Just published! Get your hands on a copy of The Glenstal Prayerbook right here: shorturl.at/jYZkj
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Just published! Get your hands on a copy of The Glenstal Prayerbook right here: shorturl.at/jYZkj
Fr. Simon Sleeman: A friend gave me some advice when I told him I was preaching at the Parents Day Mass. ‘Good luck with that’ he said….’I know you have a great message, a message of peace, of freedom and living without fear but, but your congregation will have other things on their minds… BBQ’s and bacon, sunshine and showers, music and sports, prizes and awards. Here’s what you do.’ Make your introduction concise, the ending abrupt with nothing in between.” So here goes…
We are here on assignment. The Christian assignment is not about getting more, it is not about doing more or even knowing more.It is about ‘becoming more’. Bearing fruit. Fruit that will last. Growing up into the full stature of Christ.
‘Becoming more’ is not getting bigger – Pliny the elder said that the Romans when they couldn’t make a building beautiful, made it bigger. ‘Becoming more’ is not bulking up with steroids or weights. It is not even becoming nicer… ‘Becoming more’ is, ‘growth in the sense of the other’ – be that other my neighbour, or my God. Space for the other.
Before your mind takes you down the rabbit hole of ‘do-it-yourself becoming’, or asking yourself, ‘how can I get this done with ‘just one click’? know that this growth is the work of the Holy Spirit of God, the Divine Artist who teaches you everything – an almost impossible proposition to hear, convinced as we are, that we can self-engineer anything we want or desire.
Our assignment is to cultivate that delicate instinct that responds to the slightest movement of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives leading us to life… and then hold onto your hats.
Fr. Anthony Keane: In today’s gospel, which gives us the farewell discourses of Jesus, dearest brothers and sisters, we are confronted with the mysteries of Life and Death. There is the horror of betrayal even by one who shared his table – Jesus was deeply disturbed and declared: ‘one of you is going to betray me’, and there are the chilling words of the text: As soon as Judas had taken the piece of bread he went out. It was night.
Lest we be too afraid, we also read: and light shines in the darkness of that night, and the darkness could not overpower it. And of divine Wisdom: compared with light she takes first place for light must yield to night, but against Wisdom evil cannot prevail.Despite the murderous threat of the Jewish establishment and the weighty Roman Empire, to which is added the treachery from among one’s own, despite all of this horror, Jesus says:‘Now has the Son of man been glorified’
– Glorified because the life of the Giver of Life has been confronted, existentially threatened and, thereby, gloriously revealed in all its power of love which overcomes death itself.
And in this power, ever ancient and ever new, we receive a new commandment: Love one another. This comes naturally, supernaturally, to us when we see the wonders that God works. For, Wisdom, unchanging, renews the world, and generation after generation, passing into holy souls, makes them into God’s friends and prophets.
Abbot Columba Mc Cann:Well here you are, on the day of your Confirmation! A few days ago someone asked me, ‘Who will be confirming on Sunday: will it be you or will it be the archbishop?’ I said that I would be confirming, as the Archbishop has given me special permission. To confirm is to make firm, to make strong. Really, it’s the Holy Spirit who confirms you, who makes you strong, like Christ, who enables you, if you want, to live by Christ’s strength, by his life. You will be anointed with Chrism as a sign of your being made like Christ. Chrism – Christ – it’s basically the same word.
But you might turn around in a few hour’s time, or a few day’s time, or a few week’s time and say, ‘I don’t feel any stronger. I don’t feel any different. Did anything at all happen when I made my Confirmation? Or was it all just an empty show?’
It could of course be an empty show. But it doesn’t have to be. I don’t know how many of you have Revolut accounts. It’s all foreign territory to me. Someone could lodge a whole stack of money in your Revolut account. But that won’t make the slightest bit of difference unless you actually draw on the account, unless you actually use the app to release the funds in a shop or online or whatever. The money might as well not be there unless you decide to use it.
It’s the same with Confirmation: the spiritual gifts on offer to you now might as well not be given to you unless you decide to activate them. What happens when they are activated? I’d like to give you a visual image connected very much with Glenstal. Look around the grounds. People sometimes say that it is just at this time of the year that the grounds look at their best. They are a blaze of colour. An amazing variety of colours and shapes among shrubs and trees. You could ask, ‘What makes this happen?’ I’m weak on biology, but a simple answer would be that it’s the heat of the sun, the moisture of the rain, the nutrients from the earth. It’s the same sun and rain that are poured out over each plant. But each plant grows up differently. A rhododendron is not the same as an oak tree. Each in its own way is magnificent but they are not the same. It is the same sun and rain that provide for their growth, but each grows according to their unique identity and style. If you decide to activate the gifts of the Holy Spirit, you will become more you, not less you. Your uniqueness will become more evident. The Holy Spirit is not a photocopier. The same Spirit produces different results in each person.
Think of the fact that each of you is taking a different new name for your Confirmation. You are like the pope, who a few days ago changed his name to Leo, in remembrance of the last Pope Leo, who was a champion of the rights of workers suffering because of the industrial revolution. Some of you are taking names from within your own family. That’s a great way of acknowledging the gifts you have already received in your family. The Holy Spirit often points us on the right direction through other people.
But each one is unique. Saint Clement spent much of his time caring for the poorest of the poor. He also lived for a while as a hermit praying for the needs of others.
The name Seán connects you not just with your family but with many great men down the centuries. John the apostle, John the Baptist, closer to our own time, the man who founded the university that was later to become UCD, St John Henry Newman. In the Irish language, men with the name Seán get a special upgrade when they are recognised as saints, changing their name to Eoin. So you might have to change your name again!
Dominic was famous as a great teacher and preacher, combining holiness of life with a great sense of humour.
Augustine as a seeker and a searcher, a great writer and thinker around the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. A man with a restless heart searching for the meaning of life, searching for happiness. Eventually he discovered that happiness in its most concentrated form comes directly from God. He said, famously, ‘You mayve made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.’
So how do you activate your spiritual account? How does the power of Christ flow into you? It only takes a few seconds: in any situation in which you find yourself, just ask God. Just say, in your own words, in your own way: be with me, guide me, help me to do this your way. You can ask for this whether you are in class, on the rugby pitch, with your friends or online: be with me, guide me, help me to do this your way. The result will always be better than if you did it on your own.
There might not be a flash of light from heaven, or a roll of thunder, but there are telltale signs that the Holy Spirit has actually been at work in you. Afterwards you can look back and notice. St Paul describes it. You find you are more at peace. You find that you are more joyful. Others begin to notice your gentle side. You begin to get stronger and are able to control yourself more and achieve the best result. These are just some of the ways in which you will know that the spiritual gifts are being activated. The life of God himself is at work through you.
Fr. Mark Patrick Hederman: It is interesting how the liturgy provides readings for special occasions. Next Wednesday the conclave begins to elect a new Pope. The Gospel this morning is about St Peter, the one chosen by Jesus to head up his team of disciples, to be the rock on which Christianity is founded. It would have been difficult to choose a less likely candidate. ‘I will never leave you, I am ready to die for you, you can definitely count on me!’ His oaths of loyalty are a penny a dozen: all blow and no go!
Jesus is patiently realistic: ‘Before the cock crows tomorrow morning, he tells his over zealous disciple, ‘you will have denied me three times.’
There are only two scenes in the New Testament where a burning charcoal fire provides the setting. Here on the beach, after the miraculous catch of fish, where Jesus is waiting to meet both Peter and ourselves. The last time we sat warming ourselves beside a charcoal fire ‘A servant girl saw us, looked closely at us and said, “This person was a follower of Jesus.” And we all stood up with Peter and denied it. “Woman, we said, “I don’t know him; I know nothing about him.” A little later someone said, “You must be one of them.”
And about an hour later another insisted, “This guy was certainly with him, his accent betrays him.” And Peter, like the rest of us, began to curse and swear saying “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” And as he said it, a cock crowed. The charcoal fire kept burning and Jesus turned and looked at us straight in the eye. And Peter remembered the words he had spoken to him: “Before the cock crows, you will have disowned me three times.” And Peter went outside and wept bitterly.
Here, today, in front of a similar charcoal fire, Jesus asks Peter three times ‘do you love me’ and Peter is offended by his asking him three times. But both Jesus and the charcoal fire are making a point. If you deny me three times, you must tell me three times that you love me. Not like Judas who hanged himself after his terrible betrayal, we are invited to say how sorry we are and that, in spite of everything, our weakness, our cowardice, our treachery, we really do love him. The charcoal fire is yet one more symbol of God’s burning love, it stands like the paschal candle here as a reminder that whatever we do, however we fail, we must never give up on God’s love for us.
On Wednesday next, 133 cardinals will assemble in conclave to vote for the next pope, a new Peter. 108 of these electors [that is 80%) were appointed cardinals by Pope Francis. Was he shortening the odds or, maybe, increasing the oddballs? No one can say who will eventually be chosen. In Italy it is forbidden by law to place bets on the result. If you want to cash in, you have to access international aps such as Ladbrokes or Paddy Power. It would be foolish to predict. All we do know is that, by the end of next week, someone will have become a household name, an international celebrity and that person, whoever they may be, no matter how incompetent, how pathetic, how foolish they may have been in the past; that person will receive from that moment on, the guidance and the courage they need to do whatever the Holy Spirit has arranged for them to do. Such a process will have happened seven times during my lifetime and in each case I have to take my hat off to the Holy Spirit because, for the most part, they have been a credit to him or her, certainly in comparison with other internationally elected leaders during that time span.
And why is this so? Because that fire of love is still burning on the beach by the waters of the Sea of Galilee. Our God is a blazing fire; the Trinity is iron, coal and burning heat; the axis of the universe; what makes each of us and all of us complete. The three sang with one voice from the heart of the fire: blessed be God, alleluia.
We’re pleased to share the latest edition of the Glenstal Abbey Chronicle, which may be viewed here.
Last month we had a conference on Jungian psychology at Glenstal Abbey. I spoke to the fifty strong group and was surprised to get a question on bees at the end of my talk, which was about Projection in Jungian psychology. The person asking the question confessed to being a beekeeper, and she wanted to know what I had learned from my fifty years working with the bees at Glenstal.
I was surprised by her question. My response surprised me. I said I no longer thought of myself a beekeeper – that this was somehow a misnomer. Yes, I have bees but ‘no’ I am not ‘beekeeping’. This term suggests a kind of ownership or possession of the bees with which I no longer feel comfortable.
The term belies the wider issue of how we live and relate to the world of creation, of which we are a part. We speak of ‘nature’ and the ‘environment’ and of ‘going out into nature’ as if it were object ‘out there’, at a distance – as if we could live outside creation. This is not only wrong, but crazy thinking and leads to all sorts of abuse of the very world of which we are an integral part. If it is ‘out there’ we can do what we like with it, spend our lives tormenting it into doing whatever we want. ‘Nature’ is hitting back. Bees are in peril.
I told my questioner that I am searching for a new term to describe my relationship with bees – ‘tending them,’ ‘minding them’ but above all getting away from the idea that I own them or am keeping them or even managing them. I told her the most appropriate gesture for me in the apiary is to take a step back and see the mystery before me. I need to recover my ‘right size’, my appropriate stance before the bees in my hives.
I admitted that it had taken me until I was almost fifty to ‘see’ a bee. Until that moment, I viewed bees functionally – bee colonies were for production. I wasn’t quite as crass as that but I didn’t see them. I never marvelled at their magnificence. My aggressive, utilitarian approach dulled my perception and allowed me free reign to interfere, manipulate, and disrupt the bees. I was managing them using every management technique, every new beekeeping tip I could glean from magazines, journals and books.
