+ Ces derniers jours, il a été rendu public que notre diocèse faisait l'objet, depuis quelque temps, d'une "visite fraternelle" de la part de son archevêque métropolitain, et qu'à la suite de cette visite, des restrictions ont été imposées à notre évêque par le Saint-Siège - il est fort possible (et même probable) que d'autres restrictions soient à venir. Mgr Rey a publié une déclaration à ce sujet que je vous invite à lire.
​
La fête de la Pentecôte 2022 dans le diocèse de Fréjus-Toulon est teintée d'une inquiétude, voire d'une grave crainte, pour l'avenir : tant de bonnes initiatives lancées par notre évêque vraiment catholique depuis plus de deux décennies semblent être en danger. De nombreuses vocations qu'il a suscitées et encouragées pourraient être endommagées ou perdues.

Ces dernières semaines, contrairement à nos souhaits, notre diocèse a imprudemment fait savoir qu'en avril, notre communauté monastique a accepté les ordinations dont elle avait besoin depuis longtemps, des mains d'un prélat supérieur qui voyait clairement que sans elles, nous courions nous-mêmes un grave danger. La publicité générée par l'indiscrétion de notre diocèse a titillé les trolls - toutes les malversations et les ignobles motivations possibles sont les nôtres, semble-t-il !

Pour ceux qui se soucient d'étudier la question, il devrait maintenant être clair que notre décision consciencieuse, notre jugement réfléchi de la raison pratique dans les circonstances dans lesquelles nous nous trouvions (souligné par notre communiqué du 13 mai) était basée sur une prudence qui était et est réelle. Le Saint-Siège était en train d'agir contre notre évêque (depuis plus de deux ans maintenant) et il était en effet hautement probable que sans les ordinations que nous avons demandées à plusieurs reprises, et qui ont été recommandées à plusieurs reprises à l'évêque par des Visiteurs invités par lui, nous nous retrouverions bientôt ici, dans une belle église médiévale, sans le Saint Sacrifice de la Messe ou l'accès aux autres sacrements, malgré sa bonne volonté et ses encouragements depuis plus de dix ans.

Pour certains, en particulier dans notre diocèse, nos actes semblaient être une trahison - comment pouvait-on se comporter ainsi à l'égard de Mgr Rey, de tous les évêques ? Or, malheureusement, il est clair qu'à notre époque, même le meilleur des évêques peut être (et dans ce cas, a été) paralysé par la peur.

Pour d'autres, nos actions ont été décriées comme étant celles de candidats inadaptés qui prennent des raccourcis ou évitent un examen minutieux : diverses attaques ad hominem ont suivi. Les paroles répétées de notre évêque, et même celles du porte-parole du diocèse, attestant de nos bons caractères, ont plus que réfuté ces trop prévisibles incursions narcissiques. Pour d'autres encore, on pense que nos actions ont provoqué l'intervention du Saint-Siège dans le diocèse. Si cela est flatteur d'une certaine manière, c'est manifestement faux : la suite de la visite "fraternelle" est envisagée depuis longtemps.

Soyons clairs : un père a le devoir de fournir ce qui est nécessaire à la survie de sa famille, en particulier lorsqu'il devient évident qu'un hiver rigoureux approche. Et lorsque ce qui est vraiment nécessaire à la survie de sa famille lui est refusé de manière répétée par ceux dont la responsabilité est de le fournir, il n'est pas mauvais d'accepter le don de ce qui est nécessaire de la part d'un autre, même si cela entraîne l'opprobre.

Nous sommes profondément reconnaissants aux centaines de personnes du monde entier qui nous ont contactés avec des messages aimables et qui ont très généreusement envoyé des moyens de soutien. Nous sommes également reconnaissants envers nos amis qui sont troublés par tout cela mais qui ont gardé un silence respectueux, sachant que nous n'agirions pas ainsi sans de très bonnes et sérieuses raisons. Maintenant que ces raisons sont plus claires pour tous, nous prions pour qu'ils comprennent.

