The Prior's Dinner: Benedictine hospitality
MANILA, Philippines - Once a year, usually on the last Saturday of October or first Saturday of November, the Monastery of the Transfiguration in Malaybalay, Bukidnon, holds “The Prior’s Dinner,” a tradition for a lot of monasteries abroad. It is a way of gathering this Benedictine monastery’s benefactors and friends for a thanksgiving Mass and a dinner at the reception area of the enclosure.
This year’s Prior’s Dinner was held on Nov. 5 and attended by 150 benefactors from Bukidnon, Cagayan de Oro, Iligan City, Davao and Manila. The evening affair started with a Thanksgiving Mass at the magnificent church designed by the late National Artist for Architecture, Leandro Locsin, and was celebrated by Malaybalay Bishop Jose Cabantan, D.D. together with Fr. Prior Savio Siccuan, OSB, superior of the monastery and Fr. Columbano Adag, OSB. Providing solemn music was the men’s choir composed of former members of the Monastery Boys’ Choir under its musical director, Dom Myron Marquez, OSB.
As the guests entered the reception area, they were pleasantly surpised to see how the area, including the corridors, was transformed by Dom Symeon Gomez, OSB, into a charming fine-dinning hall complete with assorted flowers on each table. What amazed the guests too was that the buffet table (one of the longest they’ve seen in a long time!) was laden with international dishes all prepared in the monastery kitchen under the supervision of Dom Martin Gomez. The menu included assorted canapes, pako salad, baked clams, scallops with mozarella cheese in shells, canneloni with cheese and spinach, fettuccine with salmon and caviar, eggplant and chicken liver rollantini, organic brown rice with chicken fillet, Indian biryani rice, and a whole lot more.
As the benefactors and friends started to leave after the dinner, they all said that the Prior’s Dinner was certainly Benedictine hospitality at its best.
