Somebody's knocking at my door; St. Benedict tells us to "receive all visitors as Christ," but he never had to deal with the pesky rascals from up the street. Or did he?

THERE ARE THREE SIBLINGS, THE OLDEST BEING ABOUT 8, who live up the street from my family. A little older than my children and much less supervised, they're always running from house to house looking for kids to play with. They knock on our door as soon as we pull into the driveway. They knock when we're having dinner. They knock when we're getting the kids ready for bed. They knock on the front door. They knock on the back door. They knock all the time.

In his Rule for monastic and community life, St. Benedict admonishes his monks to answer "Thanks be to God" when there is a knock at the monastery's gate. But it's not words of thanks that roll off my tongue when I see these kids at my door. To be honest, I not only find them bothersome but also hard to like.

It's not just the frequency of their visits that bug me. They're also very needy and not at all shy about asking for what they want. And they always want something--a peanut butter sandwich, something to drink, a dry piece of clothing, a phone to call their mother. They never seem to have to go home. And when I eventually tell them it's time to leave, the bicycles left in my driveway remind me that they are sure to return soon.

In Benedict's time a porter would be stationed at the monastery's gate to greet and receive guests. It's not hard to imagine children who lived in the vicinity of St. Benedict's monasteries knocking on the door for one reason or another. Surely they must have regularly interrupted the monastery's schedule of prayer, work, and periods of silence.

Besides attracting children, monasteries of the sixth century also drew a steady stream of visitors with various needs, questions, and personal business to discuss. Some came seeking counsel. Others arrived hoping to be accepted as retreatants or to present themselves as would-be postulants. And of course, in addition to those who were well-intentioned, there were the vagrants, charlatans, and loiterers, whose intentions were more dubious. The doorkeeper's job was to attend to all such visitors and, after considering their requests, to decide on the best way of proceeding. Whether they admitted them to the cloister or sent them on their way, Benedict instructed his monks to "receive all guests as Christ."

"All guests" of course means both those we find pleasant and those we find trying, those whom we want to spend time with and those whom we prefer not to. It's not that I feel following Benedict's Rule means always allowing neighborhood children into my home to play. In fact, I've become very good at denying them entry. But it does mean offering welcome no matter who it is at my door. It means greeting guests warmly and being respectful and open to the encounter. It calls for being hospitable regardless of my feelings about the guest or how I ultimately decide to deal with their requests. It demands that I consider important the feelings and impressions left with people who knock on my door.

Benedict understood that the manner in which visitors were received said something about how well he and his monks had woven their prayer into their daily tasks. He recognized that a greeting provides an opportunity to establish communion with someone, a chance to enter into relationship with them no matter how brief or passing or seemingly insignificant the interaction. Thus, the Rule insists that visitors be attended to with "gentleness" and a "warmth of charity." To do so is a type of prayer in itself. The knock on our door is not an interruption but an opportunity to become centered on others, which of course is the ultimate goal of all Christian practice. My children's playmates offer me this opportunity.

A FEW YEARS AGO, AT MY FATHER'S FUNERAL, SOMEONE told me about how they d always remember the way my father greeted them. "It didn't matter if he last saw you a month ago or earlier the same day," they said, "he always seemed glad to see you." My father would have made a good porter. His greetings conveyed a delight in being in the presence of another. To take pleasure in the presence of others is a way of paying them homage, a way of acknowledging that we all come from the same source. It recognizes that it truly is Christ himself who stands before us.

By MARK GRACEFFO, a librarian at St. Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey and a Benedictine oblate novice at the Newark Abbey.