*culture is not optional

St. Gregory's Abbey and Benedictine monasticism

Ministry

by

Our fundamental approach to ministry is to live a life of "seeking
God" as St. Benedict asks anyone wishing to join a monastery to do. It
is impossible to seek God sincerely without in some way affecting other
people. Thus, while trying to seek God, we find ourselves doing
counseling, running a guest facility, and sometimes offering teaching
to others. It may be that monks serve the church and the world best
when they have no other goal than to learn to live the mystery of
living for God in community.

Ministry of Prayer

The community of St. Gregory's Abbey remains committed to a
sevenfold office, that is, seven times of worship each day, and also to
a daily Eucharist. We follow the office with the distribution of the
Psalms outlined in Benedict's Rule except for omitting one morning
office and redistributing those Psalms to other services, so that,
during a normal week we do all of the Psalms at least once. We start
the day of worship at 4:00 a.m. and end the day with the Office of
Compline at 7:45 p.m. We use our own adaptation of the Benedictine
Office based on current guidelines from the Benedictine Abbot Primate's
office in Rome. The two early morning offices (at 4:00 a.m. and 6:00
a.m.) are mostly spoken, but we chant the Psalms at the other services.
We use modern plainchant tones for these services, except for Vespers
when we use our own version of restored traditional plain chant tones.
At the daily Eucharist we use the 1979 Prayer Book of the American
Episcopal Church, Rite II.

The act of prayer is itself a ministry to the Church and the world.
I had the opportunity to reflect on the significance of our prayer as
ministry when a guest asked me why there was so little intercessory
prayer; that is, praying directly for the needs of others. He had come
to us thinking we were praying for him and everybody else and he felt
that we were not doing very much of that after all. Part of my answer
was that we get many requests for intercessory prayers and we do more
with them than just read out the intentions during the Eucharist. These
prayer intentions are distributed among the community and we each have
some of them for a few days so as to make the praying of whole offices
given over to these intentions. Moreover, the comprehensiveness of the
Psalter which I pointed out above also suggests that in the Divine
Office we are praying the Psalms for the whole people of God. A deeper
point, of course, is the mystery that we do not, and ought not, know
what God does with our acts of prayer. We pray with the conviction that
prayer is, in itself, a good thing to do and that it pleases God. The
value of prayer cannot be measured by practical considerations any more
than the value of a deep friendship can be measured by what we hope to
"get out of it." We pray with the trust that God will use our prayers
for the benefit of others in the ways He sees fit.

Guest Ministry

There is one apostolate involving people outside the community which
is mentioned in the Rule, and this apostolate is given a strong
emphasis: the ministry to guests. St. Benedict says little of how his
monks should minister to guests, except that they should be treated "as
Christ." Probably he did not give them retreat addresses. Perhaps he
did offer counsel to some. He does mention reading to guests from
scripture.

The most important aspect of our guest ministry at St. Gregory's
Abbey is that guests have the opportunity to share in the worship of
the community. We find that the worship in itself is a teacher and that
many gain a new perspective on the burdens they carry in life just from
that. Also, our guests have the opportunity to have quiet time for
themselves which they often cannot get in their usual environments.
They are able to study, pray, and reflect on their lives, something
they are often too busy to do elsewhere. Many find that workaholism is
a problem which has been cutting them off from the depths within
themselves where God would speak with them. Our guest ministry has an
ecumenical outreach. It is not just a resource to the Episcopal Church,
but is also available to members of many other churches and to some of
no church at all. We house approximately 1,200 overnight guests a year,
and meet with many groups from parishes and schools who come for tours
and introductions to monasticism. Our guest ministry is available at no
charge, but we gratefully receive donations from those guests who can
afford to give money for their time with us.

Counseling

Although we are not set up as a counseling center, there are many
times when we find we can help others through sharing our spiritual
journeys with them. Many of the basic principles in spirituality are,
unfortunately, still well-kept secrets in the Church, so that some of
our guests have been both startled and comforted with the teachings we
have been able to share with them. There are many difficulties in the
life of prayer which are not necessarily caused by "praying badly" or
because something is wrong with the person, but instead are normal
features in the journey of prayer. Many people have also gained comfort
from being told that these difficulties are actually deepening their
prayer rather than forming roadblocks to prayer. As counselors, we have
our limitations; we are not psychiatrists, and there are some people
that we simply are not able to help. We do not always do as well with
each person as we would like, and not always just because the other
person is difficult, but we also try to learn from our failures.