Nous célébrons donc cette fête de la Pentecôte avec une grande paix, cette paix que le monde ne peut donner. Mais nous le faisons sans orgueil ni sentiment d'autosatisfaction. Au contraire, dans ces circonstances, nous le faisons avec une profonde humilité pour les dons qui nous ont été accordés et avec une résolution renouvelée de les employer pour le bien de l'Église et le salut des âmes. Si notre petit monastère doit devenir une oasis dans un désert, nous renouvelons notre engagement à faire tout ce que nous pouvons, avec l'aide de Dieu, pour accueillir et servir ceux qui cherchent ici refuge et rafraîchissement.

Mais nous célébrons aussi cette fête avec le cœur lourd. Notre évêque a été attaqué et notre diocèse est secoué. Notre première réponse doit être la prière - en implorant les dons de Dieu le Saint-Esprit en abondance, en particulier les dons de sagesse et de courage en ces temps, en suppliant le Dieu tout-puissant avec la collecte de cette messe pour le don du jugement juste. Jeudi, j'ai assuré l'évêque de nos prières et j'ai reçu en retour une réponse reconnaissante. Veuillez prier pour lui en particulier. Veuillez prier pour les séminaristes et les communautés du diocèse dont l'avenir est désormais incertain.

Veuillez prier la belle séquence de cette messe - comme le fait la Sainte Liturgie - à plusieurs reprises cette semaine, en implorant l'effusion des dons et des fruits de l'Esprit Saint dans les cœurs, les esprits et les âmes de toutes les personnes concernées.

Veni Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium : et tui amoris in eis ignem accende !
​
(Viens, Saint-Esprit, remplis le cœur de tes fidèles et allume en eux le feu de ton amour). +

+ In recent days it has been made public that our diocese has, for some time, been subject to a “fraternal visitation” by its Metropolitan Archbishop, and that as a result of this visitation restrictions have been placed on our bishop by the Holy See—quite possibly (even probably) there are more to come. Mgr Rey has issued a statement in respect of this which I invite you to read. The feast of Pentecost 2022 in the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon is tainted with concern, if not grave fear, for the future: so many good initiatives fathered by our truly catholic bishop over more than two decades seem to be at risk. Many vocations called forth and fostered by him may be damaged or lost.
 
In recent weeks, contrary to our wishes, our diocese imprudently made known that in April our monastic community accepted the ordinations it has long since needed at the hands of a senior prelate who could see clearly that without them we were ourselves at grave risk. The publicity generated by our diocese’s indignant indiscretion has titillated the trolls—every possible malfeasance and ignoble motivation is ours it seems!
 
For those who care to study the matter it should now be clear that our conscientious decision, our considered judgement of practical reason under the circumstances in which we found ourselves (outlined by our statement of May 13) was based on a prudence that was and is real. The Holy See was moving against our bishop (it has been for more than two years now) and it was indeed highly probable that without the ordinations we repeatedly requested, and which were repeatedly recommended to the bishop by Visitors invited by him, we would soon find ourselves here, in a beautiful medieval church, without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass or access to the other sacraments, despite his good will and encouragement for more than ten years.
 
For some, particularly in our diocese, our acts seemed treasonable—how could one behave thus in respect of Mgr Rey, of all bishops? Now, unfortunately, it is clear that in our times even the best of all bishops can be (and in this case, has been) paralysed by fear. For others our actions were decried as those of unsuitable candidates cutting corners or avoiding due scrutiny: various ad hominem attacks have ensued. The repeated words of our bishop, and even those of the diocesan spokesman, attesting to our good character, have more than refuted these all-too-predictable narcissistic forays. For others still, it is thought that our actions prompted the Holy See’s intervention in the diocese. Whilst in a way this is flattering, it is patently false—the follow up to the “fraternal” visit had been under consideration for some time.
 
Let us be clear: a father is duty bound to provide what is necessary for his family to survive, particularly when it becomes obvious that a severe winter is approaching. And when what is truly necessary for the survival of his family is repeatedly denied him by those whose responsibility it is to provide it, it is not wrong to accept the gift of what is necessary from another, even if that will bring opprobrium.

