Category: Abbey | Latest News

Fr Christopher Dillon OSB

Out of the clear blue sky, comes this bombshell of challenge from Jesus to those who were and are following him. What were they, what are we, to think?!

What has happened to that “peace on earth, to people of good will”, of which the angels in St Luke’s gospel sang? All is now division and implicit conflict, reminiscent of the subsequent prophecy of Simeon to Mary and Joseph, also in Luke’s gospel, when he said of Jesus, “This child is destined for the rising and falling of many in Israel…to be a sign that is rejected.”

In St Luke’s account of the Gospel, from which this passage is taken, Jesus is on the point of heading for Jerusalem, where he is to suffer his passion. It is the point of decision and crisis for him, when he will be rejected definitively by the Jewish authorities and by his own follower, Judas Iscariot.

We are being told, on this glorious summer’s day, that we too, every one of us, have to decide one way or the other; either we are for Jesus, as the Way, the Truth and the Life, or we are against him, in favour of accommodation with the spirit of the world and compromise with convenience at the expense of goodness and justice. And let’s face it, for centuries of its history, the Church compromised with and was compromised by its association with the powers that rule in civil society. A great part of the novelty of secularism for Christians, today, is the discovery that, all of a sudden, we are on our own. Civil society is not only not influenced by the Church; it is increasingly that the case that it opposes and rejects the Church.

In a manner which is relatively new for us, in our society, here in Ireland, the Church is having to begin again. It is an exciting time, but it is challenging. Increasingly, Christians among us are having to think as Christians, as opposed to being merely members of our society. We are very much at that point of decision, where the disciples found themselves, when Jesus was snatched away from them, and they had to decide whether or not they would stand against their religious establishment and start afresh on their own, with the spirit of Jesus  for guide; the stone rejected becoming their corner stone.

While we calculate our options, on the way to Jerusalem, along with Peter and the other disciples who will stand by and watch, if they don’t run away, Jesus, standing by his decision, is wrenched up on the gibbet of the cross, to hang from those nails and slowly suffocate. He does this, in order to bear definitive witness to Goodness and Truth, on  behalf of humankind, so that we, deciding to stand with him, may associate ourselves with his gift of himself to the Father of Goodness and Truth.

This has been the plan of Father, Son and Spirit, from the very beginning, to salvage humankind and all creation from the consequences of Adam’s sin and the Fall. And it is the Good News of Christianity that that plan has been accomplished,  by means of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we find this convincing, we must make the decision to go with it, whatever the ensuing division in our everyday life. But then, it is true that, for all the pain of division, there is ultimate peace in the decision for the life of Goodness and Truth which is uniquely in Jesus Christ. This is the peace that Christ leaves with us, that he gives us; not as the world gives peace. Is this, perhaps, the peace of which the angels were singing? So, how do you decide?

Fr Cuthbert Brennan OSB

What are we to make of the God we encounter in our readings this morning? Luke continues to present to us the God of the great reversal. The last shall be first the first shall be last. We are warned that close proximity to Jesus doesn’t guarantee us a seat at the banquet and is not to be equated with struggling to enter through the narrow door. Jesus seems to go beyond his inner circle when envisioning the vastness of God’s beloved – he goes so far as to clarify that a certain group who thought they could rely on their social connections and long-time friendship with Jesus would not make it through the narrow door, while hoards of others would be invited to recline at table.

Insiders become the outsiders and the outsiders become the insiders. It would seem that God is not fair.

Does not our baptismal cert give us priority boarding, our guarantee for access to the fast track corridor? We attend and participate, be it here physically or virtually via the webcam. However, Jesus this morning says Be careful, if you think you have a boarding pass, if you think you know who should get in and who shouldn’t, you might just have locked the door against yourself.

How many will be saved?

The better question is ‘How may I be included among the people of God? And the answer we are given is to strive to enter through the narrow door. Strive! There is effort required to enter through the narrow door and Jesus makes a point of saying that many will not be strong enough to accomplish it. In antiquity, the synagogue often had a large door where people of status would enter and a narrow door where people of lower status would enter and the use of such imagery by Jesus suggests a call to solidarity with those who enter through the narrow door, those who are on the margins of society.

