusted. This is why we miss the point if we see Jesus’ wilderness temptation as only how to overcome temptation, with advice like “Jesus used Scripture, so you should too.” This focuses on a flea and misses the elephant in the room. The point is not, “He did it; you can too!” The point is, “You don’t do it; so Jesus did it for you.”
The Pursuing God
Joshua Ryan Butler
But those who are over others should shew themselves to be such that their subjects may not blush to disclose even their secrets to them; that the little ones, vexed with the waves of temptation, may have recourse to their pastor’s heart as to a mother’s breast, and wash away the defilement they foresee to themselves from the filth of the sin that buffets them in the solace of his exhortation and in the tears of prayer.
The Book of Pastoral Rule
Saint Gregory the Great
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