Saint Benedict wanted a fullness of life not provided by the culture of his day. Learn more about his Rule in this episode of the Mindful Monk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u90XcvPAhlY&t=244s
Saint Benedict wanted a fullness of life not provided by the culture of his day. Learn more about his Rule in this episode of the Mindful Monk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u90XcvPAhlY&t=244s
The time is fulfilled, Jesus says, and the kingdom of God is close at hand. The time is fulfilled! The universe has been waiting for this moment. Slowly evolving over billions of years. Instinctive life crawling out of the slime, human life over thousands years, then Noah, Abraham and Sarah, later Moses, king David, the prophets… and now finally, the moment has come, the definitive breakthrough of the divine presence into the world. Jesus is standing there saying: Now is the time. All that the world has longed for, has striven for, has dreamt of, is at our fingertips. The kingdom of God!
But there may be a problem. It’s hard to believe. We see corruption in every walk of life, we see crime, injustice, the break-up of families; even the Church seems to be just as broken as everything else; the pandemic. Where is the kingdom of God in all of that? It’s as if Jesus is describing the colour blue to people who are blind, or the sound of a trumpet to people who are deaf. It’s as if Jesus has another wavelength that our minds don’t seem able to tune into most of the time.
That’s why his next word is ‘repent’. The word repent may conjure up some form of grovelling and self-laceration, but that’s not what it means. What it really means is a change in our mind. Something has to change in how we perceive. We are looking for happiness, for peace, for joy, but we are somehow programmed to look for it in the wrong place, and when we don’t find it, we say, ‘there is no kingdom of God’ because God is not playing along with our illusions. Instead Jesus is telling us we need a fresh mind!
Love is standing at our door, but we don’t see it! Providence is there to mind us in every situation, but instead we fret every time we lose something which we think holds our happiness. We only half believe that God looks after us the way he looks after the birds of the air and the flowers of the field. Jesus says: get a new mind and start believing! He had the same difficulty with his inner circle of disciples; and he would have to say, ‘Can’t you see? Don’t you perceive?’ ‘Why are you slow to believe’ We are told that in his home town Jesus couldn’t work many wonders because they simply didn’t believe him. He was amazed at their lack of belief, which rendered him powerless. At the shallow end of a swimming pool a young child is learning how to paddle, and her father is holding her completely safe, but she splutters and thrashes as if she’s drowning. That’s us, some of the time!
One commentator has said that we are like people at the movies. If the film is really powerful, we forget that it’s only images on a screen, and sound from a loudspeaker. We lose sight of the human reality of ourselves and of people around us in the seats. We know at some level that it’s only a film but we get totally sucked into the drama which is, ultimately, imaginary. I suppose that, when we look out at the world, so often we project onto our mental screens lots of things that simply aren’t there, and we don’t notice what is actually there. We don’t notice that God is like a friend sitting there beside us all along, wanting to share his popcorn -the wedding banquet of the Lamb!.
So maybe Lent is a time for some spiritual therapy for our minds: get a new mind; believe and trust. How might Lent happen for us? Look at what happened for Jesus. We are told that Jesus was literally driven into the desert by the Holy Spirit. There is a loving energy there ready to get to work the minute we open the door even a crack. Maybe we don’t believe much, but even the little we believe is enough for the Spirit to start. Even if our belief is as small as a mustard seed, Jesus says that’s enough. Lent is mostly about what the Spirit will do, not so much about our special projects for self-improvement.
Jesus was with the wild beasts. The desert was not a safe place. Wild beasts can devour you. But the prophets had predicted a time when the violence in nature would come to and end, when you would be as safe with a snake and a lion as you would be with a kitten. Jesus was with the wild beasts but, seemingly, he was safe.
We have our own wild beasts, and the Holy Spirit puts us among them. Maybe lockdown is part of this. It’s a very real desert for many people. When we get into the cinema of our mind with the projector already turned on, we look around our family, our home, our workplace and we see what we think will bring us happiness and we also project what we think will be the cause of our unhappiness. If we find ourselves getting angry or upset it may be because we are looking for happiness in the wrong place. Jesus was put into a testing situation but was totally safe. This Lent maybe we will finally notice that, underneath us, are the everlasting arms of God. Now that would be a new mind. That would be the kingdom of God.
Even more than that: the angels looked after Jesus. And it happens elsewhere in the gospels too.