Ministry outside the monastery

We do not put any stress on ministering outside the monastery
because our ministry of prayer and ministry to guests who come here to
St. Gregory's are so important. For that reason, we have to be careful
about accepting very many invitations outside the monastery in order to
make sure that we do not undermine what we can offer others here.
However, there are times when we can offer some help to the greater
Church, depending on the capabilities of the monks we have, and the
number we have in the community. A few of our monks have done weekend
parish retreats, one of our monks travels to Chicago every month to
hear confessions there, and two of us have participated in some
"Benedictine Experience" workshops, a program where the participants
have the opportunity to live a Benedictine schedule for a week.

Publications

We publish a newsletter called The Abbey Letter four times a
year. This newsletter keeps our readers up to date on significant
events at the monastery, and it includes one or two articles written by
the monks which contain reflections on the spiritual life as we
experience it in our monastic community. We consider this publication
to be an important part of our outreach. There are approximately 23,000
names on our mailing list at this time. We receive much of our income
in response to The Abbey Letter, but there is no subscription fee required in order to receive it.

"Mere Christianity"

The phrase "mere Christianity" comes from the title of a book by
C.S. Lewis, and it captures the basic aim in all his religious books.
Lewis was concerned with that which was most basic to Christianity
behind the various differences between the churches and even between
members of the same church. This same concern with "mere Christianity"
is at the heart of Benedict's teaching. St. Benedict presupposes the
traditional theology of the Church rather than writing about it. His
emphasis is on embodying Christianity in practice rather than on
theorizing about it. In a time when there is serious debate in the
church on many issues, a devoted following of Benedict's Rule is
important to keep us in touch with basic Christian practices and
spirituality. We are not the ones who can single-handedly solve any of
the many issues which face the church and society as a whole. Moreover,
being a monk hardly gives one infallible insight as to what the church
and the world should do. Even within the community, there is no
agreement on issues that are dividing the Church, but regardless of
where one stands on such issues, Benedictine principles can ground us
in the most fundamental practices of Christian spirituality in order to
deepen our discernment of what to change, what not to change, and how
to live with the changes.

Ministry of Being

A number of times people have thanked us "just for being here." Such
a compliment does not give us swollen heads. For one thing, we know
some of our individual and communal shortcomings, and suspect there are
more we do not know about. More importantly, we are not necessarily
being complimented for being good monks, but we are being affirmed just
for leading the life.

The value of just "being here" is all the more mysterious when we
reflect on our being marginal to civil society and even to the church.
St. Benedict did not start his monastery as a social protest, and
neither did our first monks open St. Gregory's House with any such
intentions. Even so, the monastic lifestyle has a tendency to question
the values of society and, sometimes, of the rest of the church. Jesus
Christ Himself tended to call everything and everybody into question,
revolutionaries included.

The Benedictine life is not utopian in the sense of positing an
ideal social structure which will automatically solve human problems
once people adopt that structure. I pointed out previously that St.
Benedict starts with his monks where they are, and then encourages them
to change for the better in the Lord. The same principle applies to
society. Many people, even people deeply committed to the economic
structure of this country, may yet feel the need for something more in
life than they have now. A different lifestyle, such as one lived in a
monastery, will not give the rest of the world all the answers.
However, the attempt to live the monastic life does offer different
cultural values to society, which may suggest possible changes in the
way we all live. As monks, we may not necessarily set an example for
all to follow. However, our own struggles to live with ourselves and
with each other may foster the hope that, with the grace of God, change
for the better is possible for individuals and for society. Perhaps the
greatest use for a monastery is that, precisely because it does not
make sense in worldly terms, it can point to the reality of Eternity
which governs all our lives whether we acknowledge it or not.

A printed pamphlet of this article may be obtained for $3.00 each
by writing the Abbey at 56500 Abbey Road, Three Rivers MI 49093-9595.
?St. Gregory?s Abbey and Benedictine Monasticism? originally appeared
on St. Gregory?s web site at
http://www.geocities.com/stgregorysabbey/sgabenmon.html.

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Discussion topic: Monasticism

What did you learn from Abbot Andrew?s article about Benedictine
monasticism? What is appealing to you about the monastic lifestyle?
What do you question about the monastic lifestyle? How do you
incorporate regular prayer and worship into your life beyond Sundays?