In July 2023, the former guest master of our Archabbey Church, Benedictine Father Sean Hoppe, asked me to cover his duties for all of August because he was going to Tanzania. Part of the church guest master’s job at St. Meinrad Archabbey is to welcome guests, distribute worship aids, and, when necessary, remind guests to recite and sing softly when praying, so as not to disrupt the monastic community’s pace. When the guest master (also known as the porter) needs to remind guests of being aware of their volume and pace, it helps to make an announcement before Mass or the Divine Office. I adopted a direct though gentle (and catechetical) approach to this announcement:

“In your parishes, I know you’re used to singing boldly and responding quickly—no doubt because you receive Christ in Word and Sacrament, and you’re spurred on to go into the world to bring Christ to all whom you encounter. We [the monks], on the other hand, have nowhere to be—we take a vow of stability so that we’re able to worship God in a deliberate, prayerful manner. So, we invite you to immerse yourself in this prayerful atmosphere and find rest in the work of God.”

What is the significance of a community’s porter or guest master? How can porters inspire people to exit the church doors and “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord” in the world?

Much has been written regarding the Christian mission of going into the world and preaching Jesus Christ, and there is little benefit from restating here what other writers before have so eloquently written elsewhere.¹ This could be construed as a problem for some communities, though, especially those that do not have an active charism outside the confines of their cloisters. Yet, the porter does have a mission—to be Christ to all who present themselves at the doors of a monastery. As an agent of hospitality, it is my mission to welcome guests and pilgrims, to invite them to enter into and share our liturgical prayer, that they may bring the Gospel into the world.

The mission of a religious community’s porter is vital to how the members of a community live the Christian life and serve as witnesses in the world. Church history is replete with women and men who have evangelized the world from their stations at the doors of their religious houses. Three porters in particular—St. Conrad of Parzham, St. André Bessette, and Bl. Solanus Casey—provide contemporary examples of how hospitality and mission intersect within the context of consecrated life, to offer guests another manner to encounter Christ. St. Conrad answered his community’s door and lived a life of prayer, centered on the Eucharist and devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary; devotion to St. Joseph formed St. André to serve as a porter and seeing to menial tasks around his community; and Bl. Solanus welcomed Catholics and non-Catholics alike, encouraging them to pray with him, and to volunteer at the soup kitchen he established during the Great Depression. Conrad, André, and Solanus were ready to answer their doors when Christ came to knock (see Matthew 7:7). To comprehend the spiritual import of porters, doors, mission, and hospitality, it is first necessary to lay out what hospitality demands of porters and guests alike.

Benedictine Roots of Hospitality

St. Benedict is rightfully considered one of the fathers of Western civilization. His Rule became the basic framework through which most Western religious communities lived the Christian life more deliberately, and his insistence on educated monks laid the groundwork for the spread of culture and religion throughout Europe. Benedict, though, was not without empathy for those who did not belong to monasteries that followed his Rule. He wrote, “All guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ” (The Rule of St. Benedict (RB) 53:1).² Benedict was unabashedly insistent about welcoming guests when they presented themselves, not only because it is proper, but because Jesus demands it (see Matthew 25:35).

Benedict’s vision of the porter’s duties and offering hospitality were in many ways unique among monastic communities of his day. In The Rule of the Master, an early fifth-century monastic rule—from which St. Benedict borrowed heavily—the author states that monks who are assigned to care for guests must also watch them lest they steal the community’s goods.³ The author of The Rule of the Master possessed a dim view of human nature, one that is suspicious, guarded, and paranoid. St. Benedict, on the other hand, approached offering hospitality to guests in a more optimistic manner: “Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving poor people and pilgrims, because in them more particularly Christ is received” (RB, 53:15). For Benedict, such a worldview was possible only because he insisted that paranoia and mistrust should have no place in the cloister. Elsewhere in his Rule, he expounded on the qualities of a potential abbot by outlining those qualities each monk should not possess: “Excitable, anxious, extreme, obstinate, jealous or oversuspicious he must not be. Such a man is never at rest” (RB, 64:16). Put another way, openness and trust must permeate each monk and his community for an authentic encounter with Christ to occur.

