A Chapter Conference for the Eighth Sunday after Pentecost (in which may be found some news)

+ We are very “gospel-centered” in our liturgical life, and rightly so. The gospel of Sundays and greater feasts is sung both at matins and at Mass and is the subject of specific Patristic commentary in matins’ third nocturn. One needs little more for lectio divina than this. Our recollection is furthered still by the succinct recapitulation of the gospel by the Sunday Benedictus and Magnificat antiphons. Sundays and feast days can be busy for the monk (as they can for observant Catholic families) – busy about the right things, of course – but in the midst of this the Sacred Liturgy meditates upon and mediates the gospel to and for us, as it should.
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Nevertheless, there are three nocturns at Sunday and festal matins. The first is where, eccleisially, we read Sacred Scripture in a more extended manner. The second has us listen to Patristic commentary upon that which has been read in the first. The riches of both these nocturns are almost too much to digest even in a whole monastic lifetime and, if we are (howsoever justly) ‘gospel-centric’, it is easy enough to pass them by as we hasten toward higher things.

There is no sin here. We are dealing with a surfeit of riches, of choosing between one good and another good, and in that we are surely free according to our circumstances. It may be wise, though, over a lifetime, to ensure that for a given period each of the nocturns receives due attention, or is revisited: their riches are placed before us by the Church in Her Tradition for our nourishment, not to be ignored.

And of course, Saturday vespers flags the content of the first two nocturns of Sunday in its own Magnificat antiphon. It is always an interesting ‘taster’ which serves well to prepare one to attend to the riches to be laid before us during the night which follows.

Yesterday evening at Vespers we sang “Exaudisti Domine, orationem servi tui, ut aedificarem templum nomini tuo.” (You have heard the prayers of your servant, Lord, that I might build a temple to your name.)
I confess that it distracted me severely. It did not recall the Scripture readings or Patristic commentary of this morning’s first two nocturns at all. It was as if I had never seen that antiphon before; that it had been composed anew.

This antiphon does, of course, encapsulate King Solomon’s prayer at the dedication of the Temple (cf. I Kings 8:16ff.), the Lord’s response to which we heard in the first nocturn this morning. And it is instructive: fidelity to the Lord’s Covenant shall bring security and blessings upon Solomon and his descendants. Infidelity shall make of his people a byword, the Lord’s blessing shall be withdrawn from the Temple, passers-by shall be astonished at the devastation, etc.

But this was not the source of my distraction at Vespers last evening. Rather, after intoning “Exaudisti Domine,” and continuing “orationem servi tui, ut aedificarem templum nomini tuo,” it struck me with force that, given the news we received late on Friday afternoon that our purchase of our new home, the medieval commandery in Brignoles, has now been approved by the civil authorities, and that we shall be able to move there shortly before the coming feast of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, this antiphon was placed there by God’s Providence for us, in 2020, as we prepare in the coming weeks and days to restore to Christian worship the Temple of the Lord, the heart of which was so brutally ripped out at the French Revolution.  

For we have spent months, eighteen or so of them now, some of them not easy, begging the Lord for this grace. And now, indeed, we can thank Him with heart and soul for hearing our prayers and answering them favourably. The Lord has heard our prayers and has established us as the singularly privileged custodians of this ancient House of God.

So too, the Lord’s response to King Solomon pertains. For this sacred place is entrusted to us for a purpose – the worship of Almighty God in the monastic tradition – and, as for the King of Israel, so too for the sons of Saint Benedict: fidelity shall bring security and blessing; infidelity will make of us a byword.

The days leading up to our move and to the blessing of our old yet new chapel on the Vigil of the Assumption shall be very busy ones, and necessarily so. But this activity is a means, not an end, and it is the latter we must be careful to which to attend: that we might establish, through the gracious and generous help of our friends and benefactors, a place of true beauty and right worship that shall serve to glorify Almighty God and thereby bring God to man and man to God, in generous and joyful fidelity to the Rule of our Holy Father Saint Benedict.

For, as with Solomon, God’s gracious blessing on our work requires ever greater fidelity on our part. Indeed, as with the steward of today’s Gospel (Lk 16:1-9), we too shall be called to account for our stewardship. For the graces necessary to be faithful and blameless stewards, throughout this week let us pray this Sunday’s collect with even greater fervour:

Grant to us we ask Thee the spirit always to think and do what is right, so that we who cannot exist without Thee may be able to live according to Thy will.+