Today's considering...

[jaynefury]

I was reading an Oblate manual and ran across this today quoting the Manual for Benedictine Oblates:

In our day, no less, does the growth of infidelity threaten the world with ruin.
The bonds of Christian union are loosening everywhere; in the family as well as in
public life their place is being largely taken by a code of unrestraint and license.

Comments

[pope_guilty]

>>>>>The bonds of Christian union are loosening everywhere; in the family as well as in
public life their place is being largely taken by a code of unrestraint and license.<<<<<

Those Benedictines, ever the optimists.

[zator]

Hmmm...sounds somewhat familiar. :)

How does this fit in with homosexual marriage?

[jaynefury]

I'm really not sure other than monks don't get married. (:

Oblates, however, do. We are expected to live secularly applying the rule of St Benedict in our lives as our lives allow. We read the Rule and interpret it to our lifestyle. I don't think a gay man or lesbian woman would be turned down to be an oblate.

I think that it is fidelity that they are speaking to. Staying true to one person, respecting one person as your partner. As an Oblate (which I am noy yet, as I haven't made my final Oblation), one is expected to become a part of the abbey that they to which they give their Oblation. Permanence is part of that.

[zator]

Okay...so fidelity in the strictest sense of the word, then. That makes some sense.

Now you have me thinking about the definitions of "Christian union" and "family". Fidelity itself doesn't even really imply marriage, so, at least in this particular passage, perhaps marriage isn't necessary? Fidelity is the part that is important.

[jaynefury]

I can see where it could be interpreted as the mass changes in what constitutes family. Then we get into what family is or what it is interpreted as however, in the longrun, it is fidelity, loyalty, obedience, humility and virtues such as selflessness which keep a "community" or a "family" together. Declaring an obedience to an abbey or an order and the Abbott or Abbess is no different than obeying one's parents. In fact, as an Oblate family I consider myself the Abbess or Prioress of this house. I enforce the Rule. (: