Author: Justin

Fr Denis Hooper OSB

When I first looked over today’s readings I was struck by the very first line of the first reading from Jeremiah: “you enticed me Lord, and I let myself be enticed” whilst in another version of this reading I saw that it says, “you duped me Lord, and I let myself be duped.” To be duped is to be deceived. To be enticed is to be tempted. Two different meanings. Jeremiah felt duped and even enticed because God did not fit into the vision of what Jeremiah thought God should be.

The disgraced American financier Bernie Madhoff duped and enticed many wealthy people out of their money – he persuaded millionaires and billionaires who should have known better to put their millions into his ponzy schemes. By the time he was caught it was too late for his victims and he had cheated them out of hundreds of millions!

Words change their meaning over time and in a short number of years many words in our past vocabulary mean exactly the opposite to what they mean now: I heard a golfer recently describe a Big Bertha golf club as “this bad boy” – bad used to mean evil – now bad means good. “Sick” used to mean being ill – now it means great – “these are sick boots.” “Friend” used to mean just that – now it means a list in your contacts. Gay was once short for the name, Gabriel. The warden in the movie Cool Hand Luke used a line that sums up well the
issues we have with the changing of the meanings of words when he said: “what we have here is a failure to communicate.”

You can feel Jesus’ frustration with Peter in today’s Gospel – a case of failing to communicate – when after all they have been through together, three years of it – Peter still doesn’t understand the ultimate purpose of Jesus’ mission. Last week’s Gospel has Peter filled with the Holy Spirit saying to Jesus “you are the Christ” and Jesus telling Peter that he will be the rock on which his Church will be built.

This week we can see Peter as a sort of mouthpiece for the devil. Up to now in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has been travelling around with his disciples teaching and healing and for the most part it has been a very pleasant experience for all concerned. What’s not to like about following someone with the powers Jesus has? Healing the sick; changing water into wine. His celebrity sort of rubs off on you and you can bask in the shadow of his glory. But now the story is about to change and Jesus now knows that he must go to Jerusalem to face his death and resurrection. Peter will have none of this and says he won’t let it happen. Peter’s attitude is “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” So, Jesus must rebuke him and tell him this must happen and that no one, especially Peter, should get in the way of it.

We are all like Peter – we can blow hot and cold. We are heading into the Rugby World Cup. It is just pure coincidence that I am wearing green today. Come on the boys in green! Rugby and many team sports if let get out of hand can be extremely dangerous. In rugby there is a conflict between both teams. One team is trying to move towards the goal line in one direction and the other team is trying to do exactly the same but in the opposite direction both teams bump, collide and tackle each other trying to stop each other’s progress. In the middle of these two teams is another team – the officials – men and women assigned to regulate what happens during the games. Each official must have an intimate knowledge of the laws of the game. And Glenstal has a connection with the laws of rugby: the laws of rugby were first written down by Sir Charles Barrington of Glenstal castle when he was a student in Trinity College Dublin in the 1880’s.

Now Jesus chose his apostles as sort of officials. He needs them more than ever now that he faces towards Jerusalem and the certainty of a horrible death. Our world is pretty chaotic. Words change meaning at the drop of a hat and we find it hard to negotiate our way through our lives – and we can easily interpret things wrongly. We don’t know yet what the consequences artificial intelligence might bring into our lives. Like sporting officials – like Jesus’s disciples – we must stick to the playbook as best we can.

Let us pray that when the time comes for us we will not get it wrong and will “stand up and fight until we hear the bell” against any and all evil – according to the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Fr Cuthbert Brennan OSB

The question of identity is an overarching theme in the gospel of Matthew. Not only the identity of Jesus but also deep in the background of Matthew’s gospel is the real the question of identity for the early Jewish Christian community. Were they no longer faithful Jews? Were they wrong to accept Jesus as the Anointed One, the messianic King?

Last week you will remember we had the confrontation with the Canaanite woman, the outsider who challenged Jesus’ narrow understanding of his mission and this week we have the master asking his students to clarify his career path and identity. Each of these encounters is a dialogue of self-discovery, a reflection about identity and mission. But of course Jesus is not having some divine identity crisis but instead has been consistently pigeon-holed by his contemporaries. He is known as Jesus of Nazareth and we all know
that nothing good can come from Nazareth. He is labelled as the carpenter’s son and we are all familiar with the dismissive maxim like father like son. And so Jesus asks what are others saying about him? And the replies are; John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah – all very honourable if mistaken perceptions. And it is Peter inspired by God who makes the profession of faith. And for that he is rewarded with the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

What a useful set of keys to have these days of greed, intolerance and
animosity, where there seems to be at times a deficit of charity and human decency. If we are to live out our call to discipleship, then we cannot insulate ourselves from the issues of our times, but instead we must have the courage to be seen clearly and reflected honestly in the mirror of the other, in their needs, their dignity, their humanity so that they can unlock the potential of their own selves and in doing so our true identity and potential is also unlocked.

