Author: Justin

Abbot Brendan OSB

What are you going to do between the time you get these ashes and the time you actually become them? This is the question posed to each one of us in the rite of blessing and distribution of ashes. “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

Year after year, we come to this holy season of Lent and year after year, we are filled with good intentions. We review the ashes of our lives and resolve to do something about them. Somehow, despite all our good intentions, we seem to hold onto our ashes. We don’t give these ashes to God. In Lent, God is waiting to take the ashes of our lives and exchange them for His beauty.

The ashes we bless come from the burned palm branches we used last year on Palm Sunday. The palm branches from the triumphal entry of Jesus into the holy city of Jerusalem, amid acclaim from the crowd, are consumed by fire and become our ashes of repentance. How fitting this is. How many of our great schemes, begun with such fanfare and acclaim, end in ashes. How many of our relationships, hopes, dreams, come crashing down to earth in ruins.

Our ashes are the wounded parts of our lives, because we are dust and we will return to the dust, but God is waiting to take the ashes of our lives and exchange them for His beauty. He knows that they have come from the palm branches of our good intentions, as well as the mistakes and missteps we have taken along the road. So it is that the Prophet Joel speaks, “come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning. Let you hearts be broken not your garments torn, turn to the Lord your God again, for he is all tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness and ready to relent.”

Ashes are everywhere in our lives; give them to God this Lent. I think the hardest wounds to turn to the Lord are the ones we wounded ourselves with when we did stupid things. Take courage in the ointment of fasting, the power of prayer and the zeal of almsgiving and open your hands to release those ashes in particular.

Easter is on the horizon, so no gloomy faces, no hypocrisy, insincerity, or half measures. For we are Christians, made from the dust of the earth in the image and likeness of God and reborn in the waters of baptism. What are you going to do between the time you get these ashes and the time you actually become them?

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Fr Anthony Keane OSB

Hearing the words of Jesus in today’s gospel, when struck on the right
cheek, turn the other, when forced to go one mile go two, when one’s
coat is demanded, give also ones cloak…some might wonder if the
cost of discipleship is not way to high. How can we let our enemies
strike us with impunity, take our possessions as they will and force us
to walk miles with them when we have better things to do. And this
is not all: we are to do all this with cheerfulness, happiness and love.
Not only must we avoid any grumbling, but we must go further still:
We are to be perfect as our Heavenly Father is perfect.
Are we here being press ganged into giving service way beyond our
strength? Perhaps. More adequately it might be said that we are here
receiving a pressing invitation to share in God’s glory, to receive not
only His gifts, but also the very generosity that inspires them. We are
indeed being pressed to accept this life giving offer. And there is a
great gang, a cloud of witnesses and of holy helpers, persuading us to
accept. Taste and see that the Lord is good. A friend of mine,
wandering in Brazil, came upon a little village clearing where a
woman sat making cakes and little loaves for baking. Beside her sat a
little child with a stick in his hand who kept on beating the cakes into
the dust as they were made. In response to his outrage the woman
responded that she like making cakes and the child liked breaking
them. The bin of four in that village was not emptied; the cruise of oil
did not fail; the chickens were delighted with their cupcakes filled with
grit and the divinity and delight of the child was honoured.
For those who might turn back in alarm at the prospect of going along
with every fool who comes the way, of putting up no resistance to the
violent, or of making no effort to protect property or the ability to
function fruitfully on earth, it must be understood that these words
are true and inspirational. They are not burdensome. They are
liberating. They are to be taken literally and applied as the Spirit
commands. They are not to be slavishly or stupidly and mechanically

applied. So, as the poet said, when necessary, plunge into battle,
plunge into battle but with freedom in your heart. The readiness to
give and to keep on giving may be seen in the presence of God’s
abundant love and mercy, of which it may be said: It is twice blest: it
blesses him that gives and him that takes. We are like profligate
children of an infinitely wealthy father. We earn no money ourselves
but enjoy life by giving away to our friends our father’s treasures. He
is rich in mercy. Let us give unstintingly then not from the limited
store of our limited selves but from God’s infinite abundance.

