Community and The Work of God

Today, another fine spring day (sorry, I can't resist the wildflowers).  We worked on two Benedictine themes - Community and The Work of God.  Everything was set in the framework of a typical day at the monastery.  We started with Matins at 7:00 AM, followed by breakfast at 7:45.  As usual the great silence started last night after Compline and continued until mid-morning.  After Eucharist at 9:00, we had a two back-to-back sessions in the Middle House Common Room.

"School of Prayer: The Work of God" was at 10:00 in the Middle House Common Room (above).  Br. James read some passages from the RB (as the Rule of St. Benedict is known), and we discussed how our primary work of God in a monastery is worship.  We heard about the daily offices (the four main worship services - a fifth is the Eucharist, and received a bit of background on how they were laid out.  We discussed how to learn the order of the services and how things flowed (the monks were using that time for choir practice in the chapel nextdoor which served as a nice backdrop.)  We explored how to translate the concept of daily offices into "at home time"... we don't have the benefit of bells ringing to tell us to drop everything and head to the chapel to pray.  Many of us struggle to try and find some time for one period of quiet time at home... several times a day seems out of the question.

"The Community in the RB" was at 11:00 and Br. James shared passages from the rule about community and spoke on how a formed community works... how a large part of the Rule of St. Benedict gives instructions on how to run the community... how the monks have a chapter meeting right after Eucharist every day where they read the rule of St. Benedict but also share concerns and work towards building community.   Without going into detail, we discussed how to apply this.  I thought about all the different types of communities we have and how we have to work at all of them - family, parish, work, etc.

We had a rest period and a work period this afternoon (after Diurnum and Dinner).  The work period was moving things around in the monastic enclosure.  I didn't take my camera (look at the posts from Oct 2011 - the spaces are all the same) for this but I did find a little time to go around and make a couple of photographs (and of course I visited the Gift Shop).

I've always loved the roof-line on the main guest house, though I would never want to pay to actually re-roof that thing.  I also noticed that they installed some new rocking chairs and Adirondack chairs which have my name on them tomorrow.  I couldn't take advantage of them today because they're in the quiet zone and, being a part of a community (this time my work community) I had to help out a colleague which meant hanging out in the parking lot while on the phone so as not to disturb the other retreaters.

We finished the Benedictine program today with a discussion in the common room with Br. Scott.  It was an amazing time where we brough everything together and wound it around our home lives, facebook, netflix, and a host of other current topics.  I was interested in learning that community lives for the monks requires sorting through some of the same issues we face in our homes.

Finally, I had a discussion with Br. Ron and learned my "rule of life" was approved and it turns out I'm signing up this week and will become an Oblate of the monastery (Holy Cross uses the term Associate).  That might happen Friday at Eucharist.

Stay tuned...