Thursday, April 6, 2017

Chapter 53: The reception of guests (paragraphs 5-6)


The kitchen to serve the superior together with the guests should be quite separate, so that guests, who are never lacking in a monastery, may not unsettle the community by arriving, as they do, at all times of the day. (From para. 5 of Ch. 53 of Saint Benedict's Rule, trans. by Patrick Barry OSB, 1997.)

My household isn't large enough to contain two kitchens.  And yet, I respond to the parallel arrangement that Benedict describes, of hospitality and stability standing side by side.

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