“ORA ET MANGIA” Prayer and table sustain us by Patty Weishaar
And What Amazing “Mangia!” The Pasta Explosion Breakfast-For-Lunch Soup’s On
Hearty Soups and Breads
Chinese New Year Feast (with chopsticks for all)
Mardi Gras Feast
(featuring Chicken Sausage Gumbo, Vegetarian Jambalaya, and King Cakes)
The Star Wars Lunch
(featuring Darth Vader Taters, Yoda Soda, and Wookie Cookies)
Bachelor Food Lunch Iowa Comfort Food Saint Paddy’s Day Irish Wonders (featuring Bailey’s Ice Cream and Guinness Brownies)
The Polish Excursion Caribbean Islands Delights A Taste of Mexico A Taste of Hungary A Taste of Korea A Taste of India Danke, Deutchland Ooh la-la: Parisian Cuisine MREs: Not Just for Soldiers The Moroccan Tour Cincinnati Chili Hot Dish Heaven and Bars
At Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary our Benedictine roots run deep. We study theology and prepare for ministry in this place where the daily prayer, deep attention to God’s word, and the community life of Saint John’s Abbey (and just down the road, Saint Benedict’s Monastery) surround and sustain and embrace us. We also reap the benefits of embracing Benedictine mottos: Ora et labora (pray and work, or prayer and action), although not rooted in the Rule of Benedict, is one such theme. Balancing prayer and work (and reflection) surely is a call to wisdom for graduate students! But – schools breed creative minds. And so to play with this motto: we are people who follow Ora et Labora – Pray and Work – but even more we follow Ora et Mangia – Pray and Eat. And we do this every week. On Thursday. At 11:30 AM. In Emmaus Hall Chapel and Dining Room. And we call this “Thursday Convivium.” From the Oxford Latin Dictionary: “Convivium”– to be alive at the same time, be contemporary; to spend one’s time in company, live together; to dine together.
Photo: Paul Middlestaedt
A Little Convivium History Up through the 1990s our diocesan seminary program had a regular horarium of prayer and meals, and often the Seminary community extended an invitation to the lay graduate students and faculty and staff to Mass, dinner, and evening prayer on Thursday evenings. “Seminary Guest Night” was a practice until 1992.
PASS THE SPIRITUALITY
In 1992 Fr. Dale Launderville, OSB as dean invited the School of Theology and Seminary Student Government to create a liturgy committee to begin to share in the planning and liturgical ministries of these Thursday night gatherings. For the next several years there were several incarnations of this Thursday night gathering: we experimented with having Mass, supper, and evening prayer, then Mass and supper, then supper and evening prayer. To figure out what worked, we rode the waves of some ebb-and-flow drama over the years.
by Jessie Bazan, Masters of Divinity candidate
Liturgy is a beacon for and a gauge of the life of the community; we moved over time to Liturgy-of-theHours prayer for our big weekly gathering. We named our gathering “Thursday Convivium” and settled into an Evening Prayer + Supper weekly event in 1996. The Saint John’s Dining Service provided the meals. And then we changed our class schedule: away from the University 6-day rotating schedule we created a space in the middle of every day for meetings, small group events, and worship; we moved the “Thursday Convivium” to mid-day in 1998 to better serve the faculty, staff and students with families and evening commitments. Mid-Day Prayer/Lunch Convivium on Thursdays has been our practice for over 15 years now. And about 10 years ago we began experimenting with students cooking the mid-day meal. Schools grow and change over the years; traditions form. Some are quite by circumstance, while others are set up with initial and eventually ultimate goals in mind. Our weekly Thursday Convivium is a best practice and a tradition at the School of Theology and Seminary that both forms us and offers opportunity to celebrate who we are: in a steady, weekly, balanced way, combining “ora” (prayer) and “mangia” (eating), the Benedictine values of awareness of God, community living, hospitality, listening, the common good, and respect for all persons, have ample opportunity to take root in our graduate school lives. We pray, we gather to eat. We tell stories. We laugh. We learn from each other. We welcome strangers and make new friends. We become the School of Theology and Seminary through our Ora et Mangia. This is our best practice now: Mid-Day Prayer, followed by Lunch. Ora et Mangia.
Thursday Convivium at the School of Theology and Seminary.
JOIN US!
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How food and fellowship bring busy students closer to God The most spiritually-invigorating hour of my week took place over burritos and chocolate milk. During my senior year of college, my friend Andrew and I met for lunch every Thursday in the student union cafeteria. The scene around us many days resembled something out of Animal House. Lone fries strewn about the tables. An aroma of burgers and bleach wafted through the air. Sitting just three feet away from each other, Andrew and I often had to shout to be heard over the escalating hum of rowdy frat brothers and giggly freshmen.
are filled with stories of Jesus dining with all kinds of people. Some of his greatest lessons were taught over meals. Jesus welcomed a dinner invitation from a Pharisee, demonstrating a spirituality of acceptance and love. He multiplied loaves and fishes, showing the faithful that God is the true provider, the bread of life. Jesus spent his final evening on earth gathered around the dinner table with his twelve apostles. Bread and wine – common food and drink – became Christ’s body and blood. The Eucharist is a community meal, and that meal is at the core of the Christian faith.
It wasn’t your typical place of prayer, but that hour in the cafeteria satisfied my appetite in more ways than one. Our conversations moved quickly from class updates to deeper matters. How’s your heart feeling these days? Where are you experiencing God? What might God be calling you to do next year? We shared it all, listening and supporting one another as we wrestled with our faith’s biggest questions. When the last of the chocolate milk had been slurped, Andrew and I zipped up our backpacks and headed off to the next dates on our demanding calendars sustained by the nourishment of food and faithful fellowship.
Meal-time opportunities for hearty food and rich conversation have brought Christians together for centuries. These continue to be great chances to ignite the spirituality of Christians today, especially for busy students who struggle to find a spare moment for reflection. This year on Thursdays, I’ve transitioned from a spirited lunch with one to a spirited lunch with 50. The School of Theology and Seminary’s Convivium tradition is a cornerstone of the graduate school experience. The Latin word Convivium means “to dine together, to be alive at the same time.” The school community gathers together for prayer and a homemade lunch each week. While sitting around the Emmaus dining room, we share stories about our lives, our formation programs and what we’re learning in class. We attempt to solve the world’s problems and dream about better tomorrows. Over lasagna and garlic bread, we build up the Christian community.
Sacred space and time aren’t always easy to come by in college. The demands of classes, internships, and extracurricular commitments barely leave time for students to have a social life, much less a spiritual life. But growing in relationship with God does not have to be viewed as a separate activity on the to-do list. Spirituality can be experienced outside the walls of a church and outside the realm of the individual mind and heart. It can be experienced within our daily lives. Andrew and I carved out our own time for spiritual renewal over the one constant activity in our schedules – eating.
That’s why I savor the meal time ritual. The ritual of breaking bread together does not take place removed from the chaos of my life. It instead offers a brief break to digest what’s going on, to deepen my spirituality, to learn and grow with others who are taking their own brief breaks. In the comradery, in the cutting and clinking, in the simple act of gathering together, my community and I are creating sacred time and space for refreshment – both the bodily and spiritual kind.
The traditional meal cycle gives us three chances a day – plus snack times and coffee breaks – to chomp into conversation with fellow diners. Why not turn the topic to spirituality? Jesus certainly did. The Gospels 17