Perseverance in Trials

Chapter 58 of the Rule of Benedict offers insight and guidance on the reception of new members into the community. It spells out the procedure for accepting the uninitiated into the group. At first glance, it seems a little extreme to keep a person knocking on the door for an extended length of time to test the sincerity of their intentions. Few would endure the "testing" of their purpose over a prolonged period of time. (At least, I am pretty sure that I would have rethought my intial decision more than once if I had received such a harsh welcome.) The novel, The Hawk and The Dove Trilogy, by Penelope Wilcock, offers a scene which in which the young person is left in the cold for various days before being re-accepted into the community (after a departure). In a sense, he was required to prove the firmness of his renewed intent. The testing that happens to the new is not meant to traumatize the person or to drive them away but rather to provide a reality check from the start about the nature of the commitment to be undertaken. One of our former formation directors used to tell her novices regularly that they had not signed up to join the Girl Scouts when they entered community. I think this is the basic message of today's passage. On entering a monastic community, the person is opening themselves us to be part of the joys and struggles that might come with this group. This is both the joy and the penance of community living. Sr. Catherine, OSB