Then one day everything changed. I ‘saw’ a bee. It landed at one of my hives, its pollen basket packed with golden, yellow pollen. It had only just made the alighting board weighed down as it was with its heavy load of life giving protein. There it was – a bee. Astonished at my discovery, I stared while the bee recovered enough strength to go inside the hive and hand over its load. The bee was too exhausted to mind my intrusive gawking. It was as if scales fell from my eyes. That moment taught me about the ‘tyranny of our conceptual frameworks’ – taught me that I needed to shatter the perceptual framework through which I viewed the world and start again and begin looking at the bees with loving rather than greedy eyes.
As I look back now on that, ‘moment of innocence’, seeing a bee for the first time, I recognise it as a ‘moment of reverence’ before the mystery. Living on this planet for 50 million years longer than we have, how can we be threatening their very existence? It woke me up to the destructive power of an irreverent mind-set and how it infects my relationship with the world in which I live.
We need to recover our organ of reverence before the wonders of creation – take a step back and look with astonishment at what is happening in and around us. This is not asking people to be naive but to recognise that our relationship with creation is dangerously out of joint – it threatens our very existence and that of the bees. We need to recover a stance that will allow us and the bees to survive on this beautiful and mysterious planet.
James Freeman Clark, an Easterner who traveled to the Western United States of America in the nineteenth century, wrote in his book on Self-Culture, ‘when I lived in the West, there came a phrenologist to the town, and examining the heads of all the clergymen in the place, found us all deficient in the organ of reverence. More than that, we all admitted that the fact was so, that we were not, any of us, especially gifted, with natural piety or love of worship. Then he said, ‘You have all mistaken your calling. You ought not to be ministers.’[1]
I might add, ought not to be ‘beekeepers’ either.
Simon Sleeman OSB
[1] James Freeman Clark in Van Wyck Brooks, The Flowering of New England (New York: Modern Library, 1936), 268.
We remember at this time Father Bernard O’Dea OSB – the first Irishman to enter the monastic community at Glenstal Abbey – whose 25th anniversary takes place later this month.
Born in Inagh, County Clare, on 3rd October 1909, Gerald O’Dea went to school at St Flannan’s College in Ennis. He briefly attended the Patrician Brothers’ School in Mountrath, County Laois.
Matriculated in 1928, he trained as a pharmacist and worked as an apprentice in Dublin. Having been advised and introduced by an Augustinian spiritual director, he entered Glenstal Abbey on 19th June 1932, receiving the name Bernard. He made profession on 1st October 1933, the first monastic profession in Glenstal. The following day, he went to our motherhouse of Maredsous Abbey in Belgium for further formation and studies.
Following the study of philosophy there from 1933 to 1935, he studied theology at the Congregation’s scholasticate in the monastery of Mont César in Louvain from 1935 to 1938. He made solemn profession at Glenstal on 1st October 1936. Returning definitively to Glenstal, he was ordained priest in Thurles on 12th June 1938. While finishing his theological studies here, he was appointed Subprior and Guestmaster.
When travel to and from Europe became possible once more after the Second World War, Glenstal Abbey’s founding abbot, Dom Celestine Golenvaux, visited the monastery for the month of October 1945. On 8th December of that year Father Bernard was appointed prior of what was still a dependent foundation. On 6th February 1948, the monastery achieved independence as a Conventual Priory and Father Bernard was appointed Conventual Prior. He held this office until forced by ill health to resign on 1st August 1951.
During Father Bernard’s term as Prior, many initiatives were taken. On 9th October 1948, a university hostel was opened at Balnagowan, a house in Palmerston Park in Dublin. A year later, a good tillage-farm with a substantial house at Ballyvoreen – some five miles from Glenstal – was acquired from the brother of Archbishop Harty. Always interested in horses, Father Bernard encouraged riding in the school and there are photographs of him giving an exhibition of show-jumping on one of the playing-fields. He once said, “give me a horse and I’ll live for ever.” However, when he fell from a horse near the back lodge in his late eighties, community sympathy was limited!