Glenstal’s Energy Master Plan will be published and launched by the monastic community on Tuesday 21st February at 8pm in the Monastery Library, and all are welcome to attend.

To coincide with the fifth anniversary of the publication of Laudato Si’ – Pope Francis’ groundbreaking encyclical on care for our common home – the monks of Glenstal Abbey began to look at ways of caring for our environment and reducing our ecological footprint as part of a series of community meetings called ‘Greener Glenstal’ during the summer of 2020.

This Energy Master Plan is the culmination of work by monks, staff, students, friends and partners of the monastery to see where energy is used, can be saved and even generated at Glenstal. 

Representatives of local communities are invited to attend so that knowledge gained on initiatives to save and generate energy may be shared with the wider community. 

A digital copy can be obtained here. For more information, please contact monks@glenstal.com 

Fr Senan Furlong OSB

One of President JFK’s favourite sayings was: Do not remove a fence until you know why it was put up in the first place. The saying, attributed to G.K. Chesterton, has given rise to the principle known as “Chesterton’s fence”. It states that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood. In other words, when making great decisions we must understand the rationale behind previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got
“here,” we run the risk of making things much worse. However, the image of a fence is ambiguous. Yes, a fence protects and establishes proper boundaries but it also excludes and shuts out, even privileging fear over welcome. Rightly does Robert Frost in his poem Mending
Wall ask himself the question:

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out.

A much-revered concept of Rabbinic Judaism is making a fence around the Torah or God’s Law. Just as a fence around a yard or a house protects it, the Rabbis introduced safeguards to make sure God’s Law was kept in its fullness. After all the Law was given as God’s gift to his
people and so, they love it with all their heart. As today’s psalm sings: Teach me the demands of your statues and I will keep them to the end. Train me to observe your Law, to keep it with my heart.

In today’s gospel we see Jesus, like the rabbis, making a fence around God’s Law. Jesus insists that he has come not to abolish the Law or the prophets, “I have come not to abolish but to fulfil.” To fulfil the Law is to determine and carry out what God wants and so bring it to completion. It is to discover the deeper intentions of God. As God’s Son, Jesus is the one who can teach us what those intentions are. He can tell us for sure what is in accord with God’s will, with his loving desire for us. The heart of that desire is expressed in the favourite saying of St Matthew’s Gospel taken from the prophet Hosea: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice.

Jesus does not overturn the Law of Moses, nor does he set us free from the Law. He requires us to go beyond the Law by doing more than the Law requires. You have heard that it was said … but I say. The Law condemns murder: You shall not murder, but Jesus says: Do not be anger or resentful; do not speak with scorn and contempt; do not think of another person as mere low-life. This is the stuff of which murder is made, so fence it off by reconciliation. The Law condemns adultery: You shall not commit adultery, but Jesus says: Do not look on another person with lust. The problem begins with perception, so fence it off before one thing leads to another. The Law condemns false oaths: You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord, but Jesus says: mean what you say, say what you mean and do what you say. Make a fence to wall out untruth before you deceive yourself.

God in his wisdom has forged a covenant with us. It is a wisdom, as St Paul tells us, that God has predestined to be for our glory. He enfolds us in his extravagant love and he asks us to love every other creature with the same passion, the same consistency, the same faithfulness, the
same charity revealed in Jesus, who loved us unto death.

Today’s gospel challenges us to assess our fences and ask what we are walling in or walling out. Many, if not most, of our fences have to go once we know why they were put up in the first place. But Christ our Lord also asks to make fences around his Law so that we might choose
rightly, live justly and love peacefully.

Open my eyes that I may see
the wonders of your Law.

The Abbot and monastic community announce that the death has occurred of Br Anselm Hurt OSB.