The narrow door in the gospel this morning is not a thing: it is a person. Jesus is the true narrow door through whom we must pass. The irony in the revelation is that the narrow door can properly be understood, not only as the person of Jesus Christ, but more broadly, as the justice enacted in his name. It is based on what we do…..the justice that we enact. The author of the letter to the Hebrews calls our attention to this. We are to be trained in righteousness, and this is not always pleasant or easy. Many of us need to rid ourselves of selfishness and greed. Others of us need to cleanse our hearts of biases and discrimination.

For us today, as for the Lukan community, the struggle is for humility and solidarity with the marginalised in society. What our baptismal cert does give us is the responsibility of witnessing to the entire world, the glory and justice of God. We are called to reverse our attitudes and practices, avoid the large door, and struggle to enter through the narrow door with the people who need us to be with them. Who is that person for you today? Maybe it is a person of a different faith, or someone who holds a different political position from you. Maybe it is a person of a different racial identity or gender classification. Whoever that person is, they should be able to recognise God’s goodness in the way we live our lives and in the manner in which we interact with them. They are the living keys, which can pry open the narrow door that is often rusted shut by our own prejudice. We are to strive to enter through the narrow door. We are to be disciplined in gospel ways, disciplined to practice justice, to expand our narrow minds and hearts so that we might honour those whom society diminishes, casts aside and overlooks. They hold the key to our salvation, for when we open a door for them they in turn open the door of the just Christ for us.

God is not fair, but depending on where you are in the line that can be good news.

Glenstal Abbey’s Liturgical Conference is back and this year will consider the liturgical experience of the community when gathered in the place of worship.

This discussion is all the more relevant in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the use of ‘online worship.’ The monastic community desires participants to engage directly with the conference speakers about this shared experience.

Those wishing to attend should contact us and include all relevant details such as the number of days they wish to attend, any special dietary requirements, etc. Accommodation is not available at Glenstal and must be booked separately, although we can assist with details of local hotels and B&Bs if requested.

More details, including those on conference speakers and their talks, are to follow.

When: Saturday 29th – Monday 31st October 2022.

Price: Single day €95 or Full Conference €230. Student concessions available.

Contact: litcon@glenstal.org

Download: Glenstal Liturgical Conference 2022 Poster

Fr. Luke Macnamara OSB

Wake up. Pay attention. Don’t let life pass you by. There is something wonderful in store for each of us today, but we need to awaken our senses to perceive and receive God’s gift. Séamus Heaney remembers how he captured a gifted moment in his life, one that might easily have passed him by, in his poem: “Had I not been awake, I would have missed it.”  For Heaney, the chimes of nature coalesced like a movement from a symphony awakening him to the wonder and possibility of life. This moment passed but was transforming and pivotal to his recovery from a stroke. The poem evokes not only the memory but that electrifying experience that sets him all a-patter. The poem was not a mere looking back to a historical episode of his life but about access to the energising force with which he henceforth continued to live his life.

Jesus’ words are a wake-up call: “See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit.” Too many of us slumber through life and miss God’s electrifying presence in our lives and all that he envisages for us. We too often settle for low voltages, when God has something much more ambitious in store for us. How might we overcome our severely limited vision of possibility and become open to the expansive outlook of God for us? The path of growth can be daunting but again Jesus points to some helpful ways in which we might become more open and less afraid of the great journeys God envisages for us.

The commandment of Jesus recalls the Exodus, when the Hebrews were to dress for action and have their lamps burning, ready to depart from the land of slavery in haste. This brief commandment evokes the whole Exodus experience, a daunting journey through the sea and desert and in the face of multiple dangers from the ravages of armies and nature. By dressing for action and lighting our lamps we prepare to take the great journey that God has planned for each of us. We do so in the knowledge that God has helped and delivered our ancestors of the Exodus against incredible odds. But if we examine our own personal stories, we will discover times when God has helped and delivered us in times of difficulty, perhaps the death of someone close, or a prolonged period of depression or addiction. Reflecting back, we begin to see how we never could have managed on our own without God’s help. Regular remembrance helps us to become attuned to how God works in our lives.

