The Infirmary: A Place for Healing

Scripture: “Blessed be the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, a gentle father, the mother of mercies, the God of all consolation, who comforts us in our sorrows and afflictions, so that we can offer others in their sorrows and afflictions the consolation that we have received from God ourselves.” –2 Corinthians 1:2-4

This scripture is, for me, a perfect capsule of the why and what and how of an Abbey’s work of healing. In well-worn monastic communities and the lines of rubble make an anthropologist’s favorite kind of floor plans, there is a space for healing called the Infirmary. The Infirmary offered a space of comfort to the sick, convalescing and long serving elders. It was a room that embodied healing practice as the ancient stories echoed in song, scripture and the daily prayers through the corridors. And most of all a place of consolation rooted in the work of faith Jesus taught.  

Paul is writing the folks in Corinth a second time, because, well, they need a note. Anytime Paul writes a letter, I like to imagine it like a modern bishop is emailing a church. It’s always this kind of clarification, this little “come to Jesus” note, if you will. 

Remember this is what we were doing, remember it's different from a Roman banquet, remember it's different from this shame and honor system, remember it’s different. But that “remember” always comes with an “I know that’s hard”. “It’s hard to remember.” And it often comes with this, “I struggle with it, too.” “I do the things that I hate,” Paul says sometimes as he urges folks to try again. 

Most of the time these kinds of notes could really be summed up by the phrase, ‘do better.’ (And perhaps the expletive is implied.)

But this spot in Corinthians is a verse that’s kind of lifted from more ancient liturgy. Something they might have said, or sung, or heard over and over again in the Synagogue; it’s a priestly echo. It is something that the folks who had practiced Judaism would have known really well, and something that might have been new to the folks who hadn’t practiced Judaism, but here they are all together doing this new thing, beyond all their boundaries and differences. Not Jew or Greek. Not male or female. Not rich or poor. But everyone balanced and equal, or at least trying to be.

And so Paul reminds them of this ancient echo, this ancient song, “Blessed be the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, a gentle father, the mother of all mercies. The god of consolation.” These are three different translations for this way of naming God. God, this gentle presence, this gentle merciful parental presence. This God that consoles, this God that shows up when you are feeling wounded, afraid, sad, longing. 

The Hebrew people name the vast divinity of the universe in intimate terms and Jesus does too.  Every week, faithful folks around the globe pray, ‘Our Father’ with Jesus. It is an intimate cry  “Abba, Daddy, Papa, Mama.” We are consoled and consoling, loved into loving. 

400 years later 

Monastic communities emerge in this new faith, changing and growing, reforming and reshaping. 400 to 500 years or so after Jesus's death, Jesus’ teaching and monastic life has made its way to the far west of Europe, further than even Caesar himself.  These Celtic Abbeys on the outskirts of the christian world hold fast to their ancestors' wisdom while embracing the teachings of Jesus. Perhaps seeing Jesus as a great druidic teacher, they keep their celtic art, wisdom and healing traditions. 

In Brigid's Abbey, for example, people experienced healing and food and abundance. She even offers one nun an abortion. Irish herb gardens were filled with medicinal plants close at hand. The Infirmary, itself, was cozy and often the only room with a fire tended night and day. It was a space of consolation and care, simple nutritious foods and as much comfort as they knew how to provide.

1100 years later

1100 years after Jesus's death, Hildegard built her Abbey along the Rhine River (literally she designed it and created indoor plumbing long before her neighbors.) She is a gifted leader, artist, musician and loves science. She collects and studies the wisdom of healing practices, insights into the healing practices of the medieval world, healing properties of plants, and the human body's connection to the natural world. 

In two volumes she shared insights that may have trained other members of her community in the work of healing. Instruction on how to set bones and dress wounds, recipes for herbs and foods to aid healing and the benefits of good sex. Of course, her notes about bleeding may not be of great use to us these days but her works prove to be so meaningful that folks, including German medical students, still read them. 

Long before Starbucks, Hildegard gave birth to the very first Pumpkin Spice recipe and recommended grinding nutmeg, cinnamon, and clove in three equal parts and baking them into small cakes and cookies. You can find her recipe today and she says, these cookies of joy ‘calms bitterness in the heart and mind, opens impaired senses, and creates a soul of cheerfulness.

1300 years later

Two or three hundred years later, Europe is ravaged by an epidemic. Before Catherine of Sienna could build her great Abbey, her home town was ravaged by the plague. Angola di Tura of Siena writes a year after her birth in 1348.

“Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another; for this illness seemed to strike through the breath and sight. And so they died. And none could be found to bury the dead for money or friendship. Members of a household brought their dead to a ditch as best they could, without priest, without divine offices ... great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead. And they died by the hundreds both day and night ... And as soon as those ditches were filled more were dug ... And I, Agnolo di Tura ... buried my five children with my own hands. And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city. There was no one who wept for any death, for all awaited death. And so many died that all believed it was the end of the world.”

1400 years later

In France, this gruesome period was made worse by the Hundred Years' War, which kept raging because powerful men couldn't check their egos and their greed. Life became so desperate that it was illegal to grow grain that wasn't going to feed a person. It was even illegal to feed a dog instead of a person. (I'm sorry, people. I know you love your dogs. I’m not telling you to stop feeding your dog, I trying to tell you it was bad.)

Abbeys and monastic communities had work to do and then some. In the region of France, famous for Burgundy wine and Dijon mustard, there is a monastic hospital. 

A wealthy nobleman, Nicolas Rolin, and Guigone de Salins, his “excellent and generous” wife, decide to take action. Perhaps it is a love story between the two (like the tour guides say), perhaps it is a love story for the impoverished people around them (like they say) or perhaps it is a love story between these wealthy nobles and their mortal souls (which was definitely a worry reinforced by the church’s teaching). No matter the motivation, in the 1440’s the Pope granted Rolin special permission to create and fund a hospital or hospice. A neighboring monastic community sends nuns up to the task The Duke of Burgundy promises him a tax break and they set to work. 

You can visit Hôtel-Dieu - Hospices de Beaune and see that the couple spared no expense, making a palace for the poor. They found the very best architects, commissioned beautiful tapestries, fine furniture and the roof’s original ceramic tiles still mesmerize today. 

The hospital soars with the sacred, resembling a cathedral more than anything we might see today. If you were wealthy, you might have gotten a bed along the side, with some privacy curtains. If you were less wealthy, you might have gotten a bed in the middle.

At the front, is an altarpiece where Jesus bears the scars of the plague. So those suffering and those providing care, could remember that God is with them in their struggles.

When the hospital opens, people cheer. But my favorite memory from this museum and its guide book is this epic quote from King Louis XI about Rolin. “It is entirely fitting that the man who created so many poor people during his lifetime, prepare for them an asylum before dying.”

And there it is…the question of toxic charity versus transformative justice. 

At this time, you have this question about the work of an Abbey and what it means to live the way Jesus taught. You start to see images and woodcuts of chubby monks sitting around, eating their fill while their neighbors are struggling.

And this isn't medieval fat-shaming. It’s about some having more than enough and others struggling. It's about the transition of power through community to power over others. 

The church gets involved in healing work because Jesus offered healing.

Medieval monastics deployed technology, tools and prescription that were certainly different from Jesus; we never hear about his passion for blood letting or leeches. Their strategy is different but they both offer healing. One look at the medieval tools and you will be glad that the strategies of modern medicine are so very different.

The thing about Jesus's work of healing wasn't about how it happened. It wasn't the strategy or the technology. It was the access. Every single temple across the Mediterranean world has stories of healing similar to the stories of healing in the Gospels. 

But the difference was access. The difference was being right out there with people. The difference was that everybody could come, bent over women could reach out and folks could lower their friend through the roof because they cared so deeply. 

So what?

See, the floor plans of an Abbey matter because they make values concrete. And when an abbey is rooted in community and connection—when it is rooted in the struggle to build and rebuild a life where everybody has abundance—it has this power that is born out of the community. Monastic communities grew, particularly as empires collapsed and civic structures crumbled. As monastic communities grew, some of them became prosperous. The power they had built with the community shifted to power over community.

And in that, they lost everything.

The work that we engage in—the work of our footprint and our floor plan—is rooted in care and grace, compassion and connection and relationship. Our work is about making access for all people, eliminating the structural sins of medical debt and insurance profits and advocating for health care for the whole person, body, mind and spirit. Our Abbey may not have an infirmary, but we will have space to organize for one another's well-being. We will have capacity for pastoral care, hospital and hospice visits, and capacity for restorative practices like art and sound baths and centering prayer. And while we work for holistic healthcare access, we can bring a casserole to folks going through a ruff patch. 

Paul writes to early christians with plenty of struggle. Radical mutuality, sharing the consolation they have received, is the only reason early Christianity exists. They have nothing, no fancy buildings or temples. There is no marble or gold and they are probably a long ways away from working on a building project. The early church exists because people care for each other’s active needs, active hurts, active love all the time, every day, in community. May we keep that work of mutual care and healing scared and central. 

May it be so.

Amen.