All Saints of St. Gertrude's

Today is the Feast of All Saints, and for us a month to remember all the saints of St. Gertrude’s. There are banners hung in the chapel with the names of all our departed sisters. Tonight we will process in statio (lined up two by two) into the chapel and celebrate the feast for another year. We will remember those among us who have departed during this past year and for the past 118 years since our founding.

It is a month when I remember we are indeed surrounded by a great “cloud of witnesses” as the author of Hebrews put it. I read somewhere that the image is meant to refer to a coliseum of cheering fans supporting the athletes competing in the games. The athletes completing their race of faith on earth, the martyrs who gave up their lives for their faith, would be able to see how many people were with them in their struggle.

It is a powerful image as I see the names and remember many of the people who have gone before us at our monastery, women who are still with us in many ways. It is good to remember that all of us indeed are saints. Most of the women whose names are on our banners this month, who are now resting on our hill, weren’t extraordinary by most standards. There are some very holy women, a few who were deeply wounded and difficult, many who lived lives of ordinary hard work and hidden faith. All Saints is a day to remind us of this, that sainthood is perhaps most about perseverance in the midst of ordinary life. It is about enduring in the struggles, continuing in the dailyness of our faith journey. For most of us the journey to sainthood will not go through the route of extraordinary feats of piety, martyrdom or holiness. Our way to sanctification will be the way of the old monk who was asked by a newcomer, “what do you do all day in the monastery? The old monk thought for a while and said, ‘well, we fall down and we get up and we fall down and we get up and we fall down and we get up.’”

The saints of monastic life are the saints of desire. The essence of monastic life is a deep desire for God, a desire that compels some of us to live a different kind of life. It isn’t that we or any of those who have gone before us are any holier, if anything we may need more structure and support to seek God than those who are juggling families, spouses and a life without monastic structure. To be a monk is to simply know that somehow the deep longing for God cannot be assuaged except in a way of life in which faith is the focus, the center, the raison d’etre.

Some of our saints left this life deeply transformed. Some seemed to depart still awaiting the transformation that will happen in eternity. But they are all still with us. The saints of the monastery have left the legacy of their desire for God, their struggle to grow into the full stature of Christ, their faithfulness to the daily joys and frustrations of this way of life. Their spirits and their memories are still with us, they whisper in the corner of our minds, we glimpse them in the fleeting dark corners of the chapel. And we know that they are still there, filling our chapel, our halls, a great cloud cheering us on as we continue our race, upheld by the great cloud of our saints.

Are We Hospitable to God?

When people say they are attracted to Benedictine spirituality they often cite hospitality as one of the key values that they resonate with. I certainly hope it is true that Benedictines are hospitable to guests, and to one another (!) but as I reflect on it I wonder whether we are as hospitable to God as we are to guests.

It is interesting that the Rule of Benedict never specifically mentions that the monks should treat one another as Christ. Benedict says that guests and the sick are the ones to be accorded special attention. Perhaps it is because the sick and guests are the ones who tend to interrupt our schedules, have special needs, aren’t predictable and can’t be responsible for their actions the way the rest of the monastic community is. The sick and guests are the ones that Benedict says we have to make a special effort to recognize as the presence of God in our midst as they demand our precious time and attention.

So as Benedictines we have taken this principle of hospitality to heart over the centuries. We warmly welcome guests in our midst, we have them share our meals, our prayer, our lives. In the monastery we treat the sick with reverence, treat them with special care and concern and love them deeply even in their diminishment. In other words we take Benedict at face value and treat our people as Christ. But how do we treat God in our midst? Are we as hospitable to God as we are to the sick and guests whom we are supposed to treat as Christ?

Maybe most people are better at this but sometimes I find it easier to make room for guests in my life than God. If someone comes here and needs my time or attention I put it on my calendar, make arrangements and do whatever it takes to care for that persons needs. I don’t blow off a meeting just because I am tired or I don’t particularly want to or have something I’d rather do. I wish I could say the same about the way I treat my time with God. Prayer and lectio and simply being present to God are somehow easier to put off, to take off my “to do” list, to say there is something else I’d rather do. It is easier to postpone or re-schedule or ignore God than the people who want my time or energy.

But of course the reality is also that God is like the guests and the sick of Benedict’s Rule. God has a way of showing up unexpectedly, when you least plan or expect and demandingly interrupts your day. (I suspect God appreciates the old joke: “Want to make God laugh? Tell God your plans.”) God is not like most of the members of the monastic community who are careful to find an appropriate time to talk, who are careful not to intrude on a bad day, who tiptoe around our weaknesses and foibles. God is more like the guest who arrives unexpectedly and unapologetically three hours later than expected after you’ve gone to bed. God can be like the sick in our midst who can be cranky and demanding and seemingly unable to wait patiently for anything.

So perhaps this is a blasphemous portrayal of God, but perhaps it is just a reminder that hospitality is important because it is supposed to change us. Hospitality is really hospitality when it isn’t easy. When we are stretched, put out, forced to go beyond ourselves for another, then we are truly being hospitable. The question then becomes: are we willing to make this kind of room in our lives for God, to go beyond our comfort level, to be made uncomfortable, to recognize that God may demand more of us than we want to give?

