The Chapter of St. John the Baptist
Becoming an Oblate
COMMITTMENT
The oblate takes on a commitment to live according to the charisma of this community upholding its traditions, customs and observances as defined in the Little Charter of the poor.
RESPONSIBILITY
The oblate takes on responsibility to do to the best of his/her ability all that being an oblate and Christian demands. To pray for, to fast and to support his brothers and sisters in Christ throughout his/her entire life.
CO-RESPONSIBILITY
The oblate accepts to have obedience to Christ and to Christ in others. This co-responsibility to mutual obedience with others means that I must always consider what effect my actions will have on Christ, in me, in others, in my world.
TO BE HUMAN
The oblate accepts his humanity for he/she has not entered in here to escape from the world but to share more deeply in the sufferings of Christ in humanity in our world. The oblate picks up his cross and carrying his own cross walks beside Christ the road up to Calvary.
You are called
CONTENTS
[The Starting Place] [Wisdom] [The Morning Offering] [Being an Oblate]
[The Call to Maturity] [The Life of Christ in us] [Perseverance]
[Our Life Together] [Chapter of St. John the Baptist; Excuses]
To begin the work of conversion from the truth of God’s will that is his love for me in this moment, in which I exist and as I am at this time, within myself, is to take up my cross and not avoid walking up the road to Calvary.
We can all want the wrong kind of conversion, that, which in longing to be better because we do not like what we are, harbours reservations and questions God’s will for us today. Conversion then becomes a work of determined effort under emotional pressure as we focus, not on God, but in ourselves and sink ever deeper into the mire of trying to get away from what and who we really are.
God gave you a life to live, therefore, it is time to awake, rise up and take hold of this life and begin to live it to the full.
Choosing to become an oblate means making the radical choice to be converted - conversion of my life and manners. Only I can make this choice. it will form the basis of my future.
God created me to be the person I am today, warts an’ all! He knows that I am full of potential albeit ‘a likely lad!’ (likely to do anything!) Yet, He runs towards me at every moment of my life, loving me - as I am in this moment - arms open and outstretched to envelop me in his warm embrace, all my sins forgiven.
Can I accept that? How many times have I sidestepped and caused us to pass by, like ships in the night?
God is not asking me to be someone else. he loves me as I am. he doesn’t ask me for the impossible dream. he wants what is possible in this moment of my life - my surrender to the great privilege of being the person I am; not the one I’d rather be.
I am God’s child.
WE ARE CALLED NOT
ACCORDING TO OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS BUT ACCORDING TO GOD’S OWN PURPOSE
As we have said, by choosing to make oblation, we are admitting our failures and weakness and have chosen to make the journey home with a community to help and support us. As we admit our vulnerability, we share in Jesus’ own vulnerability. We take our courage from him. Why is this?
It is because the Father has expressed his pleasure and delight in Jesus’ whole life on earth, so, we know that we too, will please him by following in Jesus’ footsteps in this way. Having offered all his earthly life for the Father, Jesus was blessed to merit all the grace it was possible for him to merit. He now dispenses that grace to us in the amount predestined to be bestowed upon each one of us.
By associating ourselves with Christ in the mysteries of his life, we unite ourselves to him and with him and in him to receive this grace. In making oblation, we are placing ourselves with Jesus upon the Altar. We are united, together in his offering of Himself to the Father. Bread and wine and water for the life of our world.
EUCHARIST
The word ‘oblate’ comes from the Latin word ‘oblatus’ which means ‘offered’. That which is offered becomes an oblation or offering.
Oblates make a promise to God. This promise is based upon the intention to offer oneself wholly to God as a personal response to the daily call of God to the individual and then, to journey back to him under the guidance of our
patron saints, in particular, St. Benedict, for the whole community lives guided by his Holy Rule.
Oblates are not vowed religious, nor ‘Third Order’, nor are they a pious association for good people looking for spiritual companionship. Oblates are ordinary human people seriously trying to put the spirit and values of the Gospel and the Rule of St. Benedict into practical expression in their everyday lives.
There are no standards by which to measure an oblate to see if he or she is a good one. It is only one person after another centering their lives on God, living in the simplicity of His Presence and loving Him.