I think we can take it for granted that, if this Lent puts us among the wild beasts of our fears, our weaknesses, our inability to change for the better, or if our plans get battered, somewhere along the way we will also discover that God himself sends help, something much stronger and much deeper than anything we could muster up ourselves. If Jesus got help, we, in our weakness, are going to get far more. With Christ the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is close, all around. Get a new mind, and believe the good news!
Fr Columba McCann OSB
Our first Lenten talk on the theme of Conversion and New Life with Fr. Luke Macnamara OSB is now available to watch again: https://youtu.be/fy6EgXUq6Go
Put aside some time and begin your Lenten journey in prayer with these oak Stations of the Cross carved by the late Brother Benedict Tutty OSB 🙏🏼✝️ The carvings were installed in the Church of the Resurrection in Belfast but their whereabouts are now unknown after the closure of this church ⛪🕯️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUcyVriwx9k
We must carefully prepare for the night and for our sleep. Father Simon talks about the Biblical concept of night and day and shares his tips for a good night’s sleep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0R6UEnB6gs
In 1882 the Australian cricket team had its very first Test win on English soil at the Oval. The Sporting Times newspaper, in a satirical piece written as an obituary, commented that English cricket had died, “the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia”. Almost immediately people began to speak of regaining the ashes; the ashes of defeat. The following year, after England won two of the three Tests on their tour of Australia, a small urn containing the ashes of a cricket ball was presented to the England team and so what we now know as ‘the Ashes’ was born. That urn remains in the museum at Lords, while a Waterford Crystal representation of the Ashes urn (called the Ashes Trophy) is presented to the winners of each Test series.
The ashes we receive today could not be more different. Our ashes are not the ashes of defeat; they are the ashes of victory. The ashes with which we are signed, come from the burning of palm branches from Palm Sunday of last year. These branches were used to welcome Christ the Saviour into the Holy City of Jerusalem before his passion, death and resurrection. These are our ashes, the ashes of victory.
These same ashes are a wakeup call for the soul. They remind us that those things on which we have come to depend in life, possessions, wealth, security and so on, all eventually end in ashes. No matter how hard we work, we take nothing with us when we die. All of it will fade like dust in the wind.
During this Holy Season of Lent, we try to free ourselves from the illusion of chasing after this dust. We do so by prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Prayer frees us from the mundane, almsgiving places the focus on others and fasting invites us to look inside our own hearts. These treasures are the treasures that last. They are fire, not ashes!
When the heart is attached to what truly endures we rediscover ourselves and are set free, we also discover God and are fulfilled. We may be no more than a speck of dust in the enormity of the universe, but we are dust that is loved by God. The Lord gathered that dust in his hands at the dawn of creation and breathed life into it. This is not the dust of failure; this is the dust of life. We are the dust of the earth into which God has poured his love and his dreams.
Lent is not a time for long rambling discourses. Lent is a time to realise that the ashes of my being are loved by God and with his help I can change my life for the better. As these ashes are imposed on our heads today, let the fire of love be kindled in our hearts. Be reconciled to God, regain your ashes and let them become what they are, the ashes of victory.
Abbot Brendan Coffey OSB
It is almost a year since the first COVID restrictions were introduced in Ireland and we are facing into a second Lent and Holy Week under this COVID cloud. Despite this, and perhaps because of it, our celebration of Lent and Easter this year become even more important. We need the hope and promise of Easter and we need the renewing energy of Holy Lent. Nothing can take this from us and we can engage with our Lenten journey wherever we may be.
For some of us our present circumstances of isolation might mean that this is the very first time we have really heard the call to conversion, the call to turn towards God. For most of us, Ash Wednesday brings with it memories of our failed attempts from past Lenten journeys, our failed resolutions and broken promises. Most of us know very well what T. S. Eliot said, “Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act, falls the shadow.” It is here, in the shadow, that we find the ashes of our own lives and the Lord gives us the courage to begin again.
Lent is not a season for navel gazing, or feeling sorry for oneself. Lent is the great season of hope. Lent is no season for cultivating guilt, for it is the season for optimism. Just as the earth itself is starting to rejuvenate out of the ashes of its winter, so Lent is inviting us to become a pilgrim people, on a journey to Holy Easter. This is our hope and our destination.
Lent is about facing up to reality. In the words of St Isaac the Syrian, “The one who knows their own sin is higher than the one who resurrects the dead in their prayers. The one who is granted the gift of seeing themselves is superior to the one who has the gift of seeing angels.”
