July 2011

The Sisters of the Good Samaritan offer you a simple reflection starter on a current book that reflects Good Samaritan Benedictine spirituality.

Each month we will offer some questions based on a chapter of the book. These questions may help you to reflect and pray. They can also be used for small group sharing. Currently it is:

St Benedict on the Freeway: A Rule of Life for the 21st Century by Corinne Ware, Abingdon Press, USA, 2001.

Chapter 1 – “Collected and Recollected”

The reflection starters below may help you plumb the depths of the text and explore more deeply what the text is saying to you in your daily life.

As you read chapter 1, “Collected and Recollected”, notice any words or phrases that connect with your experience, surprised you or raised a question for you?

  • When you experience “that feeling of being scattered, fragmented and uncentred” (p. 23) what helps you to be recollected, to be conscious “that God is with you” (p. 24)?
  • Reflect on what Corinne’s statement “God is ‘for me’, … God wills my good in the moment, and at every moment” (p. 26) means for you at this stage of your life journey.
  • How do you experience the “immanence of God” (p. 26) in your life?
  • Corrine asks the question “why am I going to worship service at this particular time, and what do I expect and hope for when I get there” (p. 28)? What is your response when you ask yourself her question?
  • As she reflects on the story of the rich young man, Corinne concludes, “my question is to ask how Jesus would tailor his teaching to me” (p. 30). What surfaces for you as you ask this question for yourself?
  • Corinne identifies a number of features in Jesus’ life that enabled him to have an intimate relationship with God: connectedness with the Father; compassion; the importance of the interior spiritual life; seeing all of life permeated by God, inclusivity, detachment (pp. 35-38). Reflect on these features in your own life as someone who follows the “Recollected Man”.
  • Take some time to explore and name “what you need to add or subtract from daily routine so that you might become more centred in God … more recollected”. (p. 40).
  • As you review this chapter, name one thing that you will try to take into your own life to enable you to become more God-connected. Write it and put it where you will read it often.