We are profoundly grateful to the hundreds of people from around the world who have contacted us with kind messages and who have very generously sent means of support. So too we are thankful to our friends who are troubled by all of this but who have maintained a respectful silence, appreciating that we would not act thus without very good and serious reasons. Now that those reasons are plain for all to see we pray that they will understand more clearly.
 
We celebrate this feast of Pentecost with a great peace, therefore—that peace which the world cannot give. But we do so without pride or any sense of self-righteousness. Rather, in these circumstances, we do so in profound humility for the gifts we have been given and with a renewed resolution to employ them for the good of the Church and the salvation of souls. If our little monastery must needs become an oasis in a desert, we renew our commitment to do all we can, with God’s help, to welcome and serve those who seek refuge and refreshment here.
 
But we also celebrate this feast with heavy hearts. Our Bishop has been attacked and our diocese is shaken. Our first response must be prayer—imploring the gifts of God the Holy Spirit in abundance, particularly the gifts of wisdom and courage in these times, begging Almighty God with the collect of this Mass for the gift of right judgement.  
 
On Thursday I assured the bishop of our prayers and received a grateful response by return. Please pray for him in particular. Please pray for the seminarians and communities of the diocese whose future is now unclear. Please pray the beautiful Sequence of this Mass—as does the Sacred Liturgy—repeatedly this week, imploring the outpouring of the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit in the hearts, minds and souls of all concerned.
​
Veni Sancte Spiritus, reple tuorum corda fidelium: et tui amoris in eis ignem accende ! (Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful and kindle in them the fire of thy love.) +

​+ “They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor Me.”
 
These words, which the Church’s Sacred Liturgy put before us as she meditates on the absence of the Ascended Lord whilst she awaits the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, are hardly comforting. They foretell the rejection and persecution—even unto death—that is to be expected for those who know Jesus Christ as the definitive revelation of God in history, who persevere in unswerving faith in Him and who hold fast to the mission and witness He has given to them to accomplish in this world. Being excluded from the worship of Almighty God by those who exercise authority in His name, and even having one’s very life taken away: this is what may well await those who will not renounce what they have experienced and come to know in their encounter with the Resurrected and Ascended Christ.
 
This bitter reality has been known time and time again in the centuries since, particularly clearly in the lives of the early Christian martyrs, and perhaps more subtly afterwards—the reality of ecclesiastical authorities who have long since abandoned the humble service of the Truth for the political exercise of raw power is not unknown in Church history, even in our own day, and in such circumstances exclusion and damnatio memoriae are frequently employed to put people to death just as quickly as death sentences were imposed on the early Christians by any secular Caesar.
 
Yes, fidelity to Christ necessarily brings suffering, particularly where it challenges the infidelity that abounds. There is no avoiding this: accepting and indeed lovingly embracing the Cross is an inescapable element of any Christian discipleship worthy of the name. For it is thus that we find salvation.
 
Yet Our Lord’s warning about the sufferings that await us have a purpose: “I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you of them,” He tells us. “I have said all this to you to keep you from falling away.”
 
Thus forewarned, we are already somewhat fortified. But we are strengthened all the more by the fact that it is Jesus Christ, gloriously risen from the dead, who foretells this. We would do well to ponder this fact: He Whose brutal execution proved ineffectual, He Who is Himself Victory Over Sin and Death, warns us that there are troubles ahead—but because it is He who warns us, because it is He who has overcome them already, our faith is not in vain, and any sufferings inflicted upon us for remaining faithful to Him cannot ultimately harm us.
 
This is the supreme gift of a peace that the world and its sufferings and its potentates cannot take away (cf. Jn 14:27); it is very much that pax inter spinas which is frequently employed as a Benedictine logo—that peace which no thorns can ultimately occlude or destroy. (In our own version of this, the designing artist depicted the fruit which grows from this peace, even amidst the said thorns.) For there is no doubt that we shall encounter many thorns if we seek to be His faithful witnesses today. But as His witnesses we share in that peace, His peace, that the world and those who serve it cannot take away.
 
