Do you love me....

July 7.  This is the final chapter of the preceding seven chapters dealing with what has sometimes been called the penal code of the Rule.

Even the phrase sounds severe.

At times it has been difficult to imagine a person of Benedict's wisdom spending so much time considering the punishment of those in his care. Yet, as Sister Joan reminds us, we do not have to read these chapters very closely before discovering that Benedict's purpose is always to heal, never to destroy; to cure, not to crush.

Perhaps we should have seen Christ standing behind Benedict all along.

Jesus certainly confronted his disciples. He rebuked Peter. He corrected James and John. He found his closest friends sleeping when he had asked them to remain awake. But after Peter's greatest failure, Jesus did something extraordinary.

He asked him a question.

Do you love me?

Not: Are you sufficiently ashamed?
Not: Have you suffered enough?
Not even: Can you promise never to fail again?

Do you love me?

The Desert Fathers understood something of this mystery. They demanded honesty, effort, and perseverance, yet warned us never to correct another without remembering the trail of our own sins behind us. Augustine believed correction could awaken the sleeping heart, but only grace could finally heal it. Luther insisted that the fallen must know that we seek not their destruction but their salvation.

And perhaps that is the question we must carry from these difficult chapters.

When those we love fall—and when we ourselves fall—what is it that truly calls us home?

Fear may stop us momentarily. Shame may drive us into hiding. Punishment may force outward obedience.

But what finally loosens the grip of the false self? What enables us to surrender an evil way, rise again, and begin anew?

Love.

Richard Rohr writes that God does not love us if we change. God loves us so that we can change.

So today, at the end of Benedict's long reflection on discipline, I invite you to look gently and honestly into your own life. Remember those moments of great weakness. What was it that finally reached you? What allowed you to surrender, to turn, to begin again?

The answer will be different for each of us. Grace finds strange and wonderfully personal roads into the human heart.

But perhaps, somewhere beneath it all, we will hear the same question Christ asked Peter beside the sea:

Do you love me?