Over the years many people have desired to join us in prayer by using the books which monks use in the monastic choir.
We’re delighted that a limited number have been now been printed to enable friends of the monastery to unite their prayers with ours, particularly when praying with us via the webcam.
A book for Vespers (Ferial and Memorials) and Compline is now available, with books for the other hours to be printed soon.
Write to guestmaster@glenstal.com to find out how to order your copy!
It would be inaccurate to say that the monks of Glenstal Abbey contributed to the establishment of our monastery in Nigeria, as if they were adding to something that already existed. In reality, they were the very foundation of monastic life at Saint Benedict’s Priory in Ewu-Esan in 1979. They did and were everything for us: erecting the first buildings, establishing plantations, recruiting and forming the initial community of monks, and raising the funds needed to feed, clothe, and train them.
They were monks of vastly different gifts and personalities. They were mystics, philosophers, teachers, scholars, preachers, linguists, musicians, farmers, builders, and much more. Those pioneering early monks were popular in the locality whenever they went out to celebrate Mass, something which was appreciated by the local faithful and non-Christians alike.
When the monastery’s turquoise blue Volkswagen Beetle hit the road, the villagers would run and thunder excitedly: “Father! Father! Father!” irrespective of the driver. The car’s identification with the monastery was enough to cause a great stir among the locals, particularly as “Father” would often stop to give a lift to as many people as could be accommodated inside, outside and on-top of the little car as it bounced its way along the village roads.
Those early monks were all past middle age, and would even be considered elderly by African standards… I recall a local priest cautioning me against joining the community as he believed “the monastic life is meant for old and frustrated people.” They were certainly older men, but they were not frustrated. They came with energy and the common purpose of planting the monastic life in Nigeria. We were blessed in the following years to be visited by generations of Glenstal monks who helped us with formation, classes, music, retreats, and so on. They brought a new dynamism to the community, and their creativity contributed positively to the monastery’s outlook.
Looking back, one feels we owe those pioneering monks from Glenstal Abbey so much, especially for their efforts to establish an African monastery for Africans, rather than a community built along European lines here. It must have been a life of great sacrifice for these men, but it is one of the reasons they became revered and loved by all. Upon arrival, they observed local conditions and decided to go into agricultural work. They planted palm oil trees and – like local farmers – cultivated the yam, cassava, maize, plantain and melon which constitutes the diet of ordinary people, along with other vegetables and fruits like pawpaw, pineapple, bananas and oranges.
These Irishmen were used to potatoes and plenty of meat and fish, but soon they grew accustomed to eating mostly mashed yam and rice, with very tiny pieces of fish and meat during lunch on set days in the week. It was very obvious that they chose to identify with the local people, especially those at the margins of society. They soon began to resemble particularly impoverished Africans!
People didn’t see them as far off, distant, or unapproachable. Imagine the scene: many times a local woman would go into labour in the village, and her husband would run to the monastery in the middle of the night to call for help. One of the monks would appear, take out the famed turquoise blue Beetle and rush them to the hospital in the next town. It was run by Irish sisters, and the bill would be settled by the monks.
They lived simply, often precariously, and always close to the margins. They adopted what they could of African culture, and avoided imposing European ways onto the brothers. They guarded against the tribalism which is often common in African communities made up of members from different tribes, giving us today a strong community which is diverse yet unified.
These men were deeply convinced of their monastic calling, and they taught by their example of prayer, work, study and the common life. If the monastery were to fail today, it would be on our own heads and not on those of the Glenstal monks who made such a great sacrifice to create and hand over to us all that we have now. They laid the foundations in such a way that we, as native Africans, could shape the monastery with our own identity and culture. Abbot Augustine O’Sullivan would often remind us: “When the time comes, you Africans will decide for yourselves.”
Today we are a community of over fifty monks from fifteen different Nigerian tribes, along with one Togolese confrère. The monastery’s layout resembles a traditional African village, with small residential blocks housing six monks each and a central building where the entire community gathers. The monastery’s architecture, liturgy and economic ventures all have an African feel to them. We seek to live a style of monastic life that is very much akin to the people and culture of this region, and a spirituality that the people of the place find no difficulty in identifying with and supporting.