Dr. Frank Mayfield was touring Tewksbury Institute when he collided with an elderly floor maid. To cover the awkward moment he asked, "How long have you worked here? Almost since the place opened; the maid replied. What can you tell me about this place?" he asked. I’ll show you; She led him to the basement. She pointed to small prison cells, their bars rusted with age. She said, "That’s where they kept Annie; Who’s Annie? he asked. A young girl brought here because she was incorrigible. Nobody could do anything with her. She’d bite and scream and throw her food at
people. The doctors and nurses couldn’t get near her. I’d see them trying, with her spitting and scratching. I was only a few years younger, and I used to think, I sure would hate to be locked up in a cage. I wanted to help her, but if the doctors and nurses couldn’t help her, what could someone like me do? so I baked her brownies. I walked carefully to her cage and said, Annie I baked brownies just for you.’ I’ll put them down and then I got out of there as fast as I could. I was afraid she might throw them at me. But she took the brownies and ate them. After that, she was nice to me. Sometimes I’d talk to her. Once, I got her laughing. A nurse noticed and told the doctor. They asked me if I’d help them with Annie. I said I’d try. So every time they wanted to see or examine her, I went into the cage and calmed her down and held her hand. They discovered Annie was almost blind. After they worked with her a year, Perkins Institute for the Blind opened. They helped her and she went on to study and become a teacher.

Years later Annie came back to the Tewksbury to visit and asked what she might do to help. The Director had just received a letter from a man about his daughter. She was unruly, blind and deaf, deranged and animalistic … but He didn’t want to put her in an asylum. So he wrote to ask if we knew a teacher who would work with his daughter. That is how Annie Sullivan became the lifelong companion of Helen Keller. Years later, when Keller received the Nobel Prize, she was asked who had the greatest impact on her life. She said, Annie Sullivan. But Annie said, No Helen. The woman with the greatest influence on both our lives was a floor maid at the Tewksbury Institute.”

A scrub maid who chose the power of the keys. Identity is performative. In birth and baptism we were created and recreated in the image of God and were given our own set of keys. We can use those keys to bind ourselves and others or unlock the doors of dignity and affirmation.

When a novice monk enters the monastery, the Abbot presents him with a copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict and tells him:

‘This is the Rule under which we strive to serve Christ the true king. If you feel able to follow it, come in; if not, freely depart.’

For nearly a millennium and a half, monks and nuns have followed the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the manner and example laid down by Saint Benedict in his Rule.

This sixth-century document has a relevance and wisdom for the twenty-first century, and not just for monks and nuns: it can be a practical guide, a spiritual teacher and a useful toolbox for all of us. The Rule has so much to offer that is has even been offered as a tool for parents, teachers, politicians, corporate leaders and more.

The Rule famously begins with the word Ausculta, “Listen!”, and we invite you to listen to the wisdom of Saint Benedict from his Rule with a 10-episode podcast released each Sunday by the monks of Glenstal Abbey on our social media channels.

Buy a copy of the Rule at our online shop here.

Subscribe to our YouTube page here, or visit our SoundCloud page for audio-only episodes here.

Fr Christopher Dillon OSB

For once it is the words of the Old Testament which sound kinder than
those of the New. “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the
peoples” is a much more generous sounding statement from the prophet Isaiah than those words ascribed to Jesus, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. But, while universalism is proposed there in place of the more familiar exclusivity of the Jewish people, the real issue is to be found in Jesus’ concluding words to the foreigner, “Woman, you have great faith.”

Indeed, it is the case that we hear Jesus praising the faith only of foreigners, while he is more likely to be represented as saying to one of his own, even Peter, “Oh you of little faith!” That God should have an interest in and command of the whole world is nothing surprising to us; God is after all infinite and unique. It is relatively easy, then, to subscribe to his achingly mother-love for us all, in his mercy. It is the
way God is. But our having great faith; that is another matter. In general, the instances of great faith to which our attention is called are ascribed to outsiders as opposed to what St Benedict would call “the domestics of the faith”, those who are familiar with it all; that is, those who should know better.