There is no such thing as a normative oblate life only simple human people living out their regular routines in the light of the Word in Scripture. Putting on Christ, they love and serve non-exclusively, unconditionally, like Him.
Oblates are people like you and me. People with a variety of needs and personalities; each with their own particular mentality, background and experience coming together in a common mentality, with a common way of looking at the essentials of life based upon the spirit and values of the Rule of St. Benedict and guided by the Little Charter of the poor.
We are all different. A monastery is a fellowship of characters living in fraternal charity, in great patience and tolerance of each other. It is a family; it is a Church.
By choosing to offer ourselves to God, in Christ Jesus, through spiritual affiliation to the monastery, we acknowledge our weakness, our vulnerability; we share in Christ’s vulnerability and we are asking others to help us in our weakness, to support us and help us in seeking God as we seriously try to put the rule into practical expression in our lives.
Oblates are everyday people, each separate and alone, yet united spiritually with each other through the monastery, at the deepest level of union - the unity of being a member of one body - Jesus Christ.
WE ARE ONE BODY IN CHRIST.
The Starting Place
NEW BEGINNINGS
Every morning I awake, life begins anew. Each day is a new beginning. Each night I commend myself, body, soul and spirit into God’s hands. Father, into your hands, I commend my spirit. I rest deep within the tomb only to rise to new life each dawn. I go from beginnings through beginnings, in beginnings that never end.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE SPIRIT
I offer to God, my first thought and act of my will as the foundation of my zeal in the service of Him during the entire day. Jesus knocks on the door of our heart, let us open and welcome Him in.
THE SACRIFICE OF THE BODY
The second offering we must make to God is the sacrifice of the body. We do this by acting promptly in rising, praying at the given time, by acts of self-denial and by being obedient to what we know is right in His eyes. God awakens us to work for Him and for eternity. We find many excuses. God can wait for me. Yes, He can, but will He?
THE SACRIFICE OF THE LIPS
The third offering is that of our lips. Let us take on our lips the Holy Name of Jesus and make all our actions of the day for His greater glory. We remember His Divine Providence, surrender our will to His and recommend to Him all our cares, duties and desires, asking His grace and His help in temptations and trials.
The Morning Offering Ausculte
BEING AN OBLATE
The Chapter of St. John the Baptist
The spirit of the Gospel teachings of Christ The Holy Rule written out of love for men
Attention, Wisdom; Ausculte - Listen, my Son........
You are God’s child. He created you to know him and to love him and to be happy with him in this live and forever in eternity.
You are here not for all the things you want to be nor for anything that you can do but you are here for God’s purpose decreed for you before the world began. You were created in Light and must now learn how to return to that Light.
What you now see as a heap of bones wrapped up in a body that leaves much to be desired is, in fact, to be realized and accepted as a masterpiece of God’s own craftsmanship and it tells us that we don’t have to be perfect just human. In his own way God takes all the pressure off us. We can just be who we are in this moment and that's ok. It’s fine by him because he has a plan and that plan will transform our lowly bodies into his own glorious body - if we let him.
He is offering you a peace treaty. You surrender, give up what is false within you and he will be your God. You have to let God save you. Your job now is to co-operate with God in bringing about your salvation. Instead of running away or fighting against the truth; instead of living in other peoples revelations and lives we must live in our own and have our own intimate experience of God. We must take up our cross and fight for Christ. Yes, FOR HIM!
Jesus will not save me without my consent. I can help him conquer the world of countless immortal souls by conquering with his help, the little world of my own soul. Small it is, but this conquered territory will afford a place for my God, my King and Conqueror to plant his banner, the cross and to rest his weary, nail-pierced feet.
The Oblates of the Precious Blood are affiliated to
the Sisters of St. John the Beloved.
BECOMING AN OBLATE
OBLATION IS THE OFFERING OF ONE’S WHOLE SELF TO GOD IN CHRIST JESUS
TO BECOME EUCHARIST.
It is the fruit of the mystery of the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. The human Son of Mary presented to the Father and accepted in his loving arms as the Beloved, the only-begotten from all ages.
The acceptance of the Son by the Father and the Son’s trust and confidence in that loving acceptance that it will never fail him. From that day forward little Jesus knew he could return to His Father and be welcomed no matter what. So, too, it is for us. Presented in the Temple, accepted and received at Baptism, God is our Father who will always welcome us - no matter what. Therefore we give thanks and we seek union with Christ to be offered with him in his own great oblation to the Father.
