A recent article about Tintern Abbey told of the tour guide's tales of earlier times, one of them of the punishment the abbot meted out to a monk who had an affair with a local woman. He was buried up to his neck in a tidal flat and left for the rising Wye to drown. Another monk was hung in the orchard -- so the story -- for stealing apples. These legends sounding, as you may agree, somewhat farfetched, I asked a knowledgeable confrere if there could be anything to them. He admitted they could be historical in basis, for he had read in old chronicles that the general chapter of abbots, centuries ago, severely reprimanded English abbots for their cruel punishment of infractions. So, it may be.

The point is that the Cistercian Abbey is not autonomous, but subject to the chapter of abbots, subject also to the founding house. Both advances were made by the Cistercian founders to unify the New Order and to provide outside assistance to the monastic life in an individual abbey. St. Stephen was English and possibly Norman, and endowed with the organizational ability of these people. In any case, the founding fathers were good organizers and developed the Rule dramatically and to great advantage.

Our ways must seem somewhat decadent compared to the styles of our English forebears, excess notwithstanding. But the same dynamics are at work. Outside input is still part of our way of life. A visiting monk has suggested that our telephone facilities are rather outmoded and could definitely be improved, brought up-to-date without difficulty, making our phone service one of quality. Though it is a far cry between monks drowned and hung for delinquency and updating telephone service, the principle involved in curbing the one and improving the other -- the benefit of another view -- is what is to be noted.

A community just as much as an individual can unwittingly assume that the way they see things is the only way, or worse, even the best way. If everyone hears their own drum, there is no point in noting the beat of other drums and how the beat is responded to.

The principle becomes especially important in the spiritual life, both of community and of the individual. There is an ever-present need to be open. Preconceived notions and frozen customary ways can be a great detriment.

Christ Himself was rejected because He did not conform to established notions of the Messiah. Compared to what they expected, what He turned out to be did not meet what they wanted. We can be so enamored of our views that we are blind to any other view. John the Baptist would seem to have had some problems with Christ, but we know that in the end he accepted what God designed.

Our own life and the life of the community is never static, but a constantly-changing reality. When our own views, when a community's harden in established positions, a dangerous situation arises.

Dialogue is built into our life, neatly expressed, as I have oftener remarked, in the very architecture of a monastery, the dialogical setting of choir and chapter and  refectory. Dialogue is an inbuilt dynamic. We dialogue with one another, with God, as monks, as house, as Order, under the Gospel and the Rule, in the light of the Spirit.

The basic virtue is docility, an openness to inspiration, guidance, direction. If we lack that docility, we easily go astray. Who does not know the tendency to resist change, to ward off new ideas, to settle for entrenched views? This docility is put to a great test in our time, because it is a time of flux and change. This can frighten and so tighten us in our opinions.

We can see this at work in our own response to the Spirit. We are aware of the great need for community, for example. Rather than following a common trend among religions [religious? -ed.] to become more and more dispersed in the world around them, losing their identity, following their own call, monks tend to go in the opposite direction and resist a trend they do not see as healthy.

So we try more and more to open our houses and share our life with those who seek community, seek prayer, seek the love of God and neighbor. We invite others to share what we have, stay with us, pray with us, dine with us, the while keeping the integrity of the way we live, that their coming not be in vain. This is a beautiful response to grace, and it is possible because we are not only a community but a community of communities, guided and directed in our interdependence on one another. We are not on our own, not autonomous as individual or as community. This is no mere check on what we do, how we behave, but a far deeper concern with the Spirit of God so active in the Church and our strange times. Here is great strength, great comfort. All ought be grateful and endeavor seriously to be at the call of God and follow where He leads.

In so doing, we are a help to all. For any life is often confusing, distressing, difficult. To have a confirmed ability to be responsive to God in everything is a real help. And when we share what we have, we inspire in a most heartening way. So we avoid wild excesses that history tells us of, moving ever forward in building the Kingdom. Even so minor a matter as telephone service improves the process. Your own service of God stands only to improve through willingness to learn, an attitude for listening, rooted in community.

All of which is superb mode of the Church, a closely-knit community molded into one by the mothering Spirit, as Father Bede [a monk of Gethsemani, --ed.] mentioned yesterday. Parish, diocese, region, and all the world is one in faith, in love. The hostility, stupidity, ignorance of this world would shatter this marvel, but to no avail. The Church is ever and always one. We are not. Thus we pray, now especially in this time of prayer for the Church of Christ and all peoples. Only the mothering Spirit can bring to full beauty the great Mother Church on earth, that glory on which and in which our Cistercian mother depends and develops.