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HEART WHISPERS - Benedictine Wisdom for Today
by Elizabeth Canham

(Upper Room Books, Nashville, USA; 1999)

The author of this book, Elizabeth Canham, writes out of her experience of living for five years as a monastic Oblate in a Benedictine community. Currently, she is in active in ministry in the Episcopalian Church in the United States.

In the introduction to the book, she gives an overview of the life and historical setting of Benedict, and identifies core values and themes of the Rule. In later chapters, she reflects on the themes of hospitality, simplicity, prayer, manual labor, rest, stability, conversion of life and obedience.

Canham has a very readable style, often reflective, sometimes conversational, as she shares her own lived experience and her reflection on the relevance of Benedict’s Rule for her own life. For instance, she relates the vow of stability to being where we are instead of escaping to some temporary bolt-hole.

At the end of each chapter, she adds her own journal entry on the theme or chapter, thus inviting readers to write their own. Each chapter concludes with suggestions for reflection, which could be helpful for a group sharing of the book, as well as for personal practice.

In writing of hospitality, she observes we are guests in God’s world, an apt connection to our need for ecological awareness in contemporary times. In the suggestions for reflection at the end of the chapter, she invites the reader to take a walk with the awareness that you are a guest in the wonderful world God has created.

She explores also the challenge of welcoming the stranger in our everyday life, and invites us to reflect on our lived expression of seeing Christ in the other.

In a chapter devoted to praying the scriptures, she speaks of her formation in biblical fundamentalism in an evangelical Free Church in England. She relates how her exposure to biblical scholarship in seminary challenged and enriched her understanding of the place of the scriptures in the Christian life.

She then introduces the reader to the Benedictine practice of lectio divina, with simple and clear explanation of its four phases: lectio, meditatio, oratio and contemplatio.

She writes simply on the richness of the psalms for prayer, noting for instance that praying the Prayer of the Church has the advantage of removing prayer from the realm of moods.

A Melbourne group of Good Samaritan associates and friends is meeting monthly to share reflections on this book. Initial feedback is positive even from those for whom it is an introduction to Benedict’s Rule.

by Sue Barker SGS

 

The Resource of the Month is a regular feature on the Good Samaritan Website. Its purpose is to introduce new resources relevant to Good Samaritan Benedictine spirituality and way of life to our readers. If you would like to recommend a book, article, film or website please forward a 250 word review to Sr Bernardina Sontrop bsontrop@goodsams.org.au  

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