There is a deliberate attempt to live a simple and pure monastic life, composed of the pillars of prayer, work and study in community. We rise each day at 3.30am with the beating of the Ekwe drum, before the day gets underway with a round of Vigils, time for personal prayer, and the celebration of Lauds and Mass from 5.30am. Between our daily work assignments we meet again in the church for communal prayer another four times during the course of the day, and retire to our cells sometime after 8pm. Our timetable is intense, as is the daily heat and humidity. There is time also for recreation and sports, and rarely is a brother absent from liturgy, table, work or community time.
During working hours monks can be found in the guesthouse or the herbal medicine centre, or at work in the bakery, candle factory or gift shop. We also run a farm of birds, pigs, goats, sheep and cattle, and have a palm oil plantation, vegetable garden and orchard.
The international press often reports on religious intolerance and violence by Islamic extremists in Nigeria, and we sometimes receive anxious calls and emails asking about our safety. While we have faced a few negative encounters with outsiders from other regions in the country, such incidents have been rare. Our monastery is located in Muslim territory, though the numbers of people following Islam, Christianity or Traditional African Religion are roughly the same. We have excellent relations with the local ruler and we find the Muslims here are very friendly.
At Ewu, all three religions interact and there is no real tension as it’s not unusual to find practitioners of all three among the members of a single family. The monastery plays a significant role as a common meeting ground for the followers of different religions. Here there is no segregation, no discrimination. When it is the time for their prayers, some of the Muslim workers simply create a space for themselves, do the ablutions and follow their prayer rituals. All of our workers, irrespective of the religion, attend Mass on major solemnities and join in the entertainment afterwards. The relationship between the monks and the people in neighbouring villages is very good.
During this World Mission Month, when the Church prays for and supports missionaries around the globe, I find myself reflecting on what the Irish monks brought to Ewu — and what we, in turn, might offer back to Glenstal Abbey and the Irish Church. Glenstal made many sacrifices to bring this foundation to birth and nurture it to maturity. If our motherhouse were to ask for help, we would not see it as repayment but as fulfilling our duty to a parent. In African culture, caring for one’s elders is a source of pride. Thus Saint Benedict’s Priory at Ewu will always remain open and grateful to Glenstal Abbey, remembering our founders and all who followed them in support of our growth.
We are both communities of individuals with names and stories, not faceless numbers. Ewu has a duty to keep our bond with Glenstal alive and fresh through regular communication and visits. We are also finding ways to honour the memory of each Irish monk who came to Ewu; the comprehensive list is quite long!
Every year, Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated as a solemnity at Ewu. On this great feast we give thanks to God for the Irish monks who came here, for our very existence through them, and for the entire Glenstal community. When I visit the motherhouse in Ireland, I never fail to go to the cemetery to pray for those who now sleep there, asking for their intercession so that the brilliant torch which Glenstal Abbey has handed on to us may never cease to burn brightly.
Peter Eghwrudjakpor OSB is superior of Saint Benedict’s Priory at Ewu-Esan in Edo State, Nigeria.
Discover how your son can thrive at Glenstal Abbey School at our Open Day next Saturday 27th September at 10am!
Register here: zurl.co/K8Inu
Roimh Lá Eorpach na dTeangacha, déanann an Bráthair Cillian Ó Sé OSB machnamh ar a thuras ó leanbh aonteangach go fear ilteangach…
Rugadh mise ar an 1940 i gCathair Chorcaí. Tógadh mé sa chathair freisin go dtí go raibh mé 20 bhliain d’aois. D’fhreastal mé ar an mbunscoil ba chomhgaraí do theach mo mhuintire. Bhí na ranganna go léir trí Ghaeilge, seachas na ranganna i mBéarla agus Teagasc Críostaí. Ní raibh aon Ghaeilge ag mo thuismitheoirí; dá bhrí sin, ní raibh ar a gcumas aon chabhair a thabhairt dom le m’obair bhaile! Dalta ciúin a bhí ionam; le an-dhúil agam i léitheoireacht. Nuair a fhág mé an bhunscoil, bhí Gaeilge cuíosach maith agam, ach ní raibh aon tseans agam í a chleactadh taobh amuigh den seomra ranga. Freisin, bhí an Béarla mar ghnáth-theanga chumarsáide sa mheánscoil nua, cé go raibh an t-ádh liom go raibh múinteoir maith agam i gcóir na Gaeilge – fuair mé toradh maith san scrúdú Ardteistiméireachta san ábhar sin. An t-aon teanga iasachta a múineadh sa scoil ná an Laidean. Fuair mé amach gur chabhraigh graiméar na Laidne go mör liom structúr na Gaeilge agus nua-theangacha eile a thuiscint. Freisin, nuair a bhí mé sa Chúigiú Bhliain, fuair mé ranganna príobháideacha sa bhFraincis.
