Sometimes as I read chapters in The Rule of Benedict, the cultural and historical differences between the sixth and twenty-first centuries seem especially pronounced. Chapter 51 provides one of those times when the distinctions assert themselves. It’s a brief chapter, so it’s worth reading as a complete unit:

If a brother is sent out on some errand and is expected to return to the monastery the same day, he should not presume to eat outside, even if he is begged to do so by someone, unless perhaps he has been told to do so by his abbot. If he does otherwise, he is to be excommunicated (RB 51:1-3).

Several differences strike me as I ruminate on this passage and ask myself what it might offer to guide me, as a Novice Oblate, in living according to the spirit of the Rule. First, the prohibition on eating meals outside of the community, unless one has explicit permission, seems disconnected from a culture in which we feel free to eat pretty much whenever and wherever we choose, especially with the pervasive and almost perpetual availability of fast food.

But then, as I think about this, the cultural differences in the way meals fit into community life come to mind. It becomes very easy to view food simply as fuel and to drive through a restaurant’s carside service lanes just the way we drive through the self-pumping fuel lanes at a service station. One is to fuel our bodies and one is to fuel our cars.

This difference challenges me to remind myself that meals are as much about fostering community and fellowship with the ones sitting at the table with me as they are about replenishing my stores of energy for the coming hours. Both are important, but the balance between them is the goal of the Benedictine “and.” Meals are a time to nourish both body and relationships.

When I think about meals that way, then it becomes a little more clear to me why Saint Benedict might create a rule that clamps down on a brother eating away from the monastery when it is possible for him to eat within the monastery. It’s because the meal is not just about satisfying hunger, it is also about offering oneself as a companion to the other members of the community. So if one chooses to eat away from the community, the others are deprived of the gift of companionship (which is rooted in the words meaning &#8220to share bread with”).

Then it is clear why the abbot needs to grant permission, because a greater good needs to outweigh the loss of companionship. And finally, the penalty of excommunication makes some sense too, as it reinforces the value the community places on that companionship.

Perhaps the lesson I can draw from all of this is that even a simple decision, such as whether to pick up a burger while on the way between here and there, is one that I ought not make without considering its ramifications, its impact on others, and the extent to which the needs of others with whom I share a community inform (give shape) to my day and provide opportunities for service. There really is no boundary to the reach of the word Omnibus (all things) in the Benedictine byword, “That in All Things God May Be Glorified.”

Ut in Omnibus Glorificetur Deus.