Remembrance is only the first step. It is good to give thanks for all that God has done for us in the past. The community of the book of Wisdom who remember the Exodus follow up the remembrance by singing hymns to God. Our giving thanks is a response to God’s work in our lives and joins us ever closer to him. Our active participation at the Eucharist is the climax of our act of giving thanks to God. We offer our whole selves through prayer, listening, responding, with Christ to the Father.

Finally, it is important to celebrate how God has worked for us in the past but also how he works for us here and now. The Hebrews in the desert had to prepare their own meal in haste before departing Egypt. Jesus promises that should we be ready when he comes, that he will gird himself and seat us at table and serve us. This he has done at the Last Supper where he washed our feet and gave us his body and blood. He invites us now to this banquet at his altar.

The Mass combines remembrance, thanksgiving, and celebration for our definitive deliverance from sin and death and through Jesus seals our union with God. May we prayerfully enter into this triple dynamic and become ever more aware of how God is present in our lives through the peaks and troughs, cognisant that the definitive Exodus, the victory over death and sin has been won for us. Let us be dressed for action with our lamps burning and so be ready to journey with God along the open path to life eternal.

-Fr. Abbot Brendan Coffey

Dear Justin, three years ago you came before this altar and made your simple profession in our community. Today, you are ready to take vows for life and we welcome you, definitively, into our community. You have chosen to take this step on the beautiful feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, a feast so very dear to monks.

There are certain moments in life when we can see another person revealed to us in a depth, which we never saw before. Sometimes this happens in moments of crisis, or moments of great joy or sadness. For some reason we become pure of heart and we see the other in a different light. Although terribly inadequate, this experience can help us appreciate something of the apostles’ vision on that mountain. They saw Christ in glory at a moment when His total surrender to the will of the Father became revealed to them. Moses and Elijah stood beside him, the law and the prophets. Both are necessary in monastic life.

The three apostles are an important part of the scene as well. They wanted to remain there forever, as do we whenever something fills us with wonder, but this is no time for building tents. The tradition of the Church often sees in them the theological virtues. The faith of Peter, the rock, the hope of James, the martyr, and the love of John, the beloved. I commend these virtues to you today, Justin. Seen through the eyes of faith, hope and love the Transfiguration allows us to understand that saying which the Desert Fathers so often repeated. ‘The one who has seen his brother or sister has seen God.’ It is an imperfect community you join here today, and you need to understand the wisdom of this saying to prosper.

There is also another side to our protagonists. Moses had a dark secret; murder. He came across an Egyptian mistreating a Hebrew and killed him. The defining moment in Moses’ life comes at the burning bush. Here God reveals his name to Moses and, in a sense, transfigures him with hope for a better future for God’s people Israel. Filled with this hope he is ready to receive the Law.

You will recall that Elijah doubted God’s love and mercy, even after God had granted him his great victory over the prophets of Baal. He ran away because he was afraid of Jezebel, the queen. God managed to transfigure Elijah through this experience of desolation, renewing his faith. He is now a true prophet.

The three disciples aren’t much better. Peter, the impulsive one, the one who would end up denying his Master at the critical moment. The brothers James and John, who wanted to call down fire on the Samaritan women and children! Who tried to outmanoeuvre the other disciples, to get seats at the right and left of the Lord. Pentecost makes them apostles, filled with faith, hope and love.

In engaging with this gospel, we participate in our own transfiguration, our conversatio morum. Far from perfect, we too can change, convert and become the person God created me to be. For you Justin, that is a monk. Take St Paul’s words as your motto “I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind” (1Cor 14:15). Mens concordet voci, as St Benedict says.

I leave to St Paul the final word, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought as a child, I reasoned as a child. When I became a man, I put aside the things of childhood, for now we see in a mirror, confusedly, but then we shall see face to face. Now I know only partially, then I shall know fully, just as I am fully known. Now faith, hope and love abide, the three of them, but the greatest of them is love.” (1Cor 13:11-13)

-Fr. Abbot Brendan Coffey OSB

On 7 July last, the Hellier Stradivarius was put up for auction at Christies with a starting price of £5.5 million. It failed to sell. This violin is described as “the finest inlaid violin ever made by… Stradivari”, who kept the instrument for 55 years, before he sold it in 1734 for £40 to Samuel Hellier.

