In this time when travel is difficult and many people have been unable to get to Mass or even to churches, a number of people have asked us to light candles for their intentions at the monastery at our shrine of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or before our statues of Saint Benedict or Saint Christopher. 

We are happy to make this facility more widely available to those who wish to have a votive candle lit for their intentions at the monastery and at the same time would like to assist the monastery with their offering. The offering for a 3hr votive candle is €1,00. The offering for a 9 day (novena) votive candle is €9,00.

Requests may be made using the links below or by any other convenient means. It is not necessary to state the intentions for which you wish the candles to be lit. The monks will join their prayer to your intentions in lighting them.

​God bless you!

We live in difficult times. The world as we have long since known it is in grave disorder: planning for the immediate or even short term future has become very difficult and many economic and political systems are unstable. In some places the Church seems to have capitulated to the current distress and retreated into an almost virtual existence, without a fight. The saving touch of the sacraments is withdrawn. The public worship of God which is our first duty is abandoned. The salvific preaching of True doctrine is muted.
 
In this situation the words of our Blessed Lord in today’s Holy Gospel about the Antichrist, the abomination of desolation, the arrival of false prophets and of times of great tribulation may cause some uncomfortable resonations within our hearts and minds. Are we approaching the end?
 
In his homily at matins this morning Saint Jerome explained that the abomination of desolation can be understood both as an idol set up in the Temple (such as the statue of Caesar placed in the Temple by Pontius Pilate) or indeed as the spreading of false dogma.
 
The Church in our day has seen  all of this. It continues to do so. Liturgical rites which place man at the centre and displace God set up idols in the New Temple. Pagan idols have been welcomed into our churches – even the greatest of them. The perverse cacophony of disingenuous or dissenting teaching in respect of marriage and the family, the sanctity of life and the true nature of the God-given gift of human sexuality resounds where the challenge of the edifying harmony of true doctrine should be heard. The tribulations of our times, even within the Church herself, are real.
 
How are we to respond to this? By adopting the shrill panic of an apocalyptic mindset? No: we do not know if these are the end times or not. That knowledge is not ours to have (cf. Mt 25:13). Are we to renounce Christ and His Church because the Church has been disfigured and injured by shocking if not scandalous tribulations? No: as Our Lord teaches us in the Gospel: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.”
 
Whatever comes, we must cling to Christ and His Truth in His Body that is the Church. Yes, at times and in certain places we may have to flee tribulations and have nothing further to do with false prophets and their insidious teaching. Yes, we must keep away from the worship of idols – in our churches as well as in the world. But in whatever suffering or difficulty the Church and the world faces we must never renounce Christ and His saving action in the liturgy and sacraments of His Church.
 
For no matter what transpires, “after the tribulation…the Son of man [will come] on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory;  and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.” For the grace of steadfast perseverance in these times, unto the end, and that we might be numbered amongst the elect on that day, let us entreat our Saviour at this altar this morning. +

​+ Parables are parabolic, and the parables of the mustard seed and of the leaven in today’s Holy Gospel are no exception. They teach something, certainly, but by their very nature they do more: they invite us into that teaching, as it were, to contemplate further its meaning and riches in the light which God the Holy Ghost gives to those who seek it.  
 
In respect of the Kingdom of God, it is clear that these parables teach the smallness and hiddenness of its origins. This is true historically: the simple preaching of Christ, working like leaven on a small group of people in an outpost of the Roman Empire, has changed the world. That which was planted in this small beginning – the one true Church of God Himself – has given shelter to countless generations since, ourselves included.
 
So too, over the centuries there have been insignificant beginnings – such as St Benedict retreating from the world as a young student and seeking the solitude of a hermit – which have led, almost imperceptibly at first through the action of the yeast of God’s grace over time, to the establishment of movements and institutions within the Church that provide many with shelter, and indeed with the context in which they can work out their salvation. We dare to pray that our own small monastic beginning here in Brignoles shall do likewise, howsoever modestly.
 