This spirit of openness is not merely for monks and the doors of their hearts, but also, more practically, for the doors of the monastery. “As soon as anyone knocks, or a poor man calls out, [the porter] replies, ‘Thanks be to God’ or ‘Your blessing, please’; then, with all the gentleness that comes from the fear of God, he provides a prompt answer with the warmth of love” (RB, 66:3-4). Welcoming guests at the door, being sure that someone is there to give a “prompt answer,” is a response to Christ’s commandment to “stay awake, for you know neither the day nor the hour” (Matthew 25:13). But the spirit of Christian hospitality did not stay confined to Benedictine monasteries, and new and subsequent European communities adopted this most Christian of practices, which spread to all parts of the world.

Holy Doorkeepers’ Holy Doors

St. Conrad of Parzham was born in 1818 in modern-day Germany. He entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and professed vows as a lay brother when he was 31 years old. After his profession, his superiors sent him to be the porter of the Friary of St. Anne in Altötting, Bavaria, which served the pilgrims who journeyed to the national shrine of Our Lady of Altötting. Since the shrine saw many visitors, their needs—both spiritual and material—kept Conrad busy. Pilgrims were always present, and many others brought their cares and worries to him—the poor, clerics, guests, and benefactors. Additionally, he had to get over his shyness, and he had to contend with envious confreres who thought such an important position should not have been given to a newer friar. Despite the hard work and almost constant stream of guests, he always had leftover food ready to distribute to anyone who was in need. Through grueling days that often lasted 12 hours or more, Conrad maintained his cheerful disposition and amiability, always ready to answer the door once a guest rang the bell, for the “sound of the bell was for him the voice of God.”⁴

Conrad’s mission was to recognize the various forms under which Christ appeared to him at the friary’s door. He was able to see Christ in the guest because he spent his free time (usually at night when the friars were asleep) in Eucharistic adoration. Conrad received his formation in hospitality learning at the feet of the Eucharistic Christ. As Christ welcomed him into his Eucharistic presence as he was, after laborious chores and amid exhaustion, so Conrad learned to welcome all who presented themselves to him at the friary’s door—he accepted them as they were, never judging them or attempting to determine who should be worthy of love, respect, and authentic charity. As Conrad welcomed an endless line of guests in Germany, his Holy Cross counterpart was exercising hospitality across the Atlantic Ocean in Canada.

St. André Bessette was born in Mont-Saint-Grégoire, Québec, in 1845. In 1874, after his solemn profession of vows as a lay brother of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, André’s superiors appointed him as porter of their community in Montreal.⁵ When he was not at his post, he could be seen walking around his neighborhood, fetching laundry, and making cinctures—he even became a self-taught barber for the young students at the College of Notre Dame. He charged five cents per haircut, which he kept in a secret fund that was used later for the construction of the Oratory of St. Joseph of Mount Royal. André’s mission, prayer, and work found their inspiration in the daily celebration of the Mass, Eucharistic adoration, and in his unwavering devotion to St. Joseph—he counseled the women and men who sought him out to ask for St. Joseph’s intercession and guidance.⁶ André’s was a simple life of obedience that left an impression on people from all walks of life.

On the wintry morning of Saturday, January 9, 1937, crowds in Montreal flocked to view André’s earthly remains. It was reported that the wind and ice became so perilous that the elements barred the faithful from accompanying Br. André’s body to his Requiem Mass at St. James Cathedral. If there were any concerns about low attendance during the funeral Mass, they were unwarranted—thousands more people were waiting behind the doors of the cathedral, not to mention the hundreds of faithful outside who put an abundance of trust in God and their winter coats.⁷ These “humble citizens” kept watch at the cathedral doors so they could pay their respects to a religious brother whose life was spent waiting at a door for Christ himself to appear. How did a simple religious brother elicit such an outpouring of grief from this great crowd of witnesses?

