House Chapter

For two years I lived at Beacon Hill Friends House, an intentional community organized around the values of Quaker religious principles and spiritual practices. It is a large community of usually 20 persons, the greater number of whom are Quakers or spiritual seekers attracted to the traditions of the Religious Society of Friends. It is a pluralistic community, diverse by age, creed, gender, orientation, and race. The house is also a Quaker meeting house, the place of worship for the local community of Friends, and the venue for a variety of educational forums, open to the public, about the Quaker way of life and the Friends' perspectives on society.

Twice a month, every other Sunday evening, the community would gather for a house meeting. We would alternate between meetings for reflection, in which housemates share what is going on in their lives and how they are doing in the life of the intentional community; and meetings for business, in which residents discuss housekeeping matters, from kitchen issues to house chores to building maintenance. We would hear reports from house committees, both standing and ad hoc, on various elements of our common life, from hospitality to budget to recruitment of residents and social concerns. The Quakers are nothing if not scrupulous about process, and this applied to the process of making a household together.

The fraternity of St. Michael Friary is of an order of magnitude smaller than the intentional community of Beacon Hill Friends House, and its norms, policies, and procedures are less finely detailed than that of the Quaker house. But we, too, have a method for regulating the quality of our lives lived in fraternity. At the provincial level of organization, the Capuchin friars have policies to ensure the well being of the community as a whole, and councils and committees to ensure that each household, or fraternity, is healthy. Every month, fraternities hold what we call a house chapter, in which the brothers pray, share how it is with their souls, and review items of concern, from cooking and chores to social gathering and upcoming fraternal events. To borrow Quaker terminology, it is both a meeting for reflection and a meeting for business.

I look forward to our meeting this afternoon as an occasion for focusing anew on the life we build together in Christ according to the example given to us by Francis of Assisi. It is our regular, formal opportunity as a little Franciscan family to examine how well we are living into our conversion on an interpersonal level.

Does your family meet intentionally to scrutinize the quality of its life together? Do you gather both to pray in the glow of your spiritual hearth and shed light on your place in the home, and to address the "maintenance" issues? How do decisions get made in your household? Do your methods conduce to faithful and joy-filled habitation, according to your shared values? Is your house a place where love, mercy, peace, and justice are growing?