And the same can be true in the life of faith of any baptised person. The growth of the Kingdom of God in our hearts and souls has small beginnings. Growth may be slow – measured in decades rather than years, months or days – but it is true growth. Great holiness is rarely a directly infused gift. Rather, it is ordinarily the fruit of hard-won perseverance and growth over a lifetime.
 
Through the kindness of some benefactors our monastery grounds now have many newly planted trees. Their branches are not yet ready to shelter the birds of the air. They are not yet bearing fruit. But the day shall come when they shall. For the substantial growth that is required we must be patient – with trees and with ourselves.
 
So too, for a seed to grow into a tree we need good soil and appropriate nourishment. At times pruning shall be necessary. Protection from predators is required, especially at the beginning. A lack of any of these things – in a garden or in our souls – can lead to damage and disease.
 
Christ Himself gave us all that we need to avoid this danger, or indeed to heal and repair any damage or disease that is suffered, in the sacraments. The Kingdom of God will not grow in us if it is not nourished by fidelity to prayer each day and by increasingly fruitful participation in the public worship of the Church, most especially the Sacrifice of the Mass and the regular and worthy reception of Holy Communion. The damage caused by the tempests of this world will not be repaired, and the diseases caused by sin will not be healed, if we do not have regular recourse to the Sacrament of Confession.
 
The Kingdom of God grows within us almost imperceptibly through the action of the yeast that is God the Holy Ghost only if it finds fertile soil that is regularly weeded and well nourished. The parables of today’s Holy Gospel demand that I examine myself and ensure that without delay I do what is necessary so that God’s Kingdom can continue its mysterious growth in me; so that God can make of me what in His Providence He wills. What do I need to put in place to facilitate this growth? What obstacles do I need to remove? For the grace clearly to know, and resolutely to do, what is necessary at this point in my life on earth, let us pray earnestly in this Holy Mass. +

+ “Venite ad me, omnes qui laboratis, et onerati estis : et ego reficiam vos.” Come to me all ye who labour and are burdened; I will give you rest. (Mt 11:28)
 
These words – sung by the Church in the Alleluia verse before the Gospel today – appositely express the realities which are ours at this time. At the end of a week that has seen three Catholics violently martyred in a church a little more than a hundred kilometres from us, and in which the country has been put into another lockdown, our burdens are not small. Rightly to we come to worship Christ in this Mass (Whilst we still can!) to seek refreshment and restoration, for the days and weeks ahead may well be quite laboursome.
 
Today’s solemnity of All Saints itself should give us great encouragement. The countless men and women over the centuries who have felt oppressed by the burdens of their day – as we do by ours – but who have nevertheless persevered in fidelity to and hope in Jesus Christ and His one, true Church, call us by their witness, indeed in many cases by their very blood, to keep working out our salvation, to carry the burden of the day until its end.
 
Let us not forget that this salvation is the salvation of the soul, not of the body. Bodily health is a good, certainly, and rightly we seek to maintain it so that we can shoulder the God-given responsibilities that our ours in this life. But bodily health is not the ultimate good: a truth that many governments fail to understand in these peculiar times. The supreme good is the salvation of the soul. That is why the saints have endured all manner of physical and psychological suffering and oppression in the sure hope of that blessedness, of that righteousness in the sight of God, of which the Gospel of this Holy Mass speaks (Mt 5:1-12). As should we.
 
In all of this we are not alone. By virtue of our baptism we are a part of the Communion of Saints: of that great family of all the baptised, living and dead, in heaven and on earth. And in this great union those who have gone before us can assist us with their prayers and intercession. Let is not neglect to pray to them – in particular to our patron saints, especially our monastic ones – and to ask them for the graces we need in the particular circumstances of our day.
 
For the saints we celebrate today have persevered until the end and now stand before the throne of Lamb signing His praises as we read in the Epistle (Apoc 7:2-12). That, by their intercession, we also shall receive the grace of perseverance and come to share in their blessedness, let us entreat Almighty God at this altar this morning. +

Vous trouverez ci-dessous notre lettre aux amis
pour le temps après la Pentecôte 2020
Our Time after Pentecost 2020 newsletter is published below.