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Sep 2007
Microphones
30/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
We are using
a new microphone for podacsts and Rule reading which
we hope will improve the audio quality. There is no
inherent reason why you should have to suffer
crackles and hisses, but we may need to soften the
boom of the "recording chamber". If you find the
results too mushy, please let us know. What we hear
may not be what you hear, so it will be a case of
trial and error.
Michaelmas
29/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Angels get a
bad press in some quarters, but St Michael is a
mighty defence against evil, and who is to deny that
there are great evils troubling the world today?
Peace is as elusive as ever. We must pray for the
coming of the Kingdom among us.
Care of the Sick
28/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
In recent
weeks we have spent a lot of time in Oxford
hospitals, and our experience of the care shown by
NHS staff has been very positive. Benedict himself
urges that "care of the sick should come 'ante omnia
et super omnia', before and above everything else."
We all know that society may be judged by its care of
the vulnerable (which we all are, at one time or
another) but as individuals we can have difficulty
recognizing who is vulnerable or in need. We have a
tendency to draw circles, and anyone outside our
circle gets ignored. If we are particularly sensitive
to poverty or homelessness, we focus on that and may
be less aware of those with different kinds of need.
At the risk of sounding trite, the fact that the
world is round should remind us. Everyone is in "our"
circle.
Drains II
26/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Since the
last post on this subject the men have disappeared
but the holes remain, and some plumbing is out of
action. Such a trivial matter in the Great Scheme of
Things, but isn't it strange how irritating it can
be? A lesson here, surely, on where our attention is
focused. "Where your treasure is, there will your
heart be also". Embarrassing to think that one's
"treasure" may be stored in such a silly place as an
old drain.
On Restraint in Speech
24/September/2007 Filed in: Chapter Talks
Benedict's
sixth chapter, which we begin reading today, is more
than just a bald summary of the uses and abuses of
speech. It is a reminder of the necessity
of silence in
our lives. We need physical silence just as we need
sleep: to process what is going on around us, to
recoup our energy, to confront those aspects of
ourselves we spend a lot of time trying to avoid. We
also need moral silence, abstention even from good
things, to allow the life of the Spirit to grow in
us. But we can find all sorts of ruses to dodge that
kind of silence, pretending that we are quiet simply
because we are not actually speaking and ignoring the
fact that we spend an inordinate amount of time
reading the newspaper/writing emails/or whatever our
form of interior noisiness takes. We can also abuse
silence by assuring ourselves that we are "observing
the rule of silence" when charity demands that we
speak "the good word which is above the best gift".
Silence as laziness, evasion and cowardice is not at
all what Benedict meant.
Hero Worship
22/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
When we were
very young, we had lots of heroes — a brave uncle,
Horatio Nelson, Joan of Arc — people who fired our
imaginations and inspired us to deeds of derring-do.
Sadly, as we get older, we discover the joys of
carping and criticizing, and our heroes tend to lose
their allure. There is something to be said for hero
worship: it encourages us to look beyond ourselves
and imitate the virtues of the one we admire. At the
very least, it makes us generous-hearted. There are
some "heroes" we may be better off without, but the
debunking of spiritual heroes doesn't make the world
a better place, just a meaner-spirited one.
Country Wines
20/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Recently we
were taken to task by a devout reader for our brewing
and wine-making activities (not, I am happy to say,
for our visitors' consumption and apparent enjoyment
thereof). It is hard to think of our kitchen as a den
of iniquity. "Noah" bubbles away in one corner,
producing a few gallons of fragrant orange wine;
"Naboth" sits in another, with huge quantities of
damsons in his great maw, quietly turning them into a
wine that will be "deliciously plummy"; an
experimental gallon of elderflower undergoes a
malolactic fermentation (oh bliss, oh joy, oh
rapture) beside the sink; and thoughts are already
turning to brewing some beer for the parish's
Christmas festivities. True, we are a long way from
Dom Perignon here (though Hendred does have a
"proper" commercial vineyard to its credit). I hope
we are equally far from Newman's description of a
nun's anger as being "like raspberry vinegar, sweet
acid."
Truth and Lies
19/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
At Vigils
this morning, Psalm 11, a sad comment on humanity
"Falsehood they speak one
to another,
with lying lips, with a false heart."
and in the section of the
Rule for today, its antidote, being truth-full:
"Speak the truth, heart
and tongue."
Benedict reverses the expected order of things: a pure heart will utter pure speech; whereas a lie masks the darkness in the heart of the deceiver. Reveal or conceal? It is worth pondering how we use words today.
Drains
17/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
One of the
joys of living in an older building is the
never-ending variety of "challenges" it presents.
Currently, it's drains. Two great holes have been dug
and men come and scratch their heads and nod wisely
to one another and send urgent messages back to base
on their mobiles. Should we be worried? It took
nearly three years to find a leak in the incoming
water supply. I feel a novena to St Jude coming
on.
Sheep and Drachmas
16/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Interesting
that the Fathers use today's gospel in such different
ways: the shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine sheep
on the hillside and goes in search of the stray is
always identified with God in Christ seeking us, his
wayward children; the woman searching for the lost
coin is never God seeking us but an image of how we
must persevere in seeking him. Either way, we are
precious to God and he to us.
Our Lady of Sorrows
15/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Yesterday's
feast was all victory and triumph, today's is full of
human sorrow and bafflement in the face of God's
will. It is (comparatively) easy to pray to do God's
will when everything is clear and unambiguous. When
things are not so straightforward, when there is
doubt, hesitation, confusion, conflict perhaps, it
can take an heroic effort of will to entrust
ourselves to the hands of God. We know in faith that
those hands will never allow us to fall, but there
can be times when the gaps between the fingers, so to
say, make us very uncertain. Today's podcast uses a
prayer of Thomas Merton who knew at first hand how
difficult it can be to trust.