André manifested the presence of God in small ways that had an utterly profound impact on the people who presented themselves at the door of his religious house. His mission in life was to open doors and offer hospitality to any and all. His witness to holiness, kindness, and hospitality endeared him alike to superiors, confreres, students, guests, and pilgrims. His sanctity and rumors of miracles made people seek him out to beg for his prayers. He occupied his station near the community’s door, always ready to lend a helping hand or a listening ear to those who crossed the threshold into a lifechanging encounter. Fortified with God’s grace, these guests passed through the door and went into the world, always ready to share their experiences of André and, by extension, Christ.

While there is no evidence to suggest that André had a direct influence on Bl. Solanus Casey, it is logical to assume that Solanus would have heard about the Montreal miracle worker. Solanus was born in Oak Grove, WI, in 1870. After working various jobs—lumberjack, hospital orderly, prison guard, and streetcar operator⁸—he felt called to be a priest. Solanus, though, was not the best student. Priests at St. Francis de Sales Seminary in Milwaukee counselled him to enter a religious community because of his limited education. He subsequently entered the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in 1897 and was ordained a simplex priest in 1904.⁹ Unlike Conrad and André, Solanus was not assigned to be a porter immediately after his profession—his superiors assigned him to this work when he was transferred to St. Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit in 1924, a job he held for over 20 years.¹⁰

Hospitality, Doors, and Mission

Ahead of the Jubilee Year of 2025, it is prudent to consider how holy doors imbue us with grace to preach the Gospel in the world according to our states in life. The open door symbolizes Jesus the gate, that “whoever enters through [him] will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture” (John 10:9). As Pope Francis reminded the world in Spes non confundit, the papal bull that established the Jubilee Year of 2025, “Pilgrimage is … a fundamental element of every Jubilee event. Setting out on a journey is traditionally associated with our human quest for meaning in life. A pilgrimage on foot is a great aid for rediscovering the value of silence, effort and simplicity of life” (Spes non Confundit 5).

In Catholicism, every material object can be a conduit for a sacramental encounter with the Risen Christ, and this is the case for church doors. When a priest is appointed the bishop of a diocese, part of the ritual the day before his installation is to knock on the door of his cathedral, where the people of his diocese—clerics and laity—welcome their new bishop.¹¹ When a person is baptized in the Catholic Church, the priest and his assisting ministers go “to the entrance of the church [and the] celebrant greets all present….”¹² When a Christian has completed the journey of earthly life, family and friends carry the deceased’s body to the church doors,¹³ just as parents and godparents carried this person into the church to be baptized. Jesus bid the Apostles not to stay in Jerusalem but to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20a). Christ calls us not to remain in the church building but to venture into the world to be agents of the Kingdom of God.

One of the pious devotions that most enfleshes this concept of mission is chalking doorways with the current year and “CMB”—Christus Mansionem Benedicat (“May Christ bless this house”). The initials also refer to the Magi who went on a mission to worship the Infant Christ: Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, representing the continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa, respectively.¹⁴ The Gospel of Matthew records, “on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed for their country by another way” (Matthew 2:11-12). The Magi journeyed to worship and offer gifts to Jesus, though they did not stay, and they left their encounter transformed.

Make a Door

The Christian life is a life of pilgrimage—we begin our lives at the doors of the church building when our parents and godparents carry us into a life enfleshed in the Risen Christ. As we enter and leave the threshold of a church edifice throughout our lives, the words we hear through our ears at the work of God resound in the “ear of our heart” (see RB, Prol.:1) from moment to moment; and the bread and wine we receive in communion edify each of us, making us conform ourselves to Christ so we also may be bread broken and wine poured out “for the life of the world” (John 6:51). This is who Christ is calling us to be: men and women of service to one another, who give of themselves freely and willingly, and who welcome all people—without exception—at the doors of their hearts as they would welcome Christ himself.

