 Our Holy Week and Easter celebrations were truly beautiful this year: Deo gratias! But from throughout Holy Week and for more than two weeks more the monks and our guests had to deal with an unforeseen difficulty: the ongoing collapse of our water supply (a bore in the ground – the monastery is not connected with mains water) resulting in little running water and no available hot water at all.
Nos célébrations de la Semaine Sainte et de Pâques ont été vraiment magnifiques cette année : Deo gratias ! Mais tout au long de la Semaine Sainte et pendant plus de deux semaines encore, les moines et nos hôtes ont dû faire face à une difficulté imprévue : la dégradation continue de notre système d’alimentation en eau (un forage souterrain – le monastère n’est pas raccordé au réseau public), qui s’est traduite par un débit d’eau très faible et une absence totale d’eau chaude. Our expert plumbers did all they could until it became aware that it was necessary, in the end, to seek specialist help to extract the water pump and replace it and the tubing coming from it (the galvanised piping had rusted through over the decades; it is now replaced with more durable inox piping) — at an estimated total cost of around 7 - 8,000 euros. We are profoundly grateful to all those who have offered to help with this large and unforeseen expense, just as we are to those who assisted us with the offer of shower facilities, etc., during our drought. Contributions to the costs would be very welcome. Nos plombiers experts ont fait tout leur possible jusqu’à ce qu’il devienne évident qu’il fallait, en fin de compte, faire appel à un spécialiste pour retirer la pompe à eau et la remplacer, ainsi que la tuyauterie qui en découle (les tuyaux galvanisés s’étaient complètement rouillés au fil des décennies ; ils ont désormais été remplacés par des tuyaux en inox plus durables) — pour un coût total estimé à environ 7 000 à 8 000 euros. Nous sommes profondément reconnaissants envers tous ceux qui ont proposé de nous aider à faire face à cette dépense importante et imprévue, tout comme nous le sommes envers ceux qui nous ont aidés en nous proposant des douches, etc., pendant notre période de sécheresse. Toute contribution aux frais serait très bienvenue. When the water finally flowed last Friday afternoon, the monks, guests, and our garden animals all sang a heartfelt “Vidi aquam…!” Lorsque l’eau a enfin coulé vendredi dernier dans l’après-midi, les moines, les invités et les animaux de notre jardin ont tous chanté d’un cœur sincère « Vidi aquam… ! »  + As the paschal candle—the triumphant emblem of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s definitive victory over sin and death—burns still, the Sacred Liturgy of our Holy Mother, the Church, whilst continuing to celebrate the all-changing reality that its height and grandeur betokens, turns to some practical formation in the living of life in its light. For whilst we rightly rejoice in the unquenchable light of Easter morning, it remains true that the Church’s mission is to spread this light to all corners of the earth—most especially the darkest ones—and to bring back into that light those of her children who have strayed into the shadows and have fallen into the ever-present traps of the world, the flesh and the devil.