Living this pax inter spinas is by no means easy: we rapidly focus on the wounds wrought by the thorns and lose hold of the peace that is given to us. The Church of all ages has known this and has had to deal with it, which is why her Sacred Liturgy presents us with the straightforward counsel of St Peter in the Epistle of this Holy Mass:
 
“Keep sane and sober for your prayers. Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. Practice hospitality ungrudgingly to one another. As each has received a gift, employ it for one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace…in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ.”
 
The difficult realities we face are clear. But clearer still is the victory over them that has already been won by the Risen and Ascended Christ. And so too is our vocation to be witnesses to this truth in our times. As we worship He whose victory gives us that peace which cannot be taken from us at His altar this morning, let us ask for an increase in that love, that charity, of which St Peter speaks, that our peace, our fidelity, and our witness shall bear much fruit in ourselves, in the Church and in the world. +

+ One of the sheer graces of the monastic vocation is our immersion in the recapitulation of the Word of God by the various offices of the Sacred Liturgy throughout the day—leading, of course (if we have the sense to do our part and maintain the external discipline and interior disposition of recollection) to ever deeper contemplation of its content and meaning, and of its import in our ongoing quest for the conversion of our lives and for greater fidelity to Christ in the vocation He has, in His mercy, given us.
 
This fifth Sunday after Easter is no exception. Our Lord’s teaching “Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in My name… ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full” echoes from first Vespers through to Second, and is expounded by St Augustine at Matins with the assurance that “he who believes in Christ as he should truly asks in His name and receives what he asks for: provided he asks for what is not opposed to his own eternal salvation.”
 
In a sense, this is “asking”, or “pray earnestly”, Sunday. And indeed, we each have much for which to pray! Our needs are many and varied. Sometimes they are urgent—danger can threaten from without, with real enemies (even wolves in sheep’s clothing) out to destroy us for their own insidious, narcissistic or ideological gratification. Danger can also arise from within—pride, envy, lust, sloth, etc. (all the classic snares of the world, the flesh and the devil). Earnest prayers for protection and for the grace of perseverance, particularly in times of crisis or suffering, are rightly frequently upon our lips.
 
Frequently our prayers are predicated by the understandable, but nevertheless presumptuous, question: When? When will Almighty God give me that for which I am praying? We, who are in time and space, like to look at clocks and calendars and to count days and set dates. “I have prayed for this every day since…” we complain, almost threatening to stop so doing if an answer is not promptly forthcoming!
 
St Augustine’s has more to teach us: “…he receives what he prays for at a time when it is expedient for him. For certain things are not denied us, but only withheld, to be given to us at a fitting time.” What we are given, and when, and even by whom and where, are all in the hands of God’s Providence. A delay in receiving that for which we pray may provide a much-needed opportunity for our purification and preparation (the delay itself may be a salutary penance). Gifts given by Almighty God may be all the more fruitfully received in circumstances different from those we ourselves may have expected. So too, the chosen instrument of God’s grace may be quite unexpected: in God’s plan persons or circumstances not at all of our own imagining and quite outside what we may think is the norm can bring to us all that for which we have prayed, and much more besides, utterly humbling us before such an unexpected and unmerited outpouring of His mercy and grace.
 
Yes, we must pray earnestly for what we need. Yes, we must persevere in that prayer, confident that it shall be heard and answered in the Providence of Almighty God. And yes, we must be ready for an answer—God’s answer—one which shall humble us, and which shall call us forth in His service with renewed strength and conviction.
 
The importance of our earnest prayer is underlined by Church’s Sacred Liturgy on each of the first three days of the coming week, in “Rogationtide”, when Conventual Mass is preceded by the Rogation procession with the litany of the saints and the associated prayers. Let us ensure that we do not fail to pray them as we should, with heart, mind and soul, for ourselves, for the Church (in particular for our bishop) and for the world.
 
Of course, our prayers are answered for a purpose—for God’s purposes—whether we fully comprehend them or not. As St James teaches us in the Epistle (and as we are reminded in the chapter at Terce, Sext and None), we must “be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” As St Paul chided St Timothy: “I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands.” (2 Tim. 1:6) For, as today’s collect insists, we are not called simply to think what is right, we are, under God’s guiding hand, to put what is right and true into practice.
 
