On a recent retreat with my wife, Katherine, to Holy Cross Abbey near Berryville, St. Benedict’s teachings on hospitality and the monks who practice them struck me.
These historic and living commitments to generosity can shape how those of us outside cloisters encounter others — including homeless animals. I’ve come to see fostering animals as a Christian act, and I hope others will offer this service to needy animals in their communities.
Each time Katherine and I entered the abbey’s guesthouse foyer, my eyes were drawn to a simple framed excerpt from the Rule of St. Benedict, which — citing Matthew 25:35 — reads, “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ, for he himself will say, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
As part of the Benedictine family, Clarke County’s Trappists offer hospitality to guests of any faith. Brother Efrain, the prior, welcomes retreatants into the comfortable guesthouse with warmth matched only by the hot coffee he’ll likely offer you on arrival. Inside the serene abbey chapel, you can’t help but feel at peace when Father James and Brother Aelred lead their brethren in chanting the Psalms. On their own retreats, my parents have enjoyed many smiles and nods from Brother John after Mass, visits with Abbot Joseph and Brother Christopher in the gift shop, and numerous other experiences of hospitality.
These monks’ liberal sharing of their life and home — even themselves — with guests has re-framed my perspective on animals Katherine and I have brought into our home and laid a deeply meaningful foundation for how we’ll welcome those still to come.
Katherine works for the Community Animal Project, a division of Norfolk-based People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Every day and night, she and her colleagues offer free wellness and veterinary services to people living in some of the poorest communities in southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. And just as St. Benedict wrote that “monasteries are never without” guests, Katherine’s team is never without neglected creatures in need of a quiet, comfortable space — and the basic respect and consideration that most have never experienced.
Some of these animals have “present(ed) themselves” — to use St. Benedict’s words again — at our doorstep. We first welcomed Angel, a dog whose years of being penned outdoors left her hind limbs so atrophied that her first-ever walks had to be leisurely and brief. Next was Duchess, one of four dogs found chained in a yard without access to food or water, near the remains of a fifth. She was understandably terrified but learned how to play with toys and delight in long-overdue affection with us. When one woman couldn’t bring her young cat inside in the dead of winter to battle his severe upper respiratory infection, we happily did, before escorting the recovered fellow, now known as Kumar, off to a loving Boston family.
Looking back, I believe we tendered these animals “every kindness” — as St. Benedict instructs his monks and nuns to show all guests — and the “(g)reat care and concern” he advises be paid to “pilgrims.” Animals in need of foster homes certainly are wayfarers away from their difficult lands.
The abbey’s practice of booking just 15 of its 16 guest rooms, reserving the last in case an unexpected visitor shows up, underscores that Benedictine hospitality is not merely welcoming those whose arrival you anticipate, but rather opening one’s home and heart to whoever shows up, whenever they do. And much like the guests St. Benedict’s Rule references, animals have arrived at our threshold at “unpredictable hours.” One Sunday afternoon, Katherine’s colleagues called from the road: they’d rescued a puppy who had spent weeks in the woods, but she needed a place for the night. An hour later, Jenny, as she came to be known, was curled up with Katherine. This January, my wife called late one night. “It’s been a crazy day and I’m almost home,” she said, “but can we put up a kitten for a few nights?” As it turns out, she had rescued the sister of a kitten we’d settled in our guest space earlier that week. Minutes later, the duo was reunited to play and doze for a few days before their adoption.
And just as some kept “knocking at the door” of St. Benedict’s monasteries and “persisted” in their request to stay for good, some of those we fostered have joined our family forever. Helen, a brown tabby who was kept in squalor by a hoarder and whose left cornea had ruptured, recovered with us before being our first adoptee. After Ezekiel’s owner said she was “too busy” to keep the shy cat, we spent time building his confidence and discerning that he was meant to stay. Weeks later, a petite tortoiseshell cat found homeless near Emporia landed in our guest room, only to be named Grappa and take up residence.
Back in Clarke County, the abbey brothers’ happiness to listen to, counsel, and befriend their guests shows that there’s far more to Benedictine hospitality than simply giving a visitor a place to lay their head and three meals a day. The monks’ understanding of whatever spiritual challenges guests may bring with them on retreat displays a spirit of acceptance that animals — particularly those from troubled starts in life — need from us.
Copper, our beagle-mix, was found chained to a fence without shelter or water. He was emaciated, but he’d been just as starved for attention. Part of being hospitable to Copper is respecting his anxiety at being left alone again, and ensuring he always has company. Similarly, our latest addition to the family, Temple, spent years in a drug-testing laboratory. What little interaction with humanity she had was for experimental purposes, leaving her uneasy. Moving calmly around Temple and patiently cleaning up “accidents” between our walks — an entirely new experience for her, after all — now strikes me as a way of practicing Benedictine hospitality.
The Holy Cross Abbey community has shown me that Benedictine hospitality isn’t just for monks and nuns to practice. Given its Gospel roots, all Christians are invited to extend it to others. And those “others” needn’t only be humans. Neglected and unwanted animals are, I believe, among the “orphan(s)” and “lonely” in need of care and “a home to live in,” to borrow from Psalm 68. Might we, as believers, do our part by volunteering to foster animals for our local shelters?
Paden, a parishioner of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Norfolk, is a vice president at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