Timpeall an ama sin, chuaigh mé isteach sa Bhuíon Ghaelach, buíon choisithe san bhFórsa Chosanta Áitiúil (FCÁ) ina raibh an traenáil iomlán as Ghaeilge, mar a bhí an gnáth-chumarsáid idir na saighdiúiri. Bhíodh na campaí samhraidh go léir againn sa Ghaeltacht, mar shampla i gCúil Aodha nó sa Mhuiríoch. B’shin í mo chéad seans seal a chaitheamh i dtimpeallacht lán-Ghaeilge.
Agus an Ardteistiméireacht faighte agam, chuaigh mé ar Choláiste na hOllscoile Corcaigh (UCC) agus fuair mé céim i nEalaíona (BA) le Laidean agus Stair mar phríomhábhair. Ansin fuair mé an an tArd – Teastas i nOideachas mar cháilíocht iarchéime a thug ceart dom múineadh ar mheánscoil. Le linn an an ama sinn go léir bhí mé ag freastal ar ranganna seachtiniúla i nGearmáinis, agus shocraigh mé freastal ar dhianchúrsa sa teanga sin sa Ghearmáin féin a bhí eagraithe ag an Goethe-Institut, institiúd cultúrtha Rialtas na hIar-Ghearmáine. Ag deireadh an chúrsa sin, a mhair 10 seachtain, bhí buntús na teangan im ghreim agam.
Bhí an seal a bhí caite agam san FCA tar éis mo shuim sa saol mileata a neartú, agus i 1963 chiuir mé iarratas isteach ar choimisiún gearr-théarmach i nArm na Breataine. Níor chreid mé i bpolasaí na neodrachta a bhí ag Éirinn, agus shocraigh mé dá bhrí sin mo sheirbhís a dhéanamh i stát a bhí ina bhall de NATO. Chaith mé trí bliana mar leifteanant san RAEC (Royal Army Education Corps) ag múineadh ábhar éagsúla do shaighdiúirí óga i nAlbain. Le linn an ama sin rinne mé dhá mhalartú le hArm na hIar-Ghearmáine (i Hamburg agus Wolfenbuettel) agus ceann amháin le hArm na Fraince (i Le Mans); freisin, bhain mé amach cáilíocht mar Teangaire Mileata sa Ghearmáinis ó Stát-Sheirbhís na Breataine.
Nuair a fhill mé ar Éirinn tar éis mo sheirbhíse mileata, fuair mé cead speisialta ó UCC an scrúdú BA a dhéanamh i nGearmáinis. Fuair mé onóracha den gcéad grád, agus shocraigh mé céim MA a dhéanamh san ábhar céanna i nOllscoil Briostó. Ina dhiaidh sin, fuair mé seans scoilbhliain a chaitheamh san Iorua ag múineadh Béarla agus Gearmáinise i n-iarbhunscoil i ndeisceart na tíre. Theastaigh uaim teanga eile Theotanach a fhoghlaim. Ní raibh focal amháin Ioruaise agam nuair a thosaigh an scoilbhliain. Rinne mé dianchúrsa sa teanga, mar bhí fonn orm a fháil amach an mbeadh ar mo chumas teanga nua a fhoghlaim tré thomadh iomlán a dhéanamh innti gach lá, ag léamh nuachtáin, ag éisteacht leis an raidio, ag caint le muinteoirí agus daltaí, etc. Toisc nach labhairtear an Ioruais go forleathan taobh amuigh den Iorua, bíonn Béarla ar a thoil ag beagnách gach Ioruach, ach d’iarr mé ar mo leath-bhádóirí sa scoil gan Béarla a labhairt liom i gcruinnithe le linn ár ama saoir. Rinneadar amhlaidh, agus bhí áthas orthu gur theastaigh ó eachtrannach a dteanga dúchais a úsáid ina dtír féin. I ndeireadh na scoilbhliana bhí mé an-shásta go raibh ar mo chumas drámaí Ibsen a léamh sa bhunleagan.
