Here at the Abbey we have just finished our Christmas celebration. As is our custom, we decorate the Abbey Church, the cloister hall, the dining room and the recreation rooms, and the decorations are well done and beautiful. In the Abbey Church there are fourteen large holly wreathes - all with small white lights on them and large red and gold bows. We also have a large Christmas tree in the sanctuary with hundreds of decorations, the motif being angels in all shapes and forms. It all looks very festive. On the north side of the nave of the Abbey Church we have our beautiful crib scene. The Blessed Sacrament area and the shrine to Our Lady are also tastefully decorated for the season, and the statues of St. Benedict and St. Scholastica as well. It is a lot of work and Fr. Pius and his helpers deserve praise for all their hard work.

We have our Midnight Mass (which actually does begin at midnight). I mention that because in the parishes people phone the office and ask when the Midnight Mass is to be celebrated. When I was in the parish I would respond, "at midnight," and people were often thrown off by the singing before Mass, as well as by the fact that now the "Midnight Mass" in many parishes is held at 10:00 o'clock! Here we celebrate Christmas Vigils before the Midnight Mass. We begin the Office at 11:20 p.m. so that Mass will start at midnight. We have another Mass at 10:00 a.m. on Christmas morning.

Besides getting ready for Christmas and then celebrating it, a lot of things have been happening here on this hilltop. We have hired a new capital campaign director, Steve Beaird and a new development director, Mike Wilson. We are happy to have them helping us decide how to fund more effectively our school and monastery operations. The new dining room for the seminarians is coming along and should be ready by springtime. Plans are being made to remodel Aquinas Hall and eventually Anselm Hall so that we can provide more and better housing for the seminarians.

Back to Christmas, I've been thinking about a special practical application that we can learn from the Christmas story. When Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem and asked for a place to stay, the Scriptures say, "there was no room in the inn," and they were then sent to a stable. Actually, this provision was one of hospitality. Without it, they would have had no where at all to go.

Hospitality is a great virtue, one that has always been important to Benedictines.

It also is seen as a great human value. Sometimes we can say that this or that is no longer relevant, but that is not true for hospitality.

In the Old Testament, for example, Abraham welcomed visiting angels without knowing it. The Scriptures say, "He ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them." In Deuteronomy, we read: "You too must befriend the alien for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt."

In the New Testament Jesus gave us the great law of love, and hospitality is one of the ways to express love. Receiving Christ in those who are oppressed is the lesson of Matthew 25, the parable of the Last Judgment. In the Middle Ages Christians thought of Christ as sometimes coming incognito, through strangers, as God came incognito through the angels' visit to Abraham and Lot.

The practice of hospitality, however, is not without its limitations. Christ gave the apostles rules about visiting the homes of those to whom He sent them. St. Paul in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians (3:6-15) warns them against vagabonds and those living in idleness.

Later on, hospitality came to be the province also of monks. St. Benedict has a chapter (53) in his Rule devoted to the reception of guests. He writes, "All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for He Himself will say, 'I was a stranger and you welcomed me.' Proper honor must be shown to all, especially to those who share our faith, and to pilgrims." So monasteries have their guesthouses and guestmasters to help the monks live out the Gospel law of love.

But even monasteries had their limits. There is a section of Benedict's Rule (chapter 61) regarding visiting monks. It says that these monks are to be allowed to stay as long as they wish, if they are of good will. And even if they find fault, they are to be listened to, since God may have sent them for that very reason. Then St. Benedict adds, "But if such a one is gossipy and contumacious, he is to be told to leave. If he does not go, let two stout monks, in the name of God, explain the matter to him."

Monasteries were, in a way, like "medieval motels." In a rural society where places to stay were few and far between for travelers, monasteries took the responsibility for hospitality.

Monasteries still try to do this. We here at Mount Angel invite guests to come. Europe was Christianized in part through the hospitality of the medieval monks. Perhaps you remember the stories of pilgrims lost in the mountains, when all of a sudden a St. Bernard dog would appear with a cask of brandy around its neck. The dogs were sent out by monks to find the lost and weary.

Hospitality remains a great value for monks. So come and see us here at the Abbey and let us be friends in the Lord.

We will pray for you in our novena to St. Joseph this March of 2001.

Love and prayers,