St Paul refers to them as “disobedient”, even, “imprisoned in disobedience”. Probably, a better description of those so-called faithful would be lazy, dulled by entitlement, smug or self-assured. Would any of those epithets rest easily on any of us? I have to admit to a twinge of misgiving. Our times are increasingly familiar with popular disappointment with traditional authorities, fading trust in certainties and growing cynicism with regard to the truth, so that faith of any kind is at a premium. Religious believers who cling grimly to the literal truth of the scriptures are derided for their simplicity, so how are we to read this woman’s faith? Certainly, she is desperate for help, any help, and clearly she has heard about Jesus. At the very least, we are in the same boat; we too have heard about Jesus. But is our faith in him as great as hers? Jesus has spoken of himself as embodying the Truth. Is he our Truth? And, if so, what does that mean?

We are being invited by these readings, I think, to reconsider what it means for us to believe in God, to believe in Jesus, to belong to the Church as the community of believers. To what extent does any of it shape the way I live my life, if I allow it to shape my life? These are important questions, because they contribute to the maintenance of
a perspective for the reality in which each of us lives. What matters more or less? To be able to assert in all sincerity that God is; that God loves me in and through Jesus Christ and that God has made me to live with God for eternity, is already enormous. It is material for lengthy consideration and endless gratitude, very much, as it happens, in the terms expressed by the Collect Prayer for this Mass,

“O God, who have prepared for those who love you
good things which no eye can see,
fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of your love,
so that, loving you in all things and above all things,
we may attain your promises which surpass every human desire.”

In a time of cynicism and fractured trust, we have cause to be grateful to this anonymous Canaanite woman whose faith and perspective so impressed Jesus, as it prompts us to consider the nature of our own attachment to the person of Jesus and to his teaching. So, by way of conclusion, may I put a question to you? How often do you read
the Gospels, in order to hear Jesus for yourself speaking directly to you, rather than hearing only the snippets which are offered to you at Mass? It is something, I suggest, to which we could all give better effort and attention. It is something which would richly inform our consideration of what it is that we actually believe, in the religious dimension of our life.

Fr Jarek Kurek OSB

Fr Luke Macnamara OSB

Elijah goes to meet God at the mountain of Horeb. He does not meet God in the wind, earthquake or fire, but hears a voice in the silence. While God’s power is manifest in wind, earthquake, and fire, God’s very own presence is in a still voice of silence. This seems puzzling. How can one hear silence, not to mention a fine or still silence? Yet this sheer silence has a voice, and the key characteristic of a voice is that it speaks. God is closest not through great works of power, which we can observe in the wonders of his creation, but in the most gentle manner possible, a whisper, in which he speaks to us. This reveals
something of how God relates to us.

God’s presence requires careful listening. The voice from the still silence cannot be heard in a noisy or busy environment. Elijah travelled 40 days to get to Horeb, and waited alone until after the wind, earthquake, and fire passed by, until he heard the voice of silence. Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel story sends away his disciples and afterwards the crowds, before climbing a mountain so that he can be alone to pray to the Father. It is striking that the Gospel text twice refers to Jesus being alone by himself while he prayed. Earlier in the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus advises disciples: “go into your inner room, close the door and there pray to the your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matt 6:6) What Jesus teaches his disciples to do, he now models for us by going up the mountain. Private personal prayer is a central pillar of a disciple’s relationship with God.

Prayer is not confined in secret to our inner rooms. There are very public moments where we are motivated to pray, when we like Peter, find ourselves sinking. There may be many causes, loss of health, loss of relationship, loss of personal standing or reputation, loss of job or money. In such situations we may make the prayer of Peter to Jesus our own – “Lord save me.” We do this together in a very public way at the beginning of every Mass with the invocation, “Lord have mercy.” Peter makes his prayer in doubt but through the encounter with Jesus this doubting prayer ends in salvation and worship. So we may feel that our prayer of the “Lord have mercy” has been half hearted, but through the encounter with Jesus through word and sacrament, it too ends in our salvation and our worship.

The monastic community rejoiced today, Sunday 6th August 2023, on the occasion of the solemn monastic profession of Br Oscar McDermott OSB during Mass for the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord.

Br Oscar, a native of Lifford in County Donegal, made his lifetime commitment to monastic life at Glenstal Abbey before his brethren and a wide circle of family and friends. Deo gratias!

Homily of Abbot Brendan Coffey OSB:

Dear Oscar, here we are on the mountaintop with Jesus and those three disciples. The Lord is transfigured and it is as if the holy Scriptures are transfigured with him; Moses and Elijah, the law and the prophets.

Mark, Matthew and Luke all give an account of the transfiguration. This year we have listened to Matthew’s telling of events. These accounts are remarkably similar, but Luke adds a small detail missing from the others: he tells us that the disciples were heavy with sleep, but they kept awake and saw his glory. Oscar, this line is so important for us today as we gather with you to receive your solemn monastic profession – keep awake, stay vigilant all your days.

