Echoes from the Bell Tower

“He will regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as vessels of the altar.”
Rule of Saint Benedict 31:10

One of the monastery officials St. Benedict mentions in his Rule is the “cellarer”. This is the monk in charge of the “cellar” (hence the title, duh!) which, in ancient monasteries, is where they kept food, dry goods, implements and tools, wine, and whatever other provisions were needed to support the lives of the monks.

The “cellarer” was also in charge of the daily distribution of food and drink, the loaning out of tools and implements needed for work, as well as acquiring from the outside whatever the monks needed for personal use - from stationary to bedding, furnishings for their rooms, clothing, etc. The cellarer was a kind of business agent and operations manager for the community.

RB 31 describes the character attributes needed to do the job well, and verse 10 (quoted above) is particularly interesting to me because it reveals an aspect of St. Benedict’s mindset which he wants the cellarer to have too, one that I think is critical to our spirituality as monks: the realization that everything we have comes from God.

Benedict instructs that, whether a spade or broom, a piece of ground or a chapel, a chalice or Missal used for Mass, all these “goods” are from God and intended to be used for the common good. So, Benedict writes, the monks ought to care for what they’ve been given to use for the good of the community, no matter its immediate purpose, and always be mindful of its source – God. There is, in St. Benedict’s way of thinking, no real distinction between the “sacred” and the “secular”; all things are to be treated as sacred because God is the ultimate source of all things. All our “stuff” - our food and drink, our house and work, indeed the community itself - all are from God.

So, if the Rule demands that I care even for something so ordinary as a garden tool as if it was a sacred chalice, it’s because, just as a chalice has a higher purpose beyond itself – as a vessel for the Precious Blood of Christ – so likewise the spade has a good purpose beyond itself: to aid the gardener in the production of food for the community. Both chalice and spade are signs that point to God’s care for our spiritual and bodily well-being.

Likewise, everything else. Even our bodies “are not our own” (1Cor 6:19), they are vessels of the Holy Spirit and intended to be utilized for the good of our neighbor. So, our bodies too must be cared for as sacred: nurtured in healthy ways, exercised, appropriately clothed and lovingly washed and groomed, for they too are signs of God’s goodness to us. St. Benedict applies this to the guest as well: no matter who he is or what her private intentions may be, the guest is to be received as Christ (RB 53:1), the supremely sacred gift from God – every guest treated as a neighbor and friend – even if they dislike us, or not approve of us, or, dare I say, hate us! (Mt 5:44)

This mindset makes us different than the world (RB 4:20), which all too often distinguishes between what is “holy” (acceptable) and what is not (the discarded and discounted), between what is “spiritual” and what is “earthly” - but Benedict instructs us to be grateful for all that’s given by God, whether spiritual or earthly, and to care for what we’ve been given as coming from God. This non-dualistic mindset aids us in the ministry of God’s love from within the world … for the world (John 3:16).