Hence, this morning, we are reminded by St Peter that Our Lord “himself bore our sins in his body on the tree [of the Cross] that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds [we] have been healed. For [we] were straying like sheep but have now returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of [our] souls.” Deo gratias, we rightly say in respect of the mercy Almighty God has shown to each one of us, and we might well add many “Alleluias” in respect of the large numbers of neophytes baptised at the Paschal Vigil in so many places only two weeks ago—a true sign of hope in our times. For this is indeed the mission of the Church: to shepherd all men and women into the unending light and hope of which the paschal candle is so powerful a sacramental. It is to bring every human person into the “one fold” that is the One True Church founded by Jesus Christ in which eternal salvation may be found. Whilst we respect the freedom of conscience of those who follow various other religious systems, we cannot renounce this God-given mission without compromising the integrity of the Gospel or of the Church herself. The light of Easter morning dawned for all humanity, not for some peculiar sect. Good will towards, and cooperation with, others in humanitarian works, etc., do not change the reality that Jesus Christ is, as the Church reminded us in the antiphon for the Benedictus sung at Lauds this morning, “the Way, the Truth and the Life,” for every person who lives, who has ever lived or who shall ever live. And if kindness leads us to obfuscate this truth, it is in fact the worst of all unkindnesses; indeed, it is an insidious lie—for to leave sheep outside the sheepfold and to affirm them in their stance, even partially, is to leave them in danger of perishing eternally. Certainly, the Church teaches that it is possible, in God’s mercy, that those who through no fault of their own do not belong to Christ could be saved, but we have no right to presume this. Our task is to bring all into the security of the one sheepfold where the “shepherd and guardian of our souls” may heal and care for them. This duty pertains to all the baptised, to be sure in different ways according to our particular vocation. That is to say that whilst Our Lord is the Good Shepherd, each of us has the duty of shepherding others as and when necessary. Clearly this duty is paramount in those called to become an alter Christus in the orders of the episcopate or priesthood: hence we must pray earnestly for their fidelity, courage and determination in shepherding the flock entrusted to their care. But so too, the Christian parent must be a good shepherd, as must the teacher or the writer or the worker or the student—each must bear witness to the light of the resurrection and call (back if necessary) those for whom they have responsibility or with whom they have influence into the sheepfold of the Church. In comparison to the Good Shepherd who gives His life for His sheep, Our Lord derides shepherds who are mere “hirelings”—those who take flight when the wolves attack and leave their sheep to be scattered if not slaughtered. We are, unfortunately, all too familiar with this phenomenon in the life of the Church today. Too many who are called to high office in the Church are, for one reason or another, little more than wolves in shepherd’s clothing—be that due to moral or financial corruption, the false-promises of ambition, syncretism and relativism and all their empty promises, the pursuit of particular processes, the tenacious clinging to dated ideologies or even the subtle temptations of technocratic efficiency as an end in itself. The Good Shepherd was concerned first and foremost about the salvation of His sheep, not His personal gain or His career! He did not consult higher authority before every action so as to absolve himself of His own responsibility. He took risks—significant ones—to bring back even one lost sheep. He did not occupy Himself with reforming internal processes or by engaging in partisan politics: he got up and went out to seek and to save those in danger of perdition. There was no room in His ministry for ideological pursuits: He was too busy seeking out and saving the lost. There is much for each of us to ponder here. As we go now to the altar where once again we shall feast on the life laid down for us by the Good Shepherd and given to us anew in the Blessed Eucharist, let us pray earnestly that each of us—and most especially those called to high office in the Church—shall truly live according to the light of Easter morning and do all that we must to bring others into that saving light. Amen. +  At Easter we received the beautiful and precious gift of a new solemn Mass set of vestments expertly crafted to our specifications by Sacra Domus Aurea. They feature the ancient Christian symbol of the resurrection and immortality - the peacock. À Pâques, nous avons reçu le magnifique et précieux cadeau d’un d’un nouvel ensemble de vêtements liturgiques pour la messe solennelle, confectionnés avec soin selon nos spécifications par Sacra Domus Aurea. Ils arborent l’ancien symbole chrétien de la résurrection et de l’immortalité : le paon. We are profoundly grateful to the generous benefactor and to Sacra Domus Aurea, particularly for having the vestments ready for the Easter feast. Nous sommes profondément reconnaissants envers le généreux bienfaiteur et envers Sacra Domus Aurea, en particulier pour avoir fait en sorte que ces vêtements soient prêts pour la fête de Pâques.  We are pleased to share a series of photographs taken at our solemn Mass of Easter Monday. We are profoundly grateful to the photographers for seeking to capture the beauty of the solemn liturgy that it is our duty and privilege to celebrate. Nous sommes heureux de partager une série de photographies prises lors de notre messe solennelle du lundi de Pâques. Nous sommes profondément reconnaissants envers les photographes qui ont su saisir la beauté de cette liturgie solennelle que nous avons le devoir et le privilège de célébrer. (Photographs may be used for non-commercial ends with an acknowledgement of the monastery. Please contact us for all other requests for their use.) (Les photos peuvent être utilisées à des fins non commerciales, à condition de créditer le monastère. Veuillez nous contacter pour toute autre demande d'utilisation.) + “All that is born from God conquers the world; our faith is this which is victorious over the world.”