A monk is a son of the day, a son of light. This is what the monks of Qumran called themselves, ‘sons of light’. St Jerome says to us: “Monk, you are lyre and harp, you have undertaken to sing psalms to God. Wake up and sing psalms, why do you sleep? Monk you watch only with your body, why do you sleep with your mind and not sing psalms to the Lord?” St Benedict says the same thing, does he not? ‘The mind must accord with the voice’. And in case you still don’t get the point the desert Fathers tell us, ‘It is better to sing the psalms, even with little skill, than not to sing them and hear them sung by others’.

Oscar, the monk must be vigilant because our task is to be a sentinel, a watcher, in the Church, like the watcher on the tower of our castle here in Glenstal. We are the watchers of the prophet Isaiah: “On your walls, Jerusalem, I have set watchmen. All the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You, sentinels, awaken the remembrance of the Lord, do not rest, but do not give the Lord rest either, until the Lord comes”. This is our diakonia, our service, as monks in the church today: day and night to remain in dialogue with him, to give him no rest, until he comes. And so you will sing et non confundas me ab expectatione mea – and do not disappoint me in my hope.

This watching is an affirmation of our freedom – as is your monastic profession. I do not believe there is a greater exercise than waking each day to express our freedom. Every morning when we awake the Lord says to us, ‘awake lyre and harp, I will awake the dawn!’ St Basil asks, “What is specific to the Christian?”, “To watch every day and every hour and be ready to do God’s will fully, knowing that in an hour we do not expect the Lord comes”.

Oscar, in monastic life it is not enough to have lived a good life, it is not enough to remain faithful to the end, it is not enough to do the things we have to do every day well. It is necessary, in the long run, to remain awake, because the great temptation on the monastic journey is to sit back and relax. To let things, overwhelm us, without us noticing. To become the foolish virgins, who lacked oil for lack of wisdom and vigilance. God’s today must always be welcomed: to begin again and begin again “for beginnings that never end”.

On this beautiful feast of the Transfiguration, so dear to monks down the centuries, we recall the creating and transforming power of God. God made this beautiful world of ours in six days; the disobedience of our first parents managed to ruin it in less than six minutes. In his risen life the Lord has transfigured our world into a new creation. He stands on that mountain between Moses and Elijah. Moses whom he transfigured at the burning bush and Elijah, whom he transfigured in a fiery chariot and brought to his side. Now he comes to transfigure you Oscar, as you make this gift of self to him. By your obedience, stability and conversatio morum, you will become all fire, a lyre and harp, singing the praises of God.

This week the monastic community remembers Fathers Bede Lebbe, Cornelius Doherty and Kevin Healy, three of our confrères whose anniversaries occur at this time.

Today we remember in particular Father Bede on the 75th anniversary of his death. Born in Belgium on 10th January 1879, he made profession in Mardesous on 20th March 1898 and was ordained on 30th August 1903.

Father Bede came from a devout Catholic family. His brother Frédéric–Vincent was a renowned missionary priest in China who was eventually arrested by the Communists and died in captivity in 1940.

Arriving at Glenstal in 1934, Father Bede became the second Prior of Glenstal in succession to the founding Prior, Father Gérard François, who returned to Belgium. In addition to assuming the office of Prior, Father Bede became Headmaster of Glenstal School, an office he held until May 1937 when this responsibility was assumed by Father Matthew Dillon, the uncle of our present-day guest master and former Abbot, Father Christopher Dillon.

During Father Bede’s leadership of Glenstal Priory, the monks transferred from the castle buildings – now needed for the expanding school – to what had been the stable-bock. This was made possible by the building of a guesthouse (now incorporated into today’s reception and shop) and the provision of rooms for monks over the present-day refectory in what is still called ‘the Father’s Wing.’

Father Bede was a classical scholar and philologist, the latter quality inspiring an interest in all things Irish. He was particularly interested in providing texts for the offices of the main Irish saints, Patrick, Bridget and Columba. In addition to occasional scholarly contributions to learned journals, he published some books which were more accessible to the non-specialist reader such as The Mass: an historical commentary in 1947.

He was instrumental in facilitating the reception at Glenstal of Miss Mary Martin and her future Medical Missionaries of Mary and their grounding in Benedictine spirituality. In October 1938, having been plagued through his time in Ireland by asthma, Father Bede was succeeded as Prior by Father Idesbald Ryelandt.

Unable to return to Belgium because of the Second World War, Father Bede finally returned to Mardesous in 1946. He died there on 2nd August 1948.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.