Friday of the Third Week of Lent

Saint Frances of Rome (1384-1440)

Readings of the day: RB 31:13-19

Mass: Ho 14:2-10; Resp Ps 81; Mk 12:28-34

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,

with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

It seems to me a cellarer in a monastic community (see RB 31)is someone who has taken seriously the first and second of all the commandments. The cellarer is the sister or brother chosen to be responsible for the care of all the monastery’s goods, a tall order in and of itself. The qualities required of the cellarer are many. What follows here are some of the them: she should be ‘wise and mature in behavior, sober and not an excessive eater, not proud nor apt to give offense nor inclined to cause trouble, not unpunctual, nor wasteful but living in fear of God and able to show the community all the love a mother would show to her family.’ Important as well is that the cellarer ‘should care for own spiritual progress’. In other words, she continually seeks the God she loves and is better able, through a life of prayer, to love and serve her sisters who vary in age, temperament, and state of health. Clearly, the cellar is not looking out for her own interests.

Lest one think the responsibility of the cellarer is a one-way street, the position is a relational one. Each community member should also discern the difference between wants and needs when making any requests of the cellarer. Making demands upon another is not usually the best course of action. Still, St Benedict writes this: The cellarer should not cause ‘annoyance to the community. If one of the community comes with an unreasonable request, the cellarer should, in refusing what is asked, be careful not to give the impression of personal rejection and so hurt the petitioner’s feelings’, for ‘among the most important qualities the cellarer needs to cultivate is humility and the ability to give a pleasant answer even when a request must be refused.’ Regarding humility, the cellarer always keeps in mind that although her ‘responsibility embraces all that is delegated by the abbess there must be no attempt to include what the abbess has forbidden.’ Put another way, the cellarer does not operate in a vacuum.

Provided here are only bits and pieces of St Benedict’s chapter on the cellarer. An exercise might be to take a closer look at the entire chapter and see how the qualities required of the cellarer transfer to your responsibility as mother, father, teacher, colleague, manager, supervisor, mentor, etc. ‘Well said, teacher, you are right in saying, He is the One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all the burnt offerings and sacrifices.

THOSE WHO ARE WISE UNDERSTAND THESE THINGS;

THOSE WHO ARE DISCERNING KNOW THEM.

FOR THE WAYS OF THE LORD ARE RIGHT,

AND THE UPRIGHT WALK IN THEM,

BUT TRANSGRESSORS STUMBLE IN THEM.

(Ho 14:10)