If you think that’s extravagant then you need to hold onto your seat before I tell you that in 2014 the Macdonald Stradivarius, one of only eleven surviving violas crafted by the master, went on sale at Sotheby’s with a price tag of $45 million. Unsurprisingly, it also failed to sell!

Sadly, being so very valuable, these instruments often end up in display cases for safekeeping and are rarely played. If you have a Stradivarius and nobody to play it, it’s just a Stradivarius. Or is it even that? It’s nothing. In the wrong hands, even a Stradivarius can sound like a collection of alley cats screeching.

There is one school of thought, which says that a really good violin will, if not played for a few months, “go to sleep.” It’s difficult to say exactly what this means, but apparently its tone dies, it becomes “less bright” and, to the professional ear, “sounds sleepy.” If played again regularly and frequently for a few weeks it will gradually “wake up” and become its former self.

The Rule of St Benedict is like a finely tuned Stradivarius. It is priceless in its wisdom and the possibilities it offers, but without monks to live the life, it is nothing. In the wrong hands, it too can become like a bunch of screeching alley cats.

The Rule is meant to be lived and lived seriously by a monastic community. It is not something to be admired from a distance for its wisdom, moderation, creativity, understanding and longevity, as often happens. The Rule is nothing at all if there are no monks to bring it to life. It is not a relic of a distant golden age, it is not a reference work to sit on the shelf and gather dust, something to be consulted from time to time as the need arises. The rule is a living document, brought to life in the daily round of a monastic community. If it is not this, then it too will “go to sleep” and with it our monastic life! It is for this reason we read a portion of it together every single day.

So let us play the tune of our monastic life in this community with a rich, bright and powerful tone, bringing the Rule of Benedict to life in this place for the people of our own time as we now renew our monastic profession.

Fr Jaroslaw Kurek OSB

Until the age of twenty-six he was a man given up to the vanities of the world’. The man I want to talk to you about this morning wasn’t the most devout Catholic in his youth, yet this same individual was destined to become one of the most prominent figures in the Church.

His name was Ignatius of Loyola, better known to most of us as the founder of the Jesuits. This year his memorial is not celebrated, as it falls on a Sunday. But his story, with an interesting Benedictine link, and today’s scripture readings inspire me to talk about him.

Why? Because Ignatius is a living example of the two kinds of thinking spoken about in our readings. I say ‘thinking’, because in his autobiography Ignatius shows what a reflective person he was. From the very start of his spiritual life, he kept thinking on things and never stopped this reflection for the rest of his life. Initially he struggled with internal tension, being often interrupted by vain thoughts. Over time these would disappear as he reflected more and more on what was godly.

It was in the course of this protracted process of meditation on the life of Christ that his real turning towards God began. He started thinking to himself: ‘How would it be, if I did this which St Francis did, and this which St Dominic did?’ Francis and Dominic, saints who have their minds set on things that are above. Ignatius, clearly called by God, was preparing for a serious spiritual undertaking in his life.

Now compare his thinking with the thinking of the protagonist in the Gospel parable, compare the directions. You don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the mind of the man in the Gospel wasn’t focused on these things at all. To use the language of the gospel, he was simply foolish. Foolish ultimately means a misuse of our thinking, of our minds, something so precious when it comes to our interior life, something that is given to us specifically to meet God, in an intimate way.

So what does St Ignatius teach us, the Christians of today? Ignatius offers us one very basic lesson: devote your time and energy to reading about Jesus Christ and thinking on him, and this will make you more and more thoughtful of God; if you do so, you will, gradually, raise your mind toward God, and finally set it firmly on the things that are above.

St Ignatius teaches us this through the example of his own life. After a few years of engaged reflection on the divine things and simultaneous retreat from the vanities of the world, he was finally able to make up his mind. He was ready. Exactly five hundred years ago, in the year 1522, in the Benedictine Abbey of Montserrat, Ignatius of Loyola performed his act of conversion and fully dedicated his life to God.