Oblation then is not just about me giving my whole being to God, it is also and first of all a humble trustful appeal on my part for acceptance. Secondly, it is a confidence that God will not fail the oblate, his child. Thirdly, it is a prayer for really being given and really being received. It is about being responsible and about co-responsibility with God and with your community.
FIAT.
1. The Chapter houses the Oblates of the Precious Blood affiliated to the Sisters of St. John the Beloved at the Monastery of Dewi Sant.
2. The Chapter of St. John the Baptist is and always remains a part of the Confraternity of the servants of Jesus in Mary, existing under the umbrella of the Little Charter of the Poor and the supervision of the Monastery.
3. The Director of Oblates is a Sister of St. John the Beloved and all inquiries and business relating to oblates should be sent to Sister at the Monastery. If the workload becomes too heavy then, Sister may, with Rev. Mother’s approval, appoint lay-persons to help in the administration of the Chapter business.
4. Oblates of the Precious Blood are servants of Jesus in Mary who choose to formally associate themselves with the Monastery by a simple promise, renewed annually, of obedience, daily conversion and fidelity to the Word of God, the Benedictine spirit and the values of monastic life as lived in this community.
5. Oblates of the Precious Blood are spiritually affiliated to the monastic family whilst continuing to live with their families, in their own homes, in the states and circumstances in which they find themselves in the world.
6. The obligations of members are to incarnate the spirit and values of the Holy Rule of St. Benedict into their daily life and to seek God everyday through the recommended practices as set out in the Little Charter of the Poor.
7. Servants of Jesus in Mary who discern that God is calling them to enter more deeply into their spiritual life and have had time to come to know the monastic family, its customs and traditions, may apply to the Monastery for permission to enter the Chapter as a novice.
8. The novice is received in a short ceremony at the Monastery. The novitiate lasts twelve months, during which time the member undergoes a period of formation in faith and Benedictine spirituality.
9. Towards the end of the novitiate year, the novice may be invited by the monastic family to make their final oblation – an act of offering oneself to God, in union with Christ in his own great oblation to the Father on the Cross. This ceremony will take place at the Monastery, usually during the Midday Hour, and the member will be formally affiliated to the Monastery of Dewi Sant.
10. The simple promise is made with the intention of permanency, but should the member decide not to renew their promise, no sin is attached to their resignation. The Monastery should be notified in writing of their decision to resign.
11. Oblates are encouraged to attend the monastery and participate in the community prayer and work of the Sisters and to make every effort to attend fraternity meetings in their own locality.
12. Oblates are encouraged to establish new fraternities in the world wherever they may live. Each fraternity will be known, without exception, as a “Fraternity of Our Lady of Joy” and meetings are held in accordance with the guidelines set down by the Monastery.
13. Visitors to the fraternities, guests are to be welcomed as friends of the Monastery and may be enrolled as servants of Jesus in Mary. It is hoped that from these good souls will come future Oblates of the Precious Blood.
14. The Sisters at the Monastery express a desire that from the members who have committed themselves to the community as Oblates will, as God may call to them, come new vocations. May you have the courage to knock on our door and seek a religious vocation as a Sister of St. John the Beloved should the Lord beckon to you. Amen
That in God, all things may be glorified!
The Sisters of St. John the Beloved
Who we are
Our House, our calling
The daily Horarium
Our work
Fraternal Charity
The Community is a koinonia
The Confraternity
The Little Charter of the poor
The restoration of the Precious Blood
Pray with us
About Saint David
Formation
Rosary of the 7 Dolors
The Chapter of St. John the Baptist
Tydewi Binderie
Tydewi Binderie
All things come from Him;
To Him are all things.
Approved and signed by
Mary John Lambert
Rev. Mother, the Sisters of St. John the Beloved
At the Monastery of Dewi Sant
P.O. Box 1116, Kalamunda, 6926,
Western Australia
2nd April 2005
@Copy Right, the Monastery of Dewi Sant, Australia.
This Page was created specifically for the Monastery of Dewi Sant, Australia,
By Cath Art Creations
|
|
|
|