I wish all of you and your loved ones every blessing in this Holy Season of Lent.
Brendan Coffey OSB
Pray with the monks of Glenstal Abbey and walk in the footsteps of Christ as we share Br. Benedict Tutty’s magnificent Stations of the Cross in a series of videos throughout Lent.
Over the coming weeks we will share the late Br. Benedict’s liturgical works of art from our Abbey Church, from Tully in Co. Galway and from Belfast in Northern Ireland. Each video will include prayers and organ accompaniment by monks of Glenstal to help viewers enter into this traditional Lenten devotion.
Visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel at: www.youtube.com/GlenstalAbbeyMonks
HOMILY – 14 TH FEBRUARY 2021
ST. MARK 1:40-45 – JESUS CURES THE LEPER
Today is the last Sunday before Lent – known as Quinquagesima Sunday. Quinquagesima is the Latin for fifty. So, if you go to your calendar and count back from Easter Sunday to today, you will get exactly 50 days – Quinquagesima. Today is also Temperance Sunday. Many of us when we hear the word “temperance” well often associate it with giving up things – like alcohol. As Benedictines we know from the rule of Saint Benedict that temperance does not have a negative connotation – rather Saint Benedict sees temperance as life-affirming, positive and a balanced approach to life.
Today’s gospel from Saint Mark is one of my favourite passages in the entire Bible. It is beautifully written. It is concise, clear, and you are in no doubt as to what it is all about. There is a clear meaning to this story and because it is so well narrated there is nothing much that someone like me can add to it. I am not going to waste your time by repeating this wonderful account from Mark.
I suspect that Mark reveals a certain characteristic of Jesus in this story that is not directly evident in the Gospels – Jesus’ humour. Leprosy has a number of characteristics in common with COVID. Leprosy is an airborne infection and the best way to protect against it is to cover your face. Over the past year or so we have learned only too well about the value of face coverings. There was no cure for leprosy in the time of Jesus and so if you caught the disease you were sentenced to a lifetime of quarantine – total isolation from others. Thankfully today 95% of the world’s population is immune to leprosy or Hansons disease as it is now known. Thankfully, also like COVID, there is a vaccine to counteract the Hansons disease.
We had a senior student in our school who had gone through his time here very much under the radar. He was academically bright but he hardly participated in many extra-curricular activities – legal or illegal! He wasn’t particularly unpopular, he just kept to himself and most of the time he was content with his lot. He didn’t bother anyone and nobody bothered him. A likeable young man. Coming up to the mock exams a third year who was cramming for his junior cert mocks approached him and asked him for help with his maths and science. The older boy agreed. There was only one condition – nobody was to know about this. Amazingly, when the results came out, the third year’s grades were considerably higher than predicted. A bit of an investigation went on and when no foul play was discovered the third year sang like a parrot – “the sixth year helped me”. Needless to say the sixth year wasn’t happy he had been outed. He couldn’t go anywhere in the school without cramming students asking him for help in maths and science.
I can imagine Jesus with a wry smile telling the leper not to tell anyone but knowing full well that the leper had to go public in order to be let out of the life sentence of quarantine he had been subjected to. The tables are now turned between Jesus and the leper. Before he was cleansed, the leper wasn’t allowed into towns or villages and he had to live in the wilderness. Now the leper is free to go into all the towns he wants – but because of his notoriety, Jesus cannot go to populated places any more. And now it is Jesus who has to live outside the towns – in the wilderness. We can learn so much from Mark’s story of Jesus and the leper. The leper wasn’t afraid to go down on his knees before Jesus. He didn’t ask to be “cured”. He asked to be “cleansed”. Let us never be ashamed to ask to be cleansed in the sure and certain knowledge that this is what Jesus wants for all of us no matter our shortcomings and failings. Lastly, today is Saint Valentine’s Day and we extend our best wishes to lovebirds and romantics of all ages and wherever you are. Happy Valentine’s Day. The relics of Saint Valentine are in the charge of the Carmelites in their church in Whitefriar
Street in Dublin. This past week we monks learned a lesson from the story of Saint Benedict and his sister Saint Scholastica. The lesson we learned is that “love conquers all” – “amor vincit omnia”. We can also learn from The Beatles: “all you need is love. Love is all you need”
Fr Denis Hooper OSB
This lockdown is a difficult and challenging time for us all. Father Simon shares some of his own difficulties alongside some of the opportunities this time presents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQwDyCfGz5Y&t=330s