May it also be so in our lives, ad maiorem Dei gloriam; may each of us become rich toward God for his greater glory.

The monastic community will begin its annual retreat in the evening of Sunday 31^st July.

Our retreat director is Bishop Erik Varden OCSO, former Abbot of Mount Saint Bernard Cistercian Abbey in England and now Bishop-Prelate of the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim in Norway.

Please note that Matins and Lauds will begin at 7am on Monday 1st to Friday 5th August.

There will be no Compline in the Abbey Church from Sunday 31st July to Thursday 4th August.

Please pray for us during this time of our community retreat, as we pray for you.

-Fr. Martin Browne OSB

There is a touch of comedy about the scene in today’s first reading, as Abraham negotiates with God. God is angry with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah and is planning to destroy them. Emboldened by his obvious favour in God’s eyes, Abraham dares to try to talk God down from his rage. ‘Surely you wouldn’t wipe them all out if there are 50 decent men there? You wouldn’t want to destroy the decent men as well as the criminals now, would you?’ And then he delivers the killer blow. ‘Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?’ – a passive aggressive way of saying: ‘I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but really, that kind of thing just isn’t what a good God is supposed to do!’ It was a ‘courageous’ ploy… Trying to corner an angry all-powerful deity with clever arguments like this could have resulted in Abraham’s own immediate destruction by a thunderbolt or fire or some other weapon of divine wrath. But he got away with it. ‘If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.’

And so, he continued bargaining: ‘What if there are only 45? How about 40? And if there are only 30? What about 20? And even if there are only 10?’ There’s a touch of Mrs Doyle, the housekeeper in the TY series, Fr Ted in his repeated and insistent deprecations – ‘Ah, go on, go on, go on!’ Again and again, he ups the stakes, and again and again the Lord God concedes that he won’t destroy the city for the sake of 50, or 45, or 40, or 30, or 20, or even just 10 just men. ‘For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.’

Thus ends the reading we heard this morning. If you opened your Bible and read on from where the reading ends, you would discover that in the end, not even ten could be found, and so, after allowing Lot and his family to escape, the Lord God did in fact destroy the city… So, what’s the point of us reading this rather bizarre and fantastic story at Mass? Well, when we listen to it alongside the Gospel we’ve just heard, there’s surely something in it about having the courage and the confidence to ask God for things. We heard in the Gospel: ‘Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.’ Jesus literally tells us to ask God for what we need.

Despite the offence that human activity often causes, and the wrath that human sinfulness surely warrants, the God of Abraham, the Father of the Lord Jesus, hears the cries of those who call on him and shows mercy to them. For that is God’s nature. As Abraham so cheekily pointed out, far be it from God to slay the righteous with the wicked. It is God’s nature to act with tenderness towards his people, for he is a loving Father, and that’s what loving Fathers do. Loving Fathers don’t give their children snakes when they ask for fish and they don’t give them scorpions when they ask for eggs. They give them what they need and what will nourish and sustain them.

For many people, prayer can tend to be only about asking God for things. We’re doing fine on our own when things are going well and often forget about God, but when a problem arrives, we remember God and turn to him. Even for some people who pray regularly, their praying can involve long lists of petitions and intentions. It would be easy to look down on this kind of prayer as a bit childish. Certainly, a deep relationship with God needs regular attention and a good deal of listening as well as asking if we are not to reduce God to being some kind of fairy godmother or genie. But if today’s readings tell us anything, they assure us that there’s nothing childish or immature about asking God to be present and to make himself known when we are in need. Abraham was brave enough to ask when the Lord was full of wrath, and was listened to. Jesus, whose own relationship with the Father was the most intimate of all, taught us to do the same. To ask, and to ask again. And again and again, assuring us that ‘everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds’.

