Having just completed our online grocery order for Christmas, it is a relief to turn to today's chapter of the Rule. There's nothing wrong with commercialism as such, one doesn't mind being exhorted to buy this or that for a perfect Christmas, but then, we know Christmas is going to be perfect "whatever". Thinking about the place of the oratory in our lives is, however, a valuable corrective to Christmas stress; and it reminded us to donate to CAFOD and some other favourite charities.

We all need a sacred space but comparatively few have the luxury of an area devoted only to prayer and worship. We have to cultivate instead an inner space, a holy ground of mind and heart, with time we reserve for God alone. The Lord Jesus understood that. When he told his disciples to go into their inner room and pray, he must have meant withdrawing into the inner chambers of the heart since there were few private rooms in first-century Palestine.

I think we can apply what Benedict says about the monastery oratory to this inner space, this sacred time. We need to value the time we devote to prayer, ring-fence it round with a little selfishness even to ensure that it becomes as regular a part of our life as breathing. Reverence and silence on our part are fundamental attitudes but we tend to learn them gradually and have constantly to relearn what we thought we already knew. During Advent we have the example of John the Baptist waiting in the wilderness for the appearing of the Saviour. Perhaps his family thought of him as being lost to them during that time, possibly wasting his life. These days before Christmas can be "wilderness days" for all of us, but they do not have to be lost days. Prayer is never a waste of time.

Just to show that we are not above a little commercialism in a good cause ourselves, here's a reminder about John and Penny's Christmas Book Sale this afternoon. Enjoy!