Hospitality, mission, and evangelization are so intimately intertwined in Catholic thought and theology, that to have one without the others is unthinkable. To welcome the guest as Christ himself, though, each of us must stand at the doors of our hearts, always ready to expect the Bridegroom, who is simultaneously coming and here. Christ does not expect hospitality to be either grandiose or a venue for showboating. Rather, just as God manifested himself to Elijah in “a light silent sound” (1 Kings 19:12), and as Christ preached to give alms without ostentation (see Matthew 6:3), so too must we remain humble and authentic as we live the Christian life. All Christians can fulfill their mission to evangelize the world in the small, menial, and quotidian tasks that occupy each moment.

The three saintly and contemporary figures who embody this indivisible and integrated approach to living the Christian life—St. Conrad of Parzham, St. André Bessette, and Bl. Solanus Casey—show us how one does not need to perform grand gestures or “put on a show” when practicing hospitality. Like these holy porters, we must be ready at the doors to extend the hand of friendship in humility for all who travel to seek a transformative encounter—whether that be at the door of a church building, at a monastery’s door, or most especially at the door to our hearts.

1. See Mark G. Boyer, A Spirituality of Mission: Reflections for Holy Week and Easter (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2017); and Stuart Murray, Post Christendom: Church and Mission in a Strange New World, 2nd ed., (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2018).
2. Benedict and Timothy Fry, The Rule of Benedict (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018).
3. Hugh Feiss, “Cura in the Rule of the Master and the Rule of Benedict,” American Benedictine Review 65:3 (September 2014): 338-339.
4. Georg Albrechtskirchinger, “St. Konrad of Parzham (Altötting),” Salve Maria Regina, accessed September 24, 2024, https://www.salvemariaregina.info/Martyrologies/Konrad.html.
5. C. Bernard Ruffin, The Life of Brother André: The Miracle Worker of St. Joseph (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 1988), 29-30.
6. Patricia E. Jablonski, Saint André Bessette: Miracles in Montreal (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2019), chap. 5, Kindle.
7. “Humble Citizens Brave Weather for Bro. Andre,” The Montreal Daily Star, January 9, 1937, https://www.newspapers.com/image/740251933/?terms=andre%20bessette.
8. Michael Crosby, Thank God Ahead of Time: The Life and Spirituality of Solanus Casey (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1985), 14-19.
9. Under the 1917 Code of Canon Law, a simplex priest could not preach or hear confessions but only celebrate Mass. Mike Stechschulte, “Pope Francis announces Fr. Solanus Casey to be declared ‘blessed,’” The Michigan Catholic [now Detroit Catholic], May 9, 2017, https://www.detroitcatholic.com/news/pope-francis-announces-fr-solanus-casey-to-be-declared-blessed.
10. “Blessed Bernard Francis Casey,” CatholicSaints.Info, accessed September 25, 2024, https://catholicsaints.info/blessed-bernard-francis-casey/.
11. Liturgy Office of England and Wales, “Reception of the Bishop in His Cathedral Church (Installation of a Bishop),” accessed September 25, 2024, https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Resources/Rites/Reception-Bishop.pdf.
12. St. Michael Parish—Bedford, MA, “Rite of Baptism for One Child,” accessed September 25, 2024, https://www.bedfordcatholic.org/documents/2015/5/RiteOfBaptism.pdf.
13. International Commission on English in the Liturgy, Order of Christian Funerals (Chicago: Liturgy Training Publications, 2018), 37.
14. Saint Vincent College—Public Relations Office, “Epiphany Door Chalking Tradition Continues,” accessed September 26, 2024, https://www.stvincent.edu/news/2020/epiphany-door-chalking-tradition-continues.html.