God tends to come and interrupt or comfortable, complacent lives because God is asking for the hospitality that will transform us. God will come into our lives, shake them up, heedless of our likes and dislikes, and will turn our world inside out. But the blessing of this sometimes difficult hospitality to God is that God will be a guest who never leaves, who will be with us always. And that is the ultimate gift of hospitality.

A Little Rule?! For Beginners!?!

There is a sentence at the very end of the Rule of Benedict that has probably been perplexing and terrifying monastics for over 1500 years. Benedict asks: “8Are you hastening toward your heavenly home? Then with Christ’s help, keep this little rule that we have written for beginners.” (RB 73:8) You can almost hear the centuries of anguished responses: if this is a little rule for beginners, what does the advanced rule look like?

As I’ve thought about it over the years I’ve come to think that maybe I have a sense of what Benedict is trying to say.

Most people, including most monastics, like to think that people who have chosen to live in a monastery are somehow more spiritually advanced, or at least more committed to the spiritual life. But the reality is that life in a monastery is actually easier in many ways than trying to maintain a deep life of faith in the midst of the world with the demands of family, work and without the support and structure of living in a monastic community.

The whole Rule of Benedict tries to set forth the structures that are needed to allow monastics to focus on the spiritual life without distraction. Benedict tries to make allowance for everyone’s needs and weaknesses so that there will be no excuses for not going deeply into the spiritual journey. People who have jobs in the monastery are given help if they need it, someone rings the bell as a signal to stop and go to prayer, people who are struggling are given wise elders to support them. Even the practical details seem designed to eliminate all the creative excuses we come up with for not staying focused on God. There is variety in meals so that everyone has something to eat. Every monk has his own bed and enough clothing. The daily schedule has specified times for prayer so that it doesn’t have to be fit in around all the other demands. In other words all aspects of the way of life are designed by Benedict to make it easier to grow in love for God and neighbor.

So perhaps “beginners” in the spiritual life are those of us who need more structure, more help to keep on the path. Benedict says that when people need more they should receive it and feel humble because they aren’t as strong as others.

Maybe those of us who live in monasteries need to feel humble when we reflect on the reality that we are very blessed to live a life in which we have the structures and encouragement to grow in relationship with God. In Chapter One Benedict talks about the four types of monks and calls cenobites (monks who live in community) the “strong ones.” But Benedict didn’t know about people seeking to live monastic values while juggling children, spouses, demanding jobs, the hectic pace of the modern world all while living without the structures of a monastery. If he was familiar with all the people living his “little rule” in the midst of so many demands I think he would say that these people are truly the “strong” kind of monks in our world today.

Chores and Love

What do chores have to do with love? Unless we are talking about the occasional person who has a passion for cleaning or doing dishes the two don’t seem to naturally go together. But as is often the case Benedict in his Rule for monks understood that the most ordinary activities of everyday life have a profound significance.

In writing a chapter about kitchen servers he says that no one is to be excused from kitchen service except for a very good reason because “…such service increases reward and fosters love.” (RB 35:2) In a long chapter he explains at length how monks are to serve at meals. There is a ceremony at the beginning of the week to install the kitchen servers of the week and the ceremony echoes the way new members enter the monastery. In other words every week as they begin to take their turn serving meals the monks are reminded of why they entered the monastery, their commitment to seek God and serve one another in community life.

I have been thinking about this because last week a new chore list came out. Like every group of people living together we have to decide who does what chores to keep the place going. There are always dishes to do, rooms to clean, floors to sweep and a thousand other little tasks. Everyone except the most infirm has a job or usually several jobs to do. The chores are changed periodically as peoples schedules change, they move or simply can’t do the job any more.

Of course today or in Benedict’s time probably no one ever came to enter monastic life because they were drawn by the spiritual significance of being a kitchen server or a dish washer. Most of us came with lofty expectations of how we would find God through prayer and ministry. But if we stay here long enough we eventually realize the wisdom of Benedict. It isn’t hard to find God in the chapel and the daily prayer, but the real trick is to find God in the pots and pans, the vacuuming, the common work that makes up daily life.

We don’t have a ceremony anymore at the beginning of the week to designate who will be doing what service. Perhaps that’s too bad, it is easy to lose sight of the purpose of common work. Benedict was certainly worried that the soup would be served hot and on time but he was more worried that the monks realize that by mundane acts of service they were demonstrating their love for one another. The point wasn’t to hurry up and get through the chores, it was do the chores in a way that each monk was serving his brothers as Christ would.

In our chores we are given daily chances to get past ourselves and our sense of self-importance. It is hard to get carried away with yourself while sweeping a floor, re-stocking napkins or being up to your elbows in greasy pots. And that is the way it should be. Each of those things and many more are critical to creating a place where we can be about the spiritual life, where we can be about the work of transformation. Each of the little daily chores gives us a chance to demonstrate love and service in ways that are humble, unspectacular, but necessary. The chores are a way to help us realize that no matter what we may have thought, monastic life is not about great feats of asceticism or spiritual grandeur it is about love that is demonstrated every day in my small, unnoticed ways.