Cúpla bliain ina dhiaidh sin, chothuigh an bhliain a chaith mé san Iorua suim ionam scoilbhliain a chaitheamh sa Ghearmáin chun snas a chur ar mo chumas sa teanga sin. Fuair mé post i scoil chónaithe i dtuaisceart na tíre ar an dteorainn leis an Ísiltír. Bhí lóistín agam ar champas na scoile, agus mé ag múineadh teangacha iasachta: Béarla, Fraincise agus Laidne. Thaitin an obair chomh mór sin liom gur fhan mé naoi mbliana (seachas bliain amháin!) ar an scoil sin, Chaitheadh mé laetheanta saoire gach bliain in Éirinn, agus diaidh ar ndiaidh d’aithin mé go raibh nósanna na Gearmáine ag dul i bhfeidhm chomh mór sin orm go raibh mé ag éirí “Germanior ipsis Germanis” , agus go raibh baol ann go ndéanfainn dearmad iomlán ar mo dhúchas Ghaelach. D’fhill mé ar mo thír dúchais i 1981 agus le 41 bliana thosaigh mé mo shaol mar mhanach. Thóg mé na móideanna solamanta i 1992, inar gheall mé fanúint im mhanach go dtí lá mo bháis. Mar adeir an seanfhocal: “Go bhfaighimís grásta Dé agus bás in Éirinn!” Amen!”
Cillian Ó Sé OSB
Please note changes to the liturgical timetable and opening hours during the monastic community’s annual retreat which takes place from Monday 4th to Saturday 9th August:
The concept of a summer spirituality may seem unusual, but the rhythm of the Christian liturgical year can be seen to invite some such phenomenon in our spirituality. The widely acknowledged relationship between the liturgical season of Lent and spring already establishes the beginnings of the connexion between the annual rhythm of nature and liturgical expression.
Easter, as the climax of Lent and spring, bursts upon the northern hemisphere with an eager celebration of light and the promise of early summer. The blossoming trees promise the fruits of a following harvest, through summer and autumn. Meanwhile, the leisurely fifty-day celebration of Eastertide leads up to Pentecost, to mark the release of the energy of the Holy Spirit into time and people; and the splendid feasts which follow, the Holy Trinity, Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary luxuriate in this demonstration of divine graciousness.
All this is reflected in the natural sphere, as spring’s new growth matures with summer, buoyed by the Spirit’s energy of life and the earth produces its good things, in vegetables and soft fruit. All this will climax with the longer lasting fruit of Autumn in the apples and pears, when the feast of Christ the King brings the year to its conclusion. Then the earth will enter into its Winter sleep, when Advent invites us to take stock and to begin again with our wonder at the birth of Life in the Son of God.
Christopher Dillon OSB
Visitors to the Abbey cannot but notice the word ‘PAX’ over the castle archway, an invitation and hope that all may find, experience and dwell in peace in our monastery. A longer version of this Latin motto for the Benedictines is ‘pax inter spinas’, meaning ‘peace among thorns.’
Much like Saint Benedict himself, we are living in a thorny time. The prickly days of our founder saw him seek refuge from the decadence of Rome and the collapse of its Empire, whilst in our time we find ourselves haunted by the memory of pandemic, appalled by scenes of intercommunal violence on our island, dismayed by political instability across the ocean, and concerned by the bloody conflicts raging in Europe and the Middle East.