By “the world” the Apostle is speaking here of the powers of darkness ever seeking to seduce man into the power of death. These words, however, are given as a reminder of what Christ has already accomplished and makes available to each of us, should we but follow Him. Summoning us out of the darkness (I Peter 2:9) through which the ancient enemy of man tries to seduce us, God’s call is given to us to bring us to the liberty of children of God. St John is very clear about the nature of liberty. God is truth, he proclaims time and again throughout his Gospel and his epistles. There is no mincing of words. The Triune God Revealed fully in Jesus Christ is without comparison, nor can He be mixed with anything else. There is only one narrow road to salvation. This last section of his first epistle is entirely given to setting forth that it is only in the truth of God that we can be free from the snare, the grip of the evil one (I John 5:18) for it is only there that we can be freed from the chains of sin. Yet so often we fail to recognise God’s call to come to Him, to come into the light of His freedom. And more, we cannot recognise it alone. Only by the grace of God are we able to know what it is that God is asking of us. Yet we need the Church to confirm for us what is in fact the authentic voice of God – which the seductor ever attempts to distort. It is through the sacraments that we have a guarantee of that grace; it is through the immense riches of the Church’s tradition and her teaching, in which we must completely immerse ourselves, that we can know the truth God has never failed to proclaim. Living entirely out of the sacramental and doctrinal life of the Church gives the full scope to those final words of the epistle proclaimed at this holy Mass: “He that believes in the Son of God has the testimony of God in Himself.” This is the nature of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost. They are given for the increase of our good, and thus through us to those around us. This is always an application of the truth of God to personal circumstances in which we are found. But there is never anything which can detract from the fundamental principles revealed in their entirety in the Person of Jesus Christ Incarnate. Rather, they lead to a every deeper integration into the majesty, the grandeur of God and the greatness to which He can bring us. This is our faith. This is the victory over the powers of darkness and destruction. This is the freedom to respond to God. +  On this truly Holy Night, as we contemplate the implications of the fact of the Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ ever more deeply, it behoves me not only to wish each and every one here present a most blessed and holy feast of Easter, but to express my profound gratitude, and the gratitude of our entire monastic community, to all—here present and elsewhere in the world tonight—for all that they have contributed to the worthy and dignified celebration of the Holy Week ceremonies and most particularly of those of the Sacred Triduum, so that we might celebrate this ‘feast of feasts’ having been truly edified by the immense riches of the traditional rites of the Church’s liturgy celebrated as fully and as beautifully as we can. We are a small monastic community, but we are ambitions for the things of God and Almighty God, in His Providence, has blessed us with a large extended family of oblates, associates and friends who, out of the their love for Him and in their generosity, contributed of their time and energy and resources to embrace the disciplines necessary to sing and to serve at the altar, to clean, to sew, to paint, to erect an outdoor Way of the Cross, to arrange flowers unto His glory, etc. This evening we a privileged to inaugurate a splendid new set of solemn Mass vestments—a rich, visible manifestation both of the generosity of which we are truly blessed and of the glory we seek to give to Almighty God in each and all of our endeavours. From the bottom of our hearts: thank you. May God reward you richly! ------------------------------------------------------------ + Tonight we find ourselves here, in rural Provencal thousand-year-old church, indulging in ancient rites and chant that take hours to accomplish. We have lit a fire and taken its light to a candle, which we have serenaded as a sacramental of the salvific power of this night. We have listened to the solemn and ornate chanting of the history of God’s relations with the Jewish people, we have acclaimed the mystery of Christmas with bells and organ, and just now we have heard the solemn proclamation “He has risen.” All of this we have experienced as the world increasingly fragments and divides; in a world where where war seems to be spreading as rapidly as a virus, and where any belief or ideology or political programme is regarded as being as good as one another, regardless of its origin, intent, content or