Exaltation of the Cross
14/September/2007 Filed in: Chapter Talks
Has it ever
struck you that, although Easter is a central theme
of the Rule, with even the times of meals being
arranged in relation to it, St Benedict says very
little about Christ's Passion, save to mention in the
Prologue that we "share by patience in the sufferings
of Christ"? Unlike some later saints, he dwells on
the Resurrection and the glory that is to come,
rather than on the horrors of the Cross. The author
of "The Dream of the Rood" seems to have had
something of the same understanding, and although the
extract we read at Midday Prayer will indeed mention
the blood and the nails, we shall be left with the
vision of the victorious young Warrior and the awe
inspired in the wood of the Cross which bore him.
Today's feast is a celebration of triumph. Let us
celebrate it with joy and thanksgiving — a sober and
restrained joy, of course, because today also marks
one of those turning points in the Rule when we begin
the "Little Lent" of fasting until we come to
the"Great Lent" that leads to Easter.
True Freedom
11/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
This week's
collect invites us to pray for "true freedom".
Probably most people would say that they are not
"free". Depending on age and circumstances, they are
bound by various constraints, from the school
timetable to the exigencies of family/job/mortgage.
Christian freedom must transcend or, better perhaps,
incorporate the limitations of everyday existence,
for there are no boundaries to the realm of the
Spirit.
An Unusual Week-End
10/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Contemplative
nuns do not usually stray from their cloister, but
this has been an unusual week-end. First, a visit to
St Mary's, Littlehampton, to share their celebration
of Our Lady's Birthday. Beautifully sunny weather,
carefully prepared liturgy, and much warm-hearted
hospitality made this a day to remember. It was sad
not to be able to share Communion, but that is a
powerful reminder of the need to pray
for the unity
Christ desires for his Church. There are no
short-cuts in ecumenism. Our best thanks to Fr Alex,
Fr Roger and the parish community. On Sunday, more
feasting with the celebration of St Patrick's 60th
anniversary. The church is a converted cow byre which
means, of course, many resonances with Bethlehem. Our
best thanks to the parish community at St Patrick's.
Monday, and life returns to "normal". Routine has its
blessings, too.
Our Lady's Birthday
08/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
The Church
celebrates the birthdays of only two saints: Mary and
John the Baptist. The feastdays of both are filled
with joy and light. St Augustine calls Mary the
ground that brings forth Christ, the sweet-smelling
Lily of the Valley, while St Bernard, most lyrical of
all the Fathers, uses the lovely image of the
aquaduct to describe her. She is not herself the
Fountain of Life but conveys the waters to us in
limpid, bubbling joy. The autumn crocus, sometimes
called the Naked Lady, is named for her, its delicate
purple flower smiling the wide smile of the very
young.
Tidying Cupboards
07/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
The digital equivalent of tidying one's cupboards often reveals forgotten treasures like this photo of two monastic pilgrims surveying the ruins at Llanthony. Just add the sound of sheep and the smell of warm earth!
Foundation Day
06/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
A day of
rejoicing here in the monastery. On this day in 2004,
Bishop Crispian Hollis issued the decree of canonical
erection. We are amazed at how much has been achieved
under God since then, thanks to all our friends and
well-wishers. Our beginnings were modest in the
extreme, and although we are very grateful for all
that we have been enabled to do, there are times when
one looks back nostalgically at the simplicity of our
origins. Strange to think we began with one bed, one
desk, four mattreses, four chairs and, sign of our
times, two computers; and that our first community
meal was rather wanting in the crockery and cutlery
department! Today we shall give thanks in our own
oratory (still very plain and simple) glad that Mass
can be said at our own altar, and we shall follow
with a festive meal for which there will be no
shortage of the wherewithal from which to eat it,
nor, thankfully, of others to share it. Now we must
pray for the blessing of vocations.
Listening to the Rule
05/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
We celebrated
the feast of St Gregory the Great, Apostle of the
English, on Monday. How much the Church owes to him!
It was at his prompting that St Augustine of
Canterbury first preached the gospel in Kent; and his
"Pastoral Care" had such an impact on Alfred the
Great (whom we venerate with particular devotion
hereabouts since Wantage was his birthplace) that he
translated it into English and directed all the
clergy to study it. We Benedictines have further
cause to be grateful to Gregory because in the second
book of his "Dialogues" he gives us an account of St
Benedict. It is not what we would call "history", but
many of the details are instructive. At one point
Gregory says that Benedict cannot have lived
otherwise than as he taught. For Benedictines, the
Rule is an important source of monastic teaching and
in monasteries we have the custom of reading it
through in its entirety three times a year. From
today, you can join us in our daily "Rule reading" by
clicking on the Prayer Box on the Vocations
page.
A Bird on the Wing
03/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
Driving
across the Downs we startled a buzzard enjoying his
breakfast beside the road. He flew ahead of us at
windscreen level for several yards (at about 40 mph).
None of us had ever seen one at such close quarters
before and will long remember his huge talons.
Farmers may have mixed feelings about the number of
raptors hereabouts, but for the rest of us the sight
of them is unalloyed delight.
End of the Retreat
02/September/2007 Filed in: Jottings
It has been a good week to be in retreat, with so
many people and needs to pray for; good also to be
able to reflect a little more deeply on the mysteries
of Christ and the way in which they are woven into
our lives. The Divine Compassion always stoops to our
need, but it can be difficult to believe that when
such horrors as the Barron case or the Beslan Siege
come to mind or even our own sins and shabby
accommodations. However, as St Benedict reminds us in
the very last Tool of Good Works, we must never
despair of God's mercy. Our confidence and
expectation must be alike high because we depend on
God, not on ourselves.