“He who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer that forgets but a doer that acts, he shall be blessed in his doing,” St James teaches us. In these days of earnest prayer, beginning at this altar this morning, let us beg Almighty God for the grace of perseverance, that the graces He has given to us, and those He is even yet to bestow, may ever be used unto His glory and for the salvation of souls. +

​+ In this almost ‘strange’ period between the bodily resurrection of our Lord, His glorious Ascension, and Pentecost, the Church’s Sacred Liturgy does not spare us from the difficulties and mixed emotions experienced by the apostles. How fundamentally life-changing it was personally to encounter the risen Christ—to touch and to eat with the glorified Christ who had been so publicly humiliated and executed on the Cross. How could they ever again doubt? How could they now fail to believe?
 
And yet, in the glow of this radiant light, the Lord speaks of “going away”, and causes thereby great sadness in the hearts of the apostles—more than understandably. It is perhaps worthwhile for we who have ‘read to the end of the story’ as it were, to stop and ponder just what they were experiencing, feeling and coming to realise at this time: Jesus of Nazareth was, indeed is, the Messiah, the Christ of God. He just walked out of His own tomb, having been cruelly and publicly executed. The holes of the nails and the spear remain on His body—His glorified body—still. How, after all of this, could He now leave and seemingly abandon us? What mixed emotions the apostles must have had. Just as they were coming to terms with the reality of the resurrection, the resurrected Christ Himself announces His forthcoming disappearance!
 
The Lord explains the necessity of His departure, but again one could imagine that this theory of a coming Paraclete may have been less than consoling—and, in prospect, even more difficult to comprehend. Yet it was the Lord speaking. Did one apostle say to another: “Hey, He just rose from the dead. Trust Him—He is the Messiah, after all!” Quite possibly. Quite probably—after all, they had ‘seen and believed’, as it were.
 
And so, the apostles come to believe that there is more still yet to come: “When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth,” Our Lord instructs them. “Who? When? How?” we can almost hear arise in their minds, with the voice of faith adding her gentle “Trust Him”.
 
My brothers and sisters, we have read to the end of the story. We know of the realities of the Ascension and of Pentecost and can give answers to these questions. But in plunging us into the midst of these mysteries, our Holy Mother the Church is not seeking to augment our general knowledge, or even to congratulate us on knowing the answers. Rather, like a wise mother, she is bringing us back to the heart of our faith, so that today—particularly in and through our encounter with the Risen Christ in this holy Mass—we too might come to trust Him more, even when times are extraordinary, and what is to come is unclear.
 
For whilst we have, please God, received the Gift of the Holy Spirit in the Sacrament of Confirmation, His impact and activity in our lives may yet be impeded by our lack of faith. Our self-will or pride may impede us from being guided by Him into the light of truth. Our doubts may linger sufficiently long to miss the opportunities He provides for us to respond to God’s call—leaving the good we alone are called to do, undone.
 
Indeed, our lack of faith may find the gifts given to us by God the Holy Spirit dormant within us. Yet, as St James teaches us in this morning’s epistle: “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with Whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.”
 
By the power of God the Holy Spirit we are called to be the first fruits of God’s creatures, for we have received His grace in abundance, not because we deserve it, nor because we have somehow stolen it for our own purposes, but because Almighty God, in His loving Providence, has freely bestowed it upon us, for His purposes.
 
Certainly, we experience difficulties and mixed emotions as did the apostles. But like them, we are called to faith. Yes, the world, and even the Church at times, adds much that clouds this mixture, but the light shone by the resurrected Lord allows us to see through and beyond such obfuscations and deceptions, no matter who has signed them off.
 
We do not have Lord’s earthly body to which to cling, but He is with us entirely—body, blood, soul, and divinity—in the sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist: an almost a greater gift, if that were possible. As we prepare to receive Him from this altar this morning, let us beg that increase of faith which is so necessary if the Paraclete He will send is to be able to work in and through us for His glory and unto our salvation. +