CHAPTER 35
66 The Rule, Chapter 35 pieces if, for some reason, your needs cannot be met. Don't begrudge your neighbor who appears to have more than you have. 'First and foremost, there must be no word or sign of the evil of grumbling, no manifestation of it for any reason at all." He is advising us in chapter 34 that not everyone has to try keeping up with the Joneses.
CHAPTER 35
Kitchen Servers of the Week St. Benedict begins this chapter by repeating a favorite theme of his: "The brothers should serve one another." In this case he is referring to an essential service from which it is not easy to be excused. "Consequently, no one will be excused from kitchen service unless he is sick or engaged in some important business of the monastery, for such service increases reward and fosters love." For a long time now most monks have been engaged in other businesses of the monastery that have been considered important enough to keep them out of the kitchen. My own community doesn't know how lucky it is that I've never had to take my turn at cooking.
St. Benedict says: "Let those who are not strong have help so that they may serve without distress, and let everyone receive help as the size of the community or local conditions warrant." We have to depend on help from outside in our kitchen.
No doubt St. Benedict would approve. It was not uncommon for monasteries to have some lay employees even in his day.
St. Benedict wants no one to be oppressed by his work in the monastery. Help is to be sought from other monks or wherever it can be found.
St. Benedict wants the abbot to "regulate and arrange all matters that souls may be saved and the brothers may go about
The Rule, Chapter 35 67 their activities without justifiable grumbling" (ch. 41). In chapter 35 he recommends that "an hour before mealtime, the kitchen workers of the week should each receive a drink and some bread over and above the regular portion, so that at mealtime, they may serve their brothers without grumbling or hardship." He cannot stand complaining monks, and he likes to see to it that there is no reason for grumbling, even "justifiable grumbling."
Saturday was cleanup day in the kitchen. The monk who was completing his turn at cooking had to wash the towels that the monks had used all week to dry their hands and feet.
The lavatorium, or laver, was located near the refectory in medieval monasteries. This is where the monks washed before meals. Not only did the kitchen server have to launder the monks' towels, he had to wash the feet of all the monks too.
"Both the one who is ending his service and the one who is about to begin are to wash the feet of everyone." This is in imitation of our Lord, who washed his disciples7 feet at the meal on Holy Thursday. It was an ancient monastic custom.
St. Basil told hermits that it was impossible for them to follow this example of Christ's humility and love for the brethren.
"The Lord," he said, "out of the fullness of his abundant love, did not content himself with teaching his disciples by word of mouth, but also gave them a clear and unmistakable proof of his humility and perfect love by girding himself with a towel and washing their feet."1 Basil asked the hermits: Whose feet will you wash?
The utensils used for cooking were to be handed over spic and span to the cellarer by the cook at the end of his week's service. The cellarer would then give them to next week's cook.
The kitchen at Monte Cassino did not have all the pots and pans that are used in a modern-day monastic kitchen. If it were required of a modern-day monastery cook to turn in all his gear to the cellarer, he would have to start delivery before Saturday.