A major decision taken was to build a monastic church, as the temporary chapel of 1932 was proving increasingly inadequate. Dom Sebastian Braun of Maredsous was appointed architect. Father Gregory Barry, an accountant and former Spiritan priest, was appointed director of fundraising. The estimated cost at the time was £75.000.oo – about €3.6 million in today’s money. In the impoverished Ireland of the period, the only possibility of financing such a major undertaking was to supplement local endeavours, such as a Silver Circle, with foreign assistance. The main focus was on the United States. From February to September 1951, Father Bernard and Father Gregory made a successful tour of that country, exploiting Father Bernard’s network of County Clare exiles, many of them priests. From this period, Father Bernard’s admiration and reverence for the United States, already strong, remained undimmed. He returned to Glenstal for the laying of the foundation-stone on 14th October 1951. This occasion marked the emergence of the monastery into wider public awareness. The foundation-stone was laid by Archbishop Kinnane of Cashel and the ceremony was attended by the President of Ireland, Mr. Seán T. O’Kelly.
Following his resignation as Prior, Father Bernard took a long holiday on medical advice. In the archives there is a photograph of him skiing in Switzerland. The photograph does not tell the whole story as one such descent ended in a broken leg!
On his return to Ireland, Father Bernard assumed the running of Balnagowan and continued an expanded ministry as a retreat-giver in Ireland and abroad which he maintained until late in life. For a short period, he resumed the role of Guestmaster.
As time went on, he suffered progressively from SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) which made it difficult for him to support the Irish winter. In the early 1980s he spent two years with the developing foundation in Nigeria in Ewu-Isan. On his return, he began to spend extended winter-periods in Florida, being hosted by his network of Irish priest-friends. Increasing frailty eventually made such sojourns impossible but Father Bernard was helped somewhat by the purchase of a full-spectrum sun-lamp.
Despite indifferent health, he maintained his huge network of friends and a vast correspondence. He was a great believer in what he believed to be the values of the 1916 Rising, and of the superiority of Irish country culture of neighbourliness and self-help as exemplified in the Muintir na Tíre movement, founded in 1937 by his life-long friend, Canon John Hayes of Bansha, County Tipperary. To the end, he remained an inveterate ‘tracer’, that is, a tracer of family lineage. Once successfully identified, the traced would be told. “I have you now,” he would say.
His last years were punctuated by frequent stays in hospital. It was not until the final days of his life that he began to accept that he was not going to recover from the cancer that had been diagnosed. He spent his last ten days in Milford Hospice, continuing to receive friends and well-wishers. Father Andrew Nugent stayed with him round the clock and was present when he finally died in the early morning of 23rd May 2000.
May he rest in peace.
Fr. Luke Macnamara: Whenever the Risen Lord appears to the disciples, he greets them in the same way: “Peace be with you.” The Risen Lord continues to offer his peace to us today. He does so at this Mass. After the Our Father we will hear his words: – “Peace I leave you, my peace I give you”. This peace is not the absence of war or strife, it is something much more. Wherever we are in the world, in whatever situation we may be, however difficult, the Lord with hands outstretched offers us his peace. We may have lost a beloved spouse, broken up with a girlfriend, lost a dear friend, developed a severe illness or be under threat of violence – the Lord’s peace reaches beyond the surface into our deepest selves, so that we be truly at peace.
The Lord doesn’t force his peace upon us. We can be reluctant to believe, we can have doubts and fears about exposing ourselves to the Lord’s touch. When the Lord appears to Thomas he asks him: “Give me your hand”. The hand represents our action in the world – so much of what we do involves our hands. It is only when they don’t work through illness or handicap that we come to realise how much our hands allow us to do. To give one’s hand to another implies a relationship of trust and much more. The clearest example is in marriage – “to give your hand in marriage” is more than a handshake – it is a giving up of one’s autonomy to share life with another. That sharing will involve moments of love and joy but also heartache and pain. However where there is true sharing, there is a deeper peace that sustains through the hard times.