The temptation – especially for monks – is to pull up the drawbridge and keep the problems of the world at the gate. It’s not just the chaos of the world that we sometimes wish to flee from, but also growing trends such as secularism, moral relativism and hostility to the Christian faith. In such a scenario, some advise detachment from the world and rejection of our popular culture, with the American conservative writer Rod Dreher going as far to ask:
‘could it be that the best way to fight the flood is to stop fighting the flood? That is, to quit piling up sandbags and to build an ark in which to shelter until the water recedes and we can put our feet on dry land again?’ [1]
Dreher goes on to propose small communities exile themselves from the popular culture in order to construct their own counterculture of shared Christian life, values, and worship.
Appealing as it might sound, such a course of action isn’t an option for those of us who are called to be a leaven of the Gospel in the world around us. Benedictine life was forged in the chaos of the Roman Empire’s collapse, and whilst it was countercultural it was never meant to be escapist. Indeed, according to Cardinal Basil Hume OSB, there has always been a tension on the question of whether the monk ‘is a person who withdraws into the desert to pray and be alone with God, or is he someone who goes out into the marketplace to mingle with and serve the people?’ [2]
Monastic life isn’t a call to isolation, but rather to presence: a stable, faithful presence in the midst of the world’s suffering, questions, and hopes. The monastery is not so much an ark set adrift from society, but a lighthouse rooted on the shore — lit not for our own sake, but to guide others through storm and darkness, and to serve the world around by our prayer and work.
It may be for this very reason that Abbot Columba McCann OSB recognised: ‘the worst days of the pandemic brought home to us just how interconnected we are on our planet, even at a spiritual level. Part of our task as monks today is to keep rediscovering what it is we bring to the Church and the world, and what God wishes to bring to others through us.’ [3]
Living in the Middle East these past four years, I’ve come to witness first-hand the thorns of this region and the need to seek, establish and share peace between these prickles. Monasteries have always sought to be places of peace, order, and communion that ripple outward, and thus it seems our task as Benedictines today might be to take seriously the intention of our motto, ‘pax inter spinas’, and dwell among the thorns of our time, offering a witness of peace to a world badly needing it.
The ‘PAX’ we seek is peace with God, with ourselves, with our brethren, and with the world around us. Amidst the thorns of his life, and the thorns of his community and the world outside, the monk seeks peace and radiates it according to the instruction of Saint Benedict: ‘let peace be your quest and aim.’ [4]
We all live amidst thorns of one sort or another, and Saint Benedict has provided us with a model so that we may dwell in peace among them. To live ‘pax inter spinas’ is to refuse to despair, to persist in love, and to trust that even in the most tangled and bloodied places of our world, peace can take root.
May all who pass under the archway into our Abbey find peace, and have the courage to carry that peace beyond our walls.
Saint Benedict, pray for us.
Justin Robinson OSB
[1] Rod Dreher, The Benedict Option (New York: Sentinel, 2017), 12.
[2] Basil Hume, Searching for God (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979), 9.
[3] Columba McCann, “Abbot Columba receives abbatial blessing.” Glenstal Abbey, November 2024. https://glenstal.com/abbot-columba-receives-abbatial-blessing/. Accessed 22 June 2025.
[4] Saint Benedict in Timothy Fry, ed. The Rule of St. Benedict in English (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1982), 16.
There was nobody more surprised than I was by the success of the Glenstal Book of Prayer nearly a quarter of a century ago. I was flicking through the Ampleforth Prayer Book in our tiny monastery shop when FatherPeter Gilfedder, then in charge, chided me, “It’s time we had our own prayer book, and isn’t it time you did something useful?”
I took the bait, and a committee went to work to produce the Glenstal Book of Prayer in jig time. It arrived in July 2001, which is apparently the worst month for publishing a book. Yet within a week it was keeping company with John Grisham on the Bestseller List. In another week it had passed him out, reaching the top. The phone was constantly ringing, multiple interviews with radio stations followed and when ABC Australia (their equivalent of the BBC) arrived on our doorstep – drawn by a best selling prayer book in Ireland – I knew something dramatic had happened!
