Some thirty of our house plants spend the summer outdoors, gracing our cloister walk, near where most of the monks live. Another dozen plants remain inside year round, adding interest and beauty to the corridor leading to church.
This inside corridor has full sunlight and is close to where three of the senior monks live, hence they can enjoy the flora as do the younger monks in our other residence area.
All that our plants seem to require is sun and water and they thrive where they are placed.
The “silence and stability” of plants can be a reminder to monks of the essence of monastic life, focused as it is on listening “with the ear of the heart,” as Saint Benedict asks of his monks, and being set in one place, not for its own sake, but in order to experience transformation in Christ.
May we all bloom where we are planted, as the saying goes.
Greetings and prayers.
Abbot Christian and the monks
