Author: Justin

Where do you find your coordinates in life, now that the old map is gone?

Reflect with Father Simon in this week’s episode of the Mindful Monk:

Glenstal Abbey’s Church and Guesthouse will close from midnight on Tuesday 6th October until further notice.

The closures are in accordance with the Government of Ireland’s Level 3 restrictions in response to the coronavirus outbreak.

To access the online broadcast of the Mass and Divine Office visit: www.churchservices.tv/glenstal

We are sharers in Christ’s baptism, depicted in this Baptism of the Lord panel of our Russian Festal Icon:

HOMILY OCTOBER 4  2020, 27^TH SUNDAY 

MT 21,33 -PARABLE OF THE VINEDRESSERS.

In today’s Gospel,  a rather terrifying picture may be presented to some.

The owner of the vineyard sends, at time of harvest for his share of the produce;  The tenants mistreat his agents and beat them, killing one and stoning another. Then the Master sends another group, more numerous than the first. These the tenants treat roughly likewise.  Finally, the master sends his own son and heir.  But him the tenants kill, hoping to seize for themselves the inheritance.

So when the Master arrives in his power and fury, how will those tenants be treated?

It is indeed not unjust to surmise, with the scribes and Pharisees, that justice might be done and that the wicked may be wickedly destroy. Our Saviour, the Son of God was killed and crucified, and still to this day we neglect to build,          His kingdom.

Now this earth is the vineyard and we the tenants, and the Lord is owner and master,  for the Lord’s is the earth and its fullness, the world and all its peoples. Is our behaviour such that the Lord may repent him for letting loose such a crazy species as ourselves upon an otherwise delicate environment?

Nature may survive, but with terrifying carelessness will cut off those who misbehave and poison the poisonous. However,  there is good news.

Our relationship with the Lord is not that of abject tenant and extortionate landlord. Indeed, by the teaching of Christ, we dare to call the God of the Universe  OUR FATHER.  And  of Christ we hear:  BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD, BEHOLD HIM WHO TAKES AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD.

For while The Lord’s is indeed  the Earth,  the text continues: the world and all its peoples.  We are His people, the sheep of his pasture.  In Him we live and move and have our being. He is that by which we perceive everything good and beautiful upon the earth.  Indeed, the whole sum of our past deeds, good and bad alike, have now become part of God’s creation and form the ground on which we stand in His presence, awaiting his love and mercy, not in vain. At every moment The Lord in His mercy says: Behold I make all things new. This is the dawn of creation.

So when we find  the roaring waves beating on the storm beach of Grafton Street, let us rejoice and be glad: this is the first day of the rest of our life, and the Lord is with us still, ever patiently, creatively and mercifully  building the Kingdom even on these flimsy foundations.

We rejoice today in the first profession of vows of Br. Oscar McDermott OSB, a native of Lifford in Co. Donegal. Ad multos annos! 

Join Father William on his journey from lawyer to monk in this episode of #MeetTheMonks

‘The evacuation and neglect of our inner life is becoming much worse: we desperately need a new education for the inner life’ – Fr Simon in this week’s ‘Mindful Monk’:

Take a closer look at our stunning Russian Festal Icon in this week’s video from the Icon Chapel:

26^TH SUNDAY A – 2020

These readings present the charismatic agent and the institutional authority over against each other. Both are necessary, but both must be humble about their role and their field of action. St Paul’s words, in the Second Reading, provide the key for establishing the balance between them. “If our life in Christ means anything to you, if love can persuade at all, or the Spirit that we have in common, or any tenderness and sympathy”. All these conditions, as articulated by St Paul to a fractious and divided community in Corinth, suggest a tender vulnerability in him, but also a crucial instinct for the genuine, for the quick of life and love in our present reality. He is alluding to that quality of wholehearted trust and commitment of the lover towards the beloved, which, alas, is at best occasional in the experience of most of us, but which, on the contrary, is the constant quality of God’s commitment to us. 

The Gospel parable is identifying that same quick of sincerity shining through the heart of the tax-collector and the prostitute whose public professions mark them as being contrary to all that is conventionally regarded as good and holy, but whose experience of compunction makes them turn, at this moment, to choose the True and the Good in Jesus. In stark contrast to them, the guardians of public morality and keepers of religious practice, having little to trouble their consciences, feel little or no compunction and have correspondingly little love or gratitude in their hearts, with no thought of acknowledging their sins with baptism at the hands of the crazy Baptist.

If that was then, what of us, today? We are living through a time, in our society, when the State is increasingly dissociating itself from anything like a recognizable Christian morality and the Covid authorities, rather than the bishop, tell you if you can go to Mass. It is an immensely interesting time, for all its challenges, but it is also uncomfortable; because it gives us, Christians, and those of us who might be seen as guardians of Christian morality, nowhere to hide. There is a book of rules, somewhere, but few know where to find it. So, how are we to live? St Paul puts it elegantly and forcefully, in that Second Reading. “In your minds you must be the same as Christ”; and that means doing the right thing, even if it means infringing some law, as Jesus did, repeatedly, in connexion with the Sabbath law. And so, it is actually as important to look out for one another’s safety, today, as it is to follow Church teaching, as Paul’s text puts it, “Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of their own interests first but everybody thinks of other people’s interests instead.” There is a lot of that happening, already, in our Covid world, and Christians should be to the fore, in the matter of good behaviour. Wearing a mask properly, nowadays, is not just a matter of good manners; it is a moral issue. 

The dynamism necessary to keep this mindfulness alert in us is all part and parcel of that quick of life and love in the relationship with Jesus Christ. An essential part of that task is the maintenance and nurturing of that relationship in prayer and lectio, all of which means dedication and work. It is a time for taking responsibility for our Christian stance, because there is no guarantee that there is anyone out there that is going to help. A challenging time, yes, but exciting; another aspect of “the new normal”.  

Our well-known guestmaster and former Abbot, Father Christopher, shares his story in this week’s episode of #MeetTheMonks