The guest should be welcomed as Christ.
Benedict expresses a most important norm for hospitality in the Benedictine tradition at the beginning of c. 53 in the Rule, the one chapter where he formally speaks of hospitality. He states that first of all we love Christ and truly believe that Christ will with regularity visit us within the boundaries of where we live and work. Benedictine hospitality also implies Catholicity, which is to say we are Catholic with a capital C, embracing the teaching and the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church, but also that we are catholic with a small c, welcoming all who enter our community, whatever their religion or background. This is translated to mean that any outsider can come and experience what Benedict in his chapter on the porter calls "all the courtesy of love." (RB 66:4)
While all Catholics are welcome to take part in the daily Eucharist, any guest is welcome to enter the abbey church to pray Office with the monks and share the monks' love for the Word of God and their silence, even if they are not members of the Catholic faith.
A distinguishing hallmark of any Benedictine institution is prayer, perhaps better put as a life marked by a mindfulness of God’s presence, one that is reinforced daily through liturgical action, the practice of daily prayer and lectio divina. Saint Benedict insisted that in his monastery nothing should be preferred to the Work of God, the prayer life of the community. So the rhythm of each day at Marmion Abbey has the alternation of public prayer and private prayer. The public prayer has the monks gather for the Morning Prayer at Lauds, the Evening Prayer of Vespers and the Hour of Readings or Vigils that take place after our evening meal. At all of these public times of prayer guests are welcome to take part.
One of the more important times of prayer that the community sets aside for itself is the Eucharist. Since our founding in 1933, the daily celebration of the Mass has been at the center of all we do and who we are for the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life” (Lumen Gentium 11)
Placing our trust in our Lord Jesus Christ for the future of our monastic community, we receive his Benediction at the end of Vespers on Sunday and have a holy hour for vocations the first Sunday of each month in which we pray for the men God will entrust to us.
We invite you to join us in prayer at any time. Our Holy Father Benedict calls us to
“begin every good work with prayer so that He may bring it to completion” (Prologue, Rule of St. Benedict)
In the life of every monastery there is also time and space given to private prayer and the practice of lection divina, or prayerful reading of Sacred Scripture. These are accomplished throughout the day within the framework of the community schedule.
Obedience is at once a vow taken by every Benedictine monk and an essential virtue whose cultivation St. Benedict says is imperative for anyone who desires to imitate and draw close to Christ. In his Rule, Benedict combines obedience with chapters on silence and humility (RB 5-7) to underscore the root meaning of the word: to listen. More emphatically, Benedict says that to the degree we listen attentively to God's Word as it comes to us in so many different ways, we will become more disposable to doing God's will. In the monastery, that will is manifested primarily through the teaching and commands of the one who take's the place of Christ in the monastery, the abbot (RB 2). Throughout his Rule, Benedict displays a realistic and practical understanding of how obedience is practiced. He anticipates that there will be times when a monk is reluctant to obey the will of another. Accordingly, he is insistent on having the monk respond to any act of obedience, not grudgingly or sluggishly, but promptly and gladly (RB 5). He even anticipates occasions where a monk may be given what he considers to be "an impossible task" and provides a context where the monk can present his difficulty to the abbot (RB 68). But in the end he is encouraged to trust in God's help and, in love, obey. So too, Benedict speaks of the mutual obedience that the community members owe one another and as a blessing that brings them to God (RB 71). Perhaps the Swiss-American Congregation's Declaration on Monastic Life puts it best when it speaks of how the monk begins to live in and with the community the obedience to God to which he was called in baptism and so obedience becomes part of the gift the entire monastic community makes as an offering to God the Father.
Closely connected to discipline are the hallmarks of stewardship and stability. The former term has been much in vogue these days with reference to the political and corporate worlds. But in the Rule of Benedict it is clear that accountability becomes an obligation on all in the community. It begins with the abbot in the monastery.
Benedict puts it on the line when he says that anyone undertaking the charge of souls must be ready to account for them (RB 2:37). That same unsparing responsibility is enjoined upon the cellarer when he is told that he will be held accountable on the day of judgment for the care and concern he shows for the sick, guests, children and the poor (RB 31:9). No one is exempt from answering to their task.
The same holds true for stewardship. Any community that aspires to a Benedictine charism will be aware of the human and natural resources available to it. Benedictines prize the wise and moderate use of material things for the good of all. We can call Benedictines the forerunners of the green movement and ecological consciousness. Benedict says in his Rule that we are to regard all the tools and goods of the community as if they were the sacred vessels of the altar (RB 31:10).
Moreover, this type of consciousness leads to a sacramental attitude toward all of creation and the cultivation of beauty as modes of experiencing God’s presence.
Stability of place has its supplement in a stability of heart that is built upon lasting relationships. The relationships are for life. Surely one of the most endearing aspects of a monk as a teacher at Marmion is to see students establish friendships here that last a lifetime not only with their fellow classmates but also with the monks, as well as return to campus and revisit as what Benedict might call a lover of the place. To be able to inculcate that genuine affection for the place and its people as a recurring magnet is a central fixture for the Benedictine charism.
Good zeal in carrying out our mission is an important characteristic of the monastic life. In what has become the chapter in his Rule that synthesizes all of the life, chapter 72, Benedict exhorts his monks to be the first to show respect to one another, to support with the greatest patience one another's weaknesses of body and behavior (RB 72:4-5).
One is immediately struck by how much this exhortation contrasts with the culture in which we find ourselves. Patience and putting up with weakness are not qualities that are held up for emulation in American culture.
What makes good zeal such an appropriate characteristic of monastic life is the way in which it encompasses all the other characteristics of Benedictine life: the concern for the most vulnerable, the sick, the elderly and the very young; the insistence for Benedict that the leaders of his community (e.g. the abbot, the cellarer) always take into account the individual differences of the people in their care. There may be a regimen for a Benedictine school, but there should never be regimentation in the treatment of others. One is called to see Christ in everyone and to serve the Lord revealed in them.