Flexibility

Monasteries have guests. Some have a lot, others have few. But I have never heard of a monastery that did not have any.

St. Benedict has a whole chapter (53) in his Rule on "The Reception of Guests", and since it is one of the longer chapters, it seems important. There's a lot of advice that's good even today. But the whole thing is prefaced by a wonderful statement: "All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say: I was a stranger and you welcomed me (Matt. 25:35)."

Over the years Holy Cross has found that guest ministry is a ministry we do well, and that lots of people respond well to it. There is a practical component to it, of course. To make a living some monasteries make jam or bread or cheese, or even fruitcake, as our dear friends the Camaldolese in Big Sur, CA, do. We welcome guests.

I was Prior of Mount Calvary (Santa Barbara) in the 80's and learned there the wonderful blessing that guest ministry can be. All kinds of groups and individuals find their way to the monastery for a day or an overnight or a weekend or most of the week. They are all interested in quiet and prayer on some level or they would not have come. Many of course already know the monastic community and have become friends, and others are quite new. It's not hard to spot the new ones. They're the ones looking around, flipping the pages of the breviaries in Chapel with a lost expression or a furrowed brow. As their time at the monastery unfolds, most of them relax and begin to go with the flow, and by the end of their time, they often seem thoroughly at home.

As guests adjust to monastic worship and community life, so the monastic community adjusts to them. Sometimes this is simple. A smile to an old friend, adjusting the conversation at supper to include a person new to us, noticing changes, catching up, answering simple questions (where's the ladies' room is a popular one).

But sometimes the adjustments are more involving. Today is a good example. A large group began to arrive in the late afternoon. They weren't all here when the usual time for clearing supper things came. Several of the extended community of the monastery were busy and going to be absent from Compline for various reasons -- a meditation group, a twelve step meeting, an EFM class -- and a couple of the others were busy getting ready to orient the group. Most of the rest of us were doing dishes, which was clearly taking longer than normal.

I suppose we could have insisted that this group adhere to our schedule. Get here by six, finish eating by 6:30, everyone into the Chapel at 7:25 for meditation and Compline.

But something else happened. As a group we realized that some of these folks would be late and would need a little something to eat. We were thin on the ground. So the brother in charge decided that we would do the dishes as best we could, we would leave the food out in the pantry for the latecomers, and we would dispense Compline and say it privately. Br. Bernard volunteered to come back a little later and put the food away.

Now I don't want to encourage potential guests to dawdle when they visit us! We do need to try to keep to the timetable, for everyone's benefit. But we were faced with a need. We met it by being flexible.

If Christ came to our monastery and was a little late for supper, what would we do? He informs us in the very same chapter of Matthew that "inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me". Tonight I feel we inconvenienced ourselves for Christ.