effects. To some we are curious enthusiasts for liturgical antiquities—people to be given that respect one gives to a rare species in a zoo. To others (indeed to some who should be our closest relatives, as it were) we are peculiar if not dangerous retrogrades to be ignored at all, costs and certainly not to be allowed to propagate. And to many, we are simply irrelevant: they can see absolutely no reason for anything that we do here—we are of no use or value to the world. They are literally ‘in the dark’ in respect of why we should be here, hour upon hour in the cold early mornings and late at night singing and processing and kneeling and adoring in the manner known within these very walls for over a millennium. And yet, for those of us who have been able to even glimpse that which the light that the Easter candle reveals, all that we have done makes utter sense—indeed, would that we could do more! For that light reveals the truth that this world so desperately tries to conceal: that Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ of God who reveals to us the fact that, if we are faithful to Him and to his teachings, we shall share in his resurrection; we shall share in that unending life which no suffering or persecution or war or virus can take away. We too shall rise again, body and soul, to everlasting life with He who is risen on this holy night. But let us be clear: the light of the Paschal candle does not reveal the panacea of universal salvation. It does not for one moment suggest that everything will be all-right for everyone. That is not the truth revealed by Christ; rather, it is an insidious obfuscation of the devil. No: we must be faithful. We must convert our lives and be prepared to walk with Our Lord and allow Him to instruct us and lead us in ways and to places which, at times, we may not expect. We must even go with him to Calvary. Only then can we hope to share in His glorious resurrection. My brothers and sisters, as we go now to His altar to partake in the Eucharistic consummation of this great feast, let us give profound thanks for the ability to see by the light of Easter, and let us pray earnestly, as we did in the solemn prayers of Good Friday, that those who currently do not shall come so to do. For Jesus Christ is the definitive revelation of God in human history. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life—not only for peculiar liturgical enthusiasts, but for all men and women who have, or who shall, ever live on this earth. Amen. Alleluia! +   + Antequam Abraham fieret, ego sum. With these five words Our Lord provoked the utter indignation of the Jews who, convinced that this was sheer blasphemy, reached for stones in order to stone Him to death there and then. “Before Abraham came to be, I am.”
If we are to understand the sacred indignation of the Jews we must, of course, recall that our Lord is here attributing to Himself the name of God as revealed to Moses at the burning bush (cf. Exodus 3:14) claiming to pre-exist Abraham, the great Father of the Jewish people with whom God made the Covenant. Whatever of the stubbornness of the Jews, etc., as related in the Gospels, their utter shock at someone daring to assert that “Before Abraham came to be, I am” is more than understandable. The claim is outrageous. How can the son of a carpenter from Nazareth make such an assertion? My brothers and sisters, this is not an academic question for those interested in the study of Sacred Scripture. No: this is the question on which everything that has any importance in this world in fact turns. For in the answer to the question “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” we find or we lose all hope, all meaning, all purpose. And this is precisely why, on this first Sunday of Passiontide, Our Holy Mother the Church plunges us into the heart of the conflict to which this question raises so violently for the Jews—for it is our conflict also, and in our response to the issues it raises lies nothing less than our eternal life or death. That is to say, we can so very easily leave aside the Nazarean carpenter’s son and regard His claims and teachings as the hopes and beliefs of yet another religious guru in history, whilst we get on with our lives seeking what power and influence we can obtain, anesthetising ourselves as best we can from the inevitable pain and suffering that comes our way by means of whatever pleasures are at our disposition. If we are fortunate—and ignore the plight of those who are not—on balance, in the end we may do well enough to be able to console ourselves at least somewhat in the face of the stark reality of our own inevitable eventual dissolution. This is a very bleak portrait of human existence, but alas, it is one that is utterly too real. How many people with whom we work or encounter, or perhaps even live, are in exactly this position! Modern life and its ambitions and pleasures all too readily consume