Funeral arrangements: Monday 13th February – reception of remains to monastery reception at 3.30pm followed by transfer to the Abbey Church and Vespers at 5pm. Tuesday 14th February – Funeral Mass followed by Burial at 11.30am.

In this centenary year of the death of Blessed Columba Marmion, a new book has been written by Glenstal monk Fr Columba McCann OSB on the writings of Marmion and the wisdom which can be gleaned for living the Christian life.

‘Becoming Human, Becoming Divine’ will be launched by Bishop Brendan Leahy at Glenstal Abbey on Saturday 18th February at 3pm. Refreshments will be served afterwards.

The Abbot and monastic community at Glenstal Abbey invite you to attend the launch of Father Columba’s new book. To RSVP please email events@glenstal.com by Wednesday 15th February.

Training for Living Well is our series of talks for Lent 2023. Journey through this season by tapping into the wisdom of the monastic community each Sunday at 4.30pm in the Monastery Library, beginning Sunday 26th February and concluding on Sunday 2nd April.

Talks include: ‘Find Life in the Desert’ with Abbot Brendan Coffey OSB; ‘Transfiguration’ with John O’Callaghan OSB; ‘Draw Water from the Well of Salvation’with Luke Macnamara OSB; ‘Turn Towards the Light’ with Columba McCann OSB; ‘Lent in a Golden Calf Culture’ with Simon Sleeman OSB and ‘Waving Palms and Singing’ with Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB.

Refreshments will follow each talk with Vespers celebrated in the Abbey Church at 6pm. Suggested donation: €15 per Sunday.

Talks will be live streamed on the webcam here under the ‘Talks’ tab and made available on the monastery YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/glenstalabbeymonks

For further details contact events@glenstal.com or telephone 061 621005.

Fr Christopher Dillon OSB

Well, that is putting it to you, to all of us; and from every angle! Whether it is Isaiah, from eight hundred years before Christ, to Saints Paul and Matthew, only a few years after Christ, the message is the same; it is up to us to get it done, whatever is to be done. The title of Fr Columba’s new book, Becoming Divine, is the name of the game. The whole Christian project has been summed up as God becoming human in Jesus Christ, so that we humans, on being baptised into Christ, may become divine, co-heirs with Christ, as the text of the
Mass puts it. This, you might say, is the Christian perspective on what this whole business of human living is about, the very meaning of human life. And the programme is not complicated; it is very practical stuff, sharing our bread with the hungry, sheltering the homeless poor, clothing the naked.

We’ve all got much more than we need; and the St Vincent de Paul shop and the Oxfam shop are very happy to receive whatever we bring them. But there is also the personal and inter-personal stuff; we must do away with the clenched fist, the unkind word, the put-down, the mean trick, dishonesty and cheating. Because we are baptised into Christ, we are Christ, “members of his body”, as we say, and so we must behave as Christ; and, as such, we are to set the standard for the rest of the world; and that can get complicated, very complicated.
But, if we start with the simple things, the obvious things, we will grow into the larger, more difficult, tasks. St Benedict writes of the monastery as a school of the Lord’s service; and there is a very real way in which the boys’ school here shares in that characteristic; and in that regard, the staff here and the monastic community succeed in our work if the young people in our care learn to be Christ-like, just as we fail, if the boys do not learn.

But in all this, we are not on our own; for we have received the Holy Spirit of God, both in Baptism and in Confirmation, to guide us in our thinking and our doing. That is what the intimacy of Isaiah’s words mean, when he writes, “Cry, and the Lord will answer; call and he will say, “I am here.’” These are words which invite us to be constant in prayer; that is, ever to be aware of the Divine Presence and ever ready to respond to it.

We have heard all this before, so many times; and what difference has it
made? While it may seem that nothing we do is particularly significant, it is also true that we really do not know how our behaviour, good or bad, affects others. All we can be sure of is that it matters what we say and do and how we say and do it. It is our decision whether we make a difference for the worse or for the better; and decision time is every moment of every day.