Christ in the Guest

In 2006 I was asked to care for the visitors who come to stay at our Guest house, a beautiful old home dating possibly from the Civil War. It has a long history and has housed many individuals including the first girls who were boarding students at our academy. But that is another story.

           I never thought I’d have this job. It has been so enriching! Today I am thinking of how I have been gifted by serving the needs of those who come to stay for a day, a weekend, or sometimes longer. It’s more than providing clean linens for their bed and bath, however important that is, or some fruit and soft drinks in the refrigerator. Sometimes I just need to listen. Writers, artists, widows, retreatants, and relatives of the Sisters are the most frequent. It’s beautiful when they share their creativity in a story, or a written meditation, or a drawing or painting. Others just need a time to be away, to pray and think, to rest, to gather strength to make some decision. Always we invite them to pray with us at the monastery, and many do.
            I’ve hosted a Methodist ministers’ group, travelers on their way somewhere else, visiting teachers from Denmark, a Costa Rican family attending an ordination, a group of visiting priests from India, string teachers and their high school students who made music all weekend, and then gave us a concert! St. Benedict instructs us in his Rule for monasteries that the guest is to be received as Christ.
           We also are to receive the stranger, and one time, I did receive a stranger, one whom many might have considered a vagrant. Yet this one man, more than any other, reminded me of Christ, who “had nowhere to lay his head.” He was gentle and idealistic. He had a dream for alleviating hunger in the world, and no transportation other than a bus ticket, and his own feet. “My shoes are my wheels,” he said.
           I have also learned a new appreciation for those maids who daily go from room to room in a motel, picking up soiled laundry, cleaning bathrooms and making one bed after another.  If I happen to be staying somewhere, I now feel impelled to speak to them, saying Thank You. Their work is hard! They too are Christ in their humble service to others. We can find Him everywhere.
Sr. Mary Carol Hellmann, OSB