us, deadening our ability to perceive any reality that does not pertain to the assuaging of my ego or to the tranquilization of any pain or discomfort I may encounter. Of course, ambition and pleasure are goods: that is to say that they are not of themselves evil, and that they can and do serve God and His Providential designs. But in our times they can and all too often become idols, if not gods, themselves, occluding their subsidiary nature. It is good for a young, talented person to be ambitious to place their energy, zeal and ability at the service of others: we benefit from innumerable advances in medicine, science and other academic research that is the fruit of such ambition. Even St Paul counsels being ambitious for the “higher gifts.” (cf. 1 Cor. 12:31) And there is nothing wrong with pleasure in itself: Our Lord himself rejoiced at feasts, miraculously providing the best of wines for the Wedding of Cana! (cf. Jn 2:1-11). No: we are not Quietists who are unable to get up and do anything, nor are we Manicheans or Jansenists who must regard every earthly pleasure as illegitimate and as a penance to be endured. Such positions have rightly been condemned as heresies. Nor are we counted amongst the myriads of modern pagans who worship ourselves and our abilities and the pleasures that this life affords (even as these temptations are constantly before us and can, at times, thwart God’s call and designs). For whilst we do not reject anything that is good of this world, we worship He who was before Abraham existed as the definitive revelation of God in human history. For the Carpenter’s Son from Nazareth offers us far more than career prominence or contentment. He offers us something substantially greater than any passing pleasure—legitimate or otherwise—that we may experience in this life. He offers us the possibility of never tasting death, of life that cannot be quenched by pain or suffering or illness—nothing less. My friends, in this season of Passiontide our Holy Mother the Church insists with increasing intensity that we confront anew the question “Who is Jesus of Nazareth?” Our Lenten disciplines are supposed to have cut away the distractions that encumber us so often so that now, in the stark days of the coming fortnight, we can focus more clearly on this, the one question that has literally eternal significance for each one of us, for our families and loved ones and indeed for all human persons. Let us live these days, then, particularly through the pregnant rites and texts of the Sacred Liturgy of Passiontide, with greater attention and fruitfulness. For in faithfully worshiping He who before Abraham was, is, lies our salvation. + Today’s conventual Mass of the Solemnity of Saint Benedict was sung for the intentions of the monastic community,
its oblates, associates, friends and benefactors, living and dead. Following Mass his relics were solemnly venerated. May Saint Benedict intercede for us all! La messe conventuelle d’aujourd’hui, célébrée à l’occasion de la solennité de saint Benoît, a été chantée aux intentions de la communauté monastique, de ses oblats, de ses associés, de ses amis et de ses bienfaiteurs, vivants et défunts. À l’issue de la messe, ses reliques ont été solennellement vénérées. Que saint Benoît intercède pour nous tous ! On Wednesday, before singing first vespers of St Joseph, we processed to his shrine in our woods, singing his litany, so as to chant a Te Deum in thanksgiving for his intercession in helping us to obtain our new home some six years ago.
Mercredi, avant de chanter les premières vêpres de saint Joseph, nous nous sommes rendus en procession jusqu'à son sanctuaire, situé dans notre bois, en chantant sa litanie, afin de chanter un Te Deum en action de grâce pour son intercession qui nous a aidés à acquérir notre nouvelle maison il y a environ six ans. Sancte Joseph: ora pro nobis!  Au cours de la semaine dernière, le monastère a eu le grand plaisir de recevoir un don généreux composé de deux races de volailles exceptionnellement rares : des canards de Barbarie noirs de Bresse et des poules noires gauloises de Louhans. Ils sont désormais bien installés dans le jardin du monastère, sous la protection de nos chiens, et nous espérons qu'ils se multiplieront cette saison afin que leurs races puissent s'épanouir et perdurer. Nous sommes profondément reconnaissants envers le bienfaiteur pour sa générosité et sa confiance. In the past week the monastery very happily received a generous benefaction of two exceptionally rare breeds of poultry: black barbary ducks of Bresse and black Gauloise chickens of Louhans. They are now safely installed in the monastery garden under the protection of our dogs and shall, we hope, increase in number this season so that their breeds can become more numerous and secure. We are profoundly grateful to the benefactor for his generosity and trust. |
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