Fridays with Benedict: Chapter 66, Thanks Be To God

Chapter 66 of The Rule of St. Benedict describes how one would select the Porter for the monastery and how the Porter is to greet visitors at the entrance.

Who would make a good Porter? Benedict's recommendation: "place a sensible old man who knows how to take a message and deliver a reply, and whose age keeps him from roaming about."

We don't want those Porters wandering off.

What I find charming about Chapter 66 is how the Porter is instructed to respond to a knock on the monastery door. You'd think the response to a knock would be something like "Who's there?" or "Who is it?"

But this is what Benedict instructs:

As soon as anyone knocks, or a poor man calls out, he replies, "Thanks be to God"...

I like the implicit theology of hospitality in that reply. A stranger comes. The poor ask for help. And our response is gratitude.

"Thanks be to God."