Chapter 35: Weekly servers in the kitchen and at table (paragraphs 1-2)
Everyone in the community should take turns serving in the kitchen and at table. None should be exonerated from kitchen duty except in the case of sickness or the call of some important business for the monastery, because serving each other in this way has the great merit of fostering charity. (From para. 1 of Ch. 35 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry, OSB, 1997.)
St. Benedict links service among household members with charity. Often service is taken for granted -- I've felt that way about my own service and can be negligent in honoring others' service. But to link service with charity means that my actions can be loving and therefore invaluable, despite whether or not they get "noticed".
Servers at table prostrate themselves and pray before and after their service. Reminds me that the purpose of monastic life is to stay awake, awake to you, Abba, here within me and within everyone I meet today—to embrace the “grand poverty”, and the joy, of being a prince, your child, your well-loved little one.
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