What was it like?

It was like a reunion. Though we did not know each other until we met, though we spoke different languages and dressed differently from each other, though our worship was dissimilar because of language and culture, we were all the same as oblates of St. Benedict. Two oblates from Brazil, a doctor and lawyer, said that it was difficult to arrange two weeks away from their practices but they did it: Being oblates defined their lives as did their professions.

The conferences and panel discussions were about the Benedictine answer to the stranger in our midst who speaks, eats and worships differently than us. How do we respond to this “other,” immigrants who are not Christian? Msgr. Andrew V. Tanya-anan, Undersecretary of the Pontifical Council of Interrelgious Dialogue, said we are called to dialogue with the stranger. Shahrzad Houshmand, a Muslim theologian, said every person is a Word of God. Mother Máire Hickey OSB defined community as getting along with people you don’t get along with because being Christian is about communal relations: there is no Christianity without community: If you live as a hermit, whose feet will you wash?

What was my experience? I was the “other:” not in my country with my family, language, currency, and customs. I was often among people who could not understand me when I talked. Feeling “other” impressed on me the immigrant’s “otherness:” they arrive with no welcome, money, work, or place to be, and they are in flight from terror. The generous heartfelt hospitality from the leaders of the congress made a place far from home be a home: it is a Benedictine answer.

Even the Italians at the congress experienced being “other.” The congress’s main language was in English. In the auditorium, I sat next to an Italian delegate. The first day I spoke English to her but she knew none so we sat next to each other silently. By the next day, I had learned the Italian greeting for “Good morning” so I said “Buon giorno” and she smiled. I noticed she had an unusual, beautiful ring on so I pointed to it. I could understand her when she explained in Italian that it was a very old ring. Each day then she wore a different ring to share with me.