In the Ireland of that time, there was something in the zeitgeist that needed a prayer book. The church was reeling from scandal, losing its grip and a raw, untended, spiritual felt-sense coincided with a ripening nostalgia for an ‘old time’ prayer book. This coincidence of need and nostalgia fuelled a buying frenzy. The book sold out and the publishers couldn’t keep pace. They ran out of books. Easons were furious – they demanded extra copies… now!
Almost a quarter of a century later, the nostalgia of 2001 has gone and now a prayer book is more likely to be considered a novelty item and prayer a vague, unfamiliar practice from a distant past. And here we go… a new edition of The Glenstal Prayerbook and with a publisher hoping for a second bonanza.
People’s attention is harder won and the competition stiffer than in 2001 – technology’s ubiquity, consumerism, and the all encompassing entertainment industry dulls our ancient spirit-hunger. The God-shaped hole is now filled with ‘stuff’ as we try to quench our nagging ‘not enoughness’ but it simply doesn’t suffice.
But we keep up appearances – it cost a fortune to get us here – and it’s way too late to jump ship with family, career, mortgage. Behind the scenes, we are busily backfilling that God-shaped hole with all kinds of spiritual bric a brac from around the world and from varied spiritual traditions. Amazon keeps the ‘stuff’ rolling in, as we do our best to spend our way out of spirit-poverty. Once again, a sort of famine stalks our land.
Our world has become “a kind of spiritual kindergarten,” says Edwin Arlington Robinson, “where millions of bewildered infants are trying to spell God with the wrong blocks.” And in this kindergarten we spend our new found wealth developing our minds and minding our bodies in education, health, fitness – things we can measure.
Responsibility is handed over to institutions with their roll call of experts: vast universities, schools, extra-curricular courses, night courses busily at work on our minds – hospitals, primary care centres, fitness centres, sports facilities and diet centres cater for our reappropriated bodies. On the south side of Limerick, we have the ever expanding, yet always inadequate, University Hospital (UHL), while north of the Shannon, there is the huge University of Limerick campus. Cathedrals and churches, still prominent in our cities, towns and villages, are ghosts of their former selves, standing as ancient monuments to a bygone era.
The one time spirit-carers cast aside, the Spirit drops out. Those who feel a need for a spiritual life cobble together a spiritual practice; check into a yoga class, do some breath work or adopt a spiritual practice from India or elsewhere, whereas going to church or using a prayer book is not on the menu. One could argue that we are paying for this ‘dropping out’ of spirit with pervasive and growing mental health issues. The Spirit hasn’t gone anywhere and won’t be ignored – it hits back and in ways we don’t understand. “What is wrong with us,” we ask. We never had it so good for goodness sake. Cars and homes, undreamed of comfort and entertainment 24/7, holidays in the sun, weekend breaks to wherever we like. And in 2025, “I don’t want anyone telling me how to run my life, spiritual or otherwise!”
“Not much room for a prayer book here,” you may be thinking… It won’t make us feel any less lonesome inside. All a publisher can reasonably expect is a brief shelf life for a new prayer book and likely as not, John Grisham will be, once more, speeding up the bestseller chart.
And yet here we are with The Glenstal Prayerbook. Why? Because in the end we have to deal with God if we want to be who we are as human beings. The alternative, idolatry, is the oldest sin in the business – the worshipping of lifeless, tempting idols, found on our screens, in our homes and living rooms doesn’t do it. And the devil sits back and laughs – he never had it so easy! “Our world is populated with atomised ‘godlets,’”writes George Buttrick, and everyone is having a great time, on Facebook at least. But behind the scenes misery and emptiness lurks, anxiety and depression ferment. Being ‘gods’ gutters in on itself and fails us. Living out of our cramped and expensively ‘put together’ self, loneliness has become epidemic and our spirit is gasping for air, cut off from its source…
And so we must return to keeping company with God, and so we pray. A prayer book can help us. Herbert Butterfield, an Oxford historian says that prayer is more important in shaping history than war and diplomacy and more significant than technology and art. He worries about the disappearance of monks in the Protestant tradition. “If I desired to say perhaps one thing that might be remembered for a while, I would say that sometimes I wonder, at dead of night, whether, during the next fifty years, Protestantism many not be at a disadvantage because a few centuries ago, it decided to get rid of monks. Since it followed that policy, a greater responsibility falls on us to give something of ourselves to contemplation and silence and listening to the still small voice.’”