There is something of this dynamic in the Lord’s invitation to Thomas to give him his hand. Thomas must trust even if that hand is to be placed in a tangled wound. The Lord shares the glory of his resurrection with Thomas but also the pain of his passion. Thomas by giving his hand replicates the Lord’s journey through the passion and death to the resurrection and life. By giving his hand to the Lord, he receives the Risen Lord’s gifts of peace and forgiveness. The Lord invites us to do the same, to trust and open our hands to him, that he may fill us with peace and forgiveness. The Lord invites us to open our hands to one another to share his peace and forgiveness. There is great power in a chain of open hands – we will share something of that power at the sign of peace. May we truly then go in peace at the end of Mass and bring that peace to all those we meet.
Luke Macnamara OSB
Fr. Lion Moreira: We have just heard Saint John’s account of how the tomb of Jesus was found empty. This is the story of a spiritual race, where the disciple whom Jesus loved was the first to cross the finish line. He saw and believed (Jn 20:8), and it was a while before Mary Magdalene, Peter and the other disciples reached that point. Let us briefly examine the successive stages of this race, which, in a sense, is also our own.
First upon the scene was Mary Magdalene. When she got to the tomb, she saw that the stone covering its entrance had been removed (cf. Jn 20:1). Relying solely on the testimony of her senses, she jumped to the wrong conclusion: ‘They have taken the Lord out of the tomb,’ she cried, ‘and we do not know where they have laid him’ (Jn 20:2).
On hearing this, Peter and the other disciple set out at once. The two were running together, says the Evangelist, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first (Jn 20:4). What is the significance of this? Why was Peter following (cf. Jn 20:6) the beloved disciple, and not the other way round? There seems to be a connection here to an earlier incident, when Jesus was brought before Caiaphas. On that occasion, both Peter and the other disciple were following their Master (cf. Jn 18:15), but Peter denied being one of Jesus’ disciples (cf. Jn 18:17). Now, on the way to the empty tomb, Peter was being led by the one who had never turned away, so that he too might run the path of discipleship without wavering.
At the entrance to the tomb, the beloved disciple stepped aside and let his companion go in before him. Then Simon Peter saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the cloth that had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen wrappings but rolled up in a place by itself (Jn 20:6-7). At this point, Peter understood that he was looking at signs with a special significance. First, he realised that the neat positioning of the linen wrappings and the facecloth showed that the body had not been stolen. Then, he began to recall what Jesus had said and done. Perhaps the first thing that crossed his mind was the response Jesus had given to the Jewish authorities just before the Feast of Passover: ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’ (Jn 2:19). It is written in Saint John’s Gospel that Jesus was speaking of his own body and his resurrection from the dead (cf. Jn 2:21). But this could well have been Peter’s original interpretation – a truth that began to dawn on him when he stood inside the empty tomb.
While Simon Peter was still reflecting, the other disciple also entered the tomb. He saw and believed (Jn 20:8). His was the gaze of someone who had already pieced it all together and now fully realised that God had fulfilled his plan to save humankind by raising Jesus from the dead. He understood this with his mind, believed it with his heart, and was ready to proclaim it with his lips.
In this episode from Saint John’s Gospel, there is a marked contrast between Mary Magdalene on one side, and Peter and the beloved disciple on the other: Mary appears alone in the dark of night, unable to see beyond the evidence of her senses, while the other two are shown running together on the path of discipleship – an action that leads to faith in the resurrection of Jesus. The story, however, does not end there. Mary follows closely behind Simon Peter and the other disciple, and when she reaches the tomb again, the risen Lord reveals himself to her, making her the first herald of his resurrection.
The conclusion is easily drawn: at times, we may feel lost in the darkness of this world, where we are told there is no scientific evidence that anyone has ever risen from the dead. But if we persevere in following Jesus together with his other disciples, as members of his Church, the risen Lord himself will open our minds to recognise the signs of his living presence – so that we can sing and proclaim with joy: Christ has risen, alleluia!