by Brandon Beck

Adapted from a piece published in The Community of Hope, International, Fall 2024 Newsletter

Psalm 118:24 (NRSVUE) This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Every day is important, and Benedictine tradition emphasizes the importance of every day through the continued reading of Benedict’s Rule on a daily schedule. One need not have taken Benedictine vows in order to participate in the daily reading of Benedict’s Rule. Many translations and interpretations can be found, and the suggested reading is divided into a day-by-day reading over three months to be repeated three times a year.

I wrote the first version of this reflection on a Sunday – November 17, 2024. I was sitting in the family minister’s office at Church of the Reconciliation (CoR) in San Antonio, TX, awaiting breakfast before formation hour and service.

Our reading in RSB was about the proper amount of food, and here at CoR we were studying a month-long theme on food insecurity in our neighborhood in combination with a campaign of service and generosity to provide food for those in need in our neighborhood. The breakfast we serve every Sunday before formation and service is a hot meal open to all, and unsheltered folx from the community enjoy dining with us. We have a little food pantry attached to our little free library that we are stocking regularly; the pantry guild is a new addition to the teams of service for CoR. This campaign boosted awareness in our church of how far and wide our program reaches, how big the need for it is, and allowed more people who are capable of contributing in a variety of time, talent, and treasure ways to get involved.

Fulfilling my baptismal covenant in these Sunday meals and other aspects of the food insecurity awareness and helping ministry means preparing my heart, mind, and body – much as we are doing in Advent – for whatever may come. In this situation at hand, I am learning about food insecurity and about the people as a community and as individuals, both those who provide the meals and those who eat the meals. I am also spending time in self-reflection considering my own hungers – do I feel called to participate in these breakfasts out of a hunger for closeness to God? To Ego? To food? To pity? To empathy? Or am I able to turn my own weaknesses, burdens, and sorrows over to God for a moment because I have and will again attend to them with God and my spiritual director and therapist, in my heart (monastic cell?) so that I can be fully present to hold space for God to show up for those serving the meal and those attending whose needs differ from mine?

As we enter Advent, I look back to early 2024 – the early days of our food ministry awareness campaign – and this reflection I wrote. The commentary I read on November 17 is the tried and true 2010 commentary by Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB, in which she tells us that “Benedict of Nursia never takes food away from the community…. Everybody needs something in life to make the rest of life doable and uplifting.” (p. 184-185) As we provide for ourselves in our homes (twenty-first-century monasteries?), let us also remember to share what we have so that all may rejoice and be glad in waiting for whatever is to come.