Bread and Soup Night TOGETHER



nytimes.com

Wednesday and Friday nights during Lent at the monastery are reminiscent of more traditional monastic times when meals were, for the most part, eaten in silence while listening to holy table reading.  Monastics were not only fortified physically, but their souls were nourished in holy silence as they mulled over the words they heard as the reader shared whatever she was instructed to read by the Abbot.  St. Benedict, in Chapter 38 of his Rule, The Reader for the Week, exhorts "Let there be complete silence.  No whispering, no speaking- only the reader's voice should be heard there.  The brothers should by turn serve one another's needs as they eat and drink, so that on one need ask for anything." 

Our silent monastic meal tonight consisted of split pea and ham hock soup with homemade zucchini bread right out of the oven.  St. Benedict always advocates a second choice, so those who were not particularly fond of this flavor of soup could be seen navigating to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal.  The silent atmosphere somehow invites one to slow down, to truly taste the food, and to listen attentively to the word being read.  In a way, this is prayer time TOGETHER, silence TOGETHER, community time TOGETHER, formation TOGETHER. 

Tonight, as I listened to the reading, I realized we are all on the same journey TOGETHER, intent on our Lenten Pilgrimage TOGETHER.  After the reading was over, we sat in silence for a few minutes until Sr. Janet Marie rang the bell, the sign that the meal was completed and we could then proceed to clear the tables and take our dishes to the cart for dishwashing.  I sat for a few minutes just to watch the Sisters.  I noticed several Sisters taking dishes for Sisters who needed help.  This reminded me of our holy service TOGETHER that should flow out of our silence and our interiorization of God's message through the spoken word.



The book that Sr. Janet Marie chose for our Lenten table reading this year is The Gift of Years, Growing Older Gracefully by Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB.  The following paragraph struck me as a possible Lenten message for us all as we live this monastic life TOGETHER, "growing older gracefully" TOGETHER:

"A burden of these years

is that we must consciously decide how we will live,

what kind of person we will become now,

what kind of personality and spirituality we will bring into every group,

how alive we intend to be.

A blessing of these years is being able to live so openheartedly,

and to adjust so well,

that others can look to us and see what being old can bring

in terms of life,

of holiness, of goodness

to make the world new again."

~Joan Chittister, OSB

The Gift of Years

BlueBridge Pub. 2008, p.65

So our Lenten time TOGETHER is an opportunity, a call, to make everyday a new day so that the Christ within us can make the "world new again."