The new Glenstal Prayerbook is to help us keep company with God – to help us to pray, to help us to listen to the still, small voice calling us to life, speaking to and from the God-shaped hole, below the noise and hullabaloo of our taut, stretched and often edgy selves.
We need to listen and answer God, we need to unblock the God-shaped hole and then, and only then, will we find peace and life – life and more life. And with our spirit nurtured, we can still rise from the dead, back from the brink…
Get your copy of The Glenstal Prayerbook here.
Simon Sleeman OSB
The annual Summer Retreat will take place on Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th June, and we invite you to join us!
This day-long retreat gives an opportunity for prayer, reflection and renewal in the midst of the busy summer season and has been a feature of the Glenstal calendar for many decades. The theme of this year’s retreat is ‘Teach Us to Pray’ and the retreat talks will be given by members of the monastic community.
Please email events@glenstal.com or telephone 061 621005 for more information.
The late Pope’s extended stays in hospital produced some inspiring reflections on the amazing things that take place in hospitals. Saint Benedict’s instruction to ‘Listen carefully and attend with the ear of your heart’ prompted me to reflect upon my own hospital experiences, as after retiring I decided to join the chaplaincy department of our local hospital.
My training to be a lay chaplain began in the autumn of 2019, and I soon started a role which involved bringing Holy Communion to a ‘captive audience’ of appreciative Catholic patients, something which proved to be an easy yet very rewarding task.
Not long after beginning my rounds, however, the COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to all visits to the hospital. Nevertheless, I was one of the first volunteers to report back for duty in August 2021, though a major change had been introduced: we were each allocated to a ward, and only one, in order to contain the outbreak of any possible infections.
I was assigned to the ward for Acute Medicine, but panic soon set in… how would I manage to connect and engage with people unknown, who were in pain, worried, facing stark choices, who perhaps had no religion or could even be quite hostile? I took a deep breath and ‘sought the eyes of Christ’, a sentence I had heard often enough at Glenstal Abbey. I have not looked back.
My volunteering now takes place each Wednesday morning, and I wear a purple lanyard which reads CHAPLAINCY with a Saint Benedict’s Medal and pin with the Dove of the Holy Spirit attached. By now I am well-known to the staff on the ward, who count on me to help with difficult patients, and who sometimes need a good word and a hug themselves. My visits are a ‘light touch’ – I simply try to be a witness to the love of Christ through my discreet presence and service. Although in reality not many people are religious, they do all appreciate being ‘seen’, and are receptive to a smile and a chat. Many patients don’t have visitors and are glad to tell me about themselves (or, more often than not, their dog…), while others truly welcome the chance to pray together, something I treasure, particularly with Muslim patients.
There are people living with dementia who need patience and help. On occasion I have been told painful family secrets, a way to make peace with a troubled past. Other times it has been sharing the pain with someone losing a limb to diabetes. Most people are frightened of what the diagnosis will mean for their future. Sometimes I have accompanied patients over many weeks, and seen them deteriorate and die: interacting with their grieving families adds another dimension. As the late Pope Francis is reported to have said: “a hospital is a place where human beings remove their masks and show themselves as they truly are, in their purest essence.”
At the end of each shift, we write-up notes on each of the patients we have seen before chaplains and volunteers gather together in the hospital chapel. There is a brief service in which we pray for our patients, nurses and doctors – and for each other. Some days are so tiring and emotionally overwhelming, but I remember Who is helping me to carry the yoke of caring, the importance of mission and of bearing witness to our Faith as Christ’s apostles. All this work is a huge privilege and a blessing, and I’m so grateful to have this opportunity for service and witness at the hospital.
Anna Gannon is an Oblate of Glenstal Abbey and Fellow Emerita of St Edmund’s College at the University of Cambridge.
