Christians have a reputation among non-Christians for being uncongenial companions, loudly disapproving everyone else's harmless little indulgences while hypocritically covering up some heinous sins of their own. (The vocabulary is as predictable as the attitudes: Christians are always "hypocritical", their sins "heinous", whatever Church they belong to; Catholic is now commonly preceded by "child-abusing"; and when was "cloistered" popularly used in anything but a pejorative sense?). Colophon wonders where and when this dourness crept in. Christians OUGHT to be the most convivial of people. Our most important liturgical act is, after all, derived from a sacred festive meal. Our hope for the future is (scripturally) expressed in terms of banqueting, of "food rich and juicy and fine strained wines".

Today's brief chapter of the Rule reminds us that the monastery ought to be a place of conviviality, of shared life, where guests are welcomed to our table as they are to our liturgy and other aspects of monastic life. We have three separate groups meeting here from 2.30 p.m. onwards and the community will be working flat out to be welcoming, to give each visitor time as well as the endless tea/coffee/biscuits which seem to fuel church gatherings. Inevitably, the question will arise: is what we are doing a bit irrelevant? Budget cuts, climate change, family concerns are all much closer to people's hearts than anything we may be discussing in our meetings. So why do we bother?

I think the clue lies in the word conviviality: feasting, shared life, is never very attractive to the outsider, the onlooker. One has to be involved, to take part. The challenge for us as a community is the same as for the Church as a whole. We need to draw people into the life we share in Christ, and we can only do that if we are living that life as deeply and generously as possible through prayer and sacrifice as well as service. Advent is a good time to ask ourselves whether we are so busy giving out that in reality we have nothing of value to share. The answer may shock us into reassessing how we live. It won't make the budget cuts any less painful; it wont solve the problems of global warming; but it might, just might, make us nicer to know: real Christians, in fact.