Sadly, I’m sure all of us have at some time prayed earnestly and wholeheartedly and repeatedly for intentions where the outcome was not what we had hoped for. The assurance that everyone who asks receives can seem very hollow indeed to someone suffering from a terminal illness, or to someone standing by the coffin of a loved one. Was God deaf to their prayers? Is he fickle and capricious? Does he even exist? I think we have to take Christ’s word for it when he says that everyone who asks receives. They might not receive exactly what they asked for, in the way they asked for it, but surely, they will receive from him. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are [God’s] ways higher than [our] ways…’ We may not be able to corner or manoeuvre God like Abraham did, but he looks upon us with love, is present to us, and hears our prayers. Trusting that he will answer, in his way and in his time, is a leap of faith. Today’s Gospel encourages us to take that risk and to make that leap.

Even when apparently absent or deaf, God is surely present and listening. There is some comfort, I think, in remembering that Jesus’s own prayer in Gethsemane that ‘this cup pass’ him by seemed not to have been heard. But he even though he could not avoid the Cross, ultimately, he triumphed. His prayer was answered, but not quite in the way he might have hoped as he suffered and sweated in his agony. As Pope Francis writes:

Holy Saturday is not the final chapter, because on the third day, Sunday, is the Resurrection. … On the second-last day, there is temptation, when the devil makes us think he has won… But the evil one is never lord of the last day: God is the Lord of the last day. Because that belongs to God alone, and it is the day when all human longings for salvation will be fulfilled. Let us learn this humble patience, to await the Lord’s grace, to await the final day. Very often, the second-last day is very hard, because human sufferings are hard. But the Lord is there. And on the last day, he solves everything.

-Fr. Lino Moreira OSB

Martha welcomed Jesus into her house (cf. Lk 10:38), but she failed as a hostess, because – as Saint Luke puts it – she was distracted with much serving (cf. Lk 10:40) and therefore had no time to listen. It would seem, then, that the very epitome of a true disciple was Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to his word (cf. Lk 10:39). Mary’s attitude, however, should not be misconstrued as a call to passivity, for the Bible gives us Abraham as the perfect example of a host who was every bit as active as Martha, and yet, instead of being reproved, was rewarded by the Lord with the promise of a son.

The secret of Abraham’s success was that he worshipped and listened before he started to act. As the biblical author carefully notes: Abraham looked up and saw three men standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent entrance to meet them, and bowed down to the ground (Gn 18:2). He then offered them hospitality, and didn’t move until they replied: “Do as you have said” (Gn 18:5).

Martha, for her part, didn’t begin by worshipping and inquiring, but immediately plunged into action, trying to provide what she thought was good hospitality. On account of her misguided self-confidence, she soon lost her inner peace, and ended up addressing harsh words to Jesus: “Lord, – she cried – do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me” (Lk 10:40). Martha was so worked up that she could not see the real cause of her frustration and resentment; therefore Jesus replied: “Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things, but there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her” (Lk 10:41).

We are meant to take this gentle reproach as a warning to avoid Martha’s mistake and to follow Mary’s example. In other words, if we truly wish to serve the Lord, if we aspire to love him with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength (cf. Dt 6:5), then we need to listen to his word at all times, as attentively as we possibly can, and with a genuine desire to do his will.

There is nothing more personal than this constant dialogue with the Lord, where he calls each one by their name and confirms them in the mission they were born to fulfil. One he may encourage to play a very active role in the Church or in the world, and another he may ask to remain at his feet, worshipping his divine nature, which he shares with God the Father and the Holy Spirit. The latter is indeed what the author of The Cloud of Unknowing thought Mary was doing: “As she was listening to his word – writes the 14^th century mystic – she was contemplating with all the love of her heart the supreme wisdom of his Godhead shrouded in the dark words of his manhood” (The Cloud of Unknowing, XVII).

Such exegesis became standard in the Middle Ages, but to look at Mary simply as typifying what later came to be called the contemplative life – which is the kind of life hermits, for instance, are supposed to lead – is to read too much into Saint Luke’s gospel. There Mary is presented as a model for all disciples, who like her should sit at the Lord’s feet and listen to his word (cf. Lk 10:39). So we are all invited to choose the good portion, and we are all promised that it will not be taken away from us; for the Lord will never refuse to speak to those who seek to hear his voice in the innermost depths of their heart, and life eternal is to partake in the unceasing dialogue of love between the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity.