Category: abbeynews

Abbot Brendan OSB

We have listened to the Book of Exodus. How each household must share the Passover lamb with unleavened bread and bitter herbs, taking into account what each can eat. The Last Supper, the memory of which we keep this evening, was a meal Jesus celebrated with his disciples during Passover.

Over time the Passover traditions of the Jewish people strayed a little from the regulations in the Book of Exodus and by the time of Jesus, well over one thousand years later, Passover could also refer to the weeklong celebration of Unleavened Bread with which it had merged.

The famous Roman historian Josephus tells us that over 250,000 lambs were slaughtered every year on the eve of Passover between 3pm and 5pm, some in the Temple and some in people’s homes. This is the same time we will celebrate our Liturgy of the Passion tomorrow afternoon. The time that Jesus died on the cross. The lambs used in the Temple were, like Jesus, born in Bethlehem. They were without blemish, specially reared in the hills surrounding Bethlehem and brought to the Jerusalem Temple for sacrifice. The blood of these slaughtered lambs was collected in bowls and some of it thrown against the altar. Two rods in the form of a cross skewered the lambs before they were prepared and eaten. St John in his Gospel wants us to understand that Jesus is our Paschal lamb. The Lamb of God.

On this night Jesus chose to digress from the normal ritual of the Passover week. He rose from the table and washed the feet of his disciples. He made the disciples ritually clean and brought them into communion with him. Then he fed them with himself. The bread was his body, the wine his blood.

Next he goes to the Garden of Gethsemane, which means ‘oil press’. Do we not remember here another garden, the Garden of Eden with its two trees, the tree of good and evil and the tree of life. Despite what almost everyone thinks, nowhere does it say in the Book of Genesis that Adam and Eve ate an apple. Genesis only mentions that they ate fruit and the ancient Jewish tradition was that this fruit was probably fig, because Adam and Eve afterwards sewed fig leaves together to make themselves clothes. This also helps us make sense of what Jesus said to the fig tree as he was on his way up to Jerusalem for the Passover, “may no one ever eat fruit from you again”.

If tradition says the fig was the tree of good and evil, it also says that the olive was the tree of life. Gethsemane is the oil press where the olive from the tree of life must be crushed. The healing power of the tree of life, holy Chrism, has to flow down upon us from the Paschal Lamb on the tree of the cross.

This blessed night, the gift of the Eucharist, the gift of healing oil, the washing of our feet, reveals in a beautiful way what St John teaches us in the Gospel: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end”.

Tomorrow, Christ our Paschal Lamb will be sacrificed. Tonight, he invites us to come home. He invites us to sit at his table with him to be washed and healed by his oil of love and feed on his body and blood.

Fr Abbot Brendan OSB 

This morning the monks at morning prayer listened to a sermon from St Aelred for today’s feast. It began like this, ‘Today is the Transitus of St Benedict and so I have to say a few words to you. This is particularly so, as you are so eager to listen.’ I hope that is also the case here? Today, 21 March, happens to be the traditional date for the spring equinox. As you probably know from your geography lessons, at the spring or vernal equinox, as it is called, the sun is directly over the equator making its way northwards. Astronomically speaking, it is the start of spring and summer. From now on the days will get much longer and the light grow ever brighter.

On this highly significant day of light, St Benedict passed from this life into glory in the year of our salvation 547. That is what we celebrate today. Today then we are remembering the day St Benedict died. Those of us who have lost relatives and friends will know how important it is to remember loved ones on their anniversary day. However, here the emphasis is different and we can learn a lot from it. The story of Benedict’s passing is told by Pope St Gregory the Great in his book, The Dialogues.

As Benedict was dying, his brother monks held him up, they carried him to the Eucharist. This is telling us that we as brothers and sisters are supposed to carry each other through life. At times we are all in need of this.

We are also told that after his death two monks saw a vision of a road leading from the monastery into heaven and this road had a carpet of light and was flanked by lamps. This is the road Benedict took when he went to heaven. The lamps are his good deeds in life and the shining carpet is charity, which covers all things.

It is also important for us to note that this account is told to us in the present tense. This passing into life is not an end, it is another stage on a journey. Both life and death are journeys and that journey is marked by the lamps of our good deeds and the carpet of love we leave as we travel this road.

Anyone who has lost a loved one will have little difficulty identifying with this vision and will also be able to take from this account great consolation that those we have loved and who have loved us, have passed along this road too on their journey. This is the message the Transitus of St Benedict leaves with us today, on this spring equinox, a day of light.

Fr Cuthbert Brennan OSB

The great prophet Jeremiah walks into our lives this morning and he is one of those people I’d rather read about than live with. He must have been one incredibly tough truth teller, reminding God’s first Chosen People how they had violated the covenant with their Creator, not only because of their worship of other gods but because of the way they had oppressed the poor.

So love of God and neighbour! It sounds familiar doesn’t it? Jeremiah announces a second chance – a fresh covenant, not one with new content but one with a new geography. From now on, the heart not
stone tablets will be the place where God writes his covenant. The late Stacy Simpson, a Baptist minister, in an attempt to understand what a heart inscribed covenant might look like, offers this reflection entitled Branded by God She writes; The image of God writing on the heart of the people is a compelling one, it also has a frightening aspect to it. Think of a tattoo. Pain, indelibility, identity are the central aspects of what it means to be marked. If it didn’t involve pain, it wouldn’t be indelible; marks that don’t hurt are the ones that wash off. If it were not indelible, what it revealed about a person’s identity wouldn’t be so critical.

Maybe you remember your catechism classes as a child where we learned that baptism left an indelible mark on our souls. At baptism a covenant was inscribed on us, our very hearts were tattooed by God. On the very centre of our being, we are fired with love, that same love which called St Patrick back to this land with the gift of the gospel. That gospel which isn’t simply a story showing us a path to life; it’s an education in what things are worth dying for.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single
grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. From Jesus, we learn that divine power is the most subversive force in all of creation. Rather than crush opponents, God’s power undermines evil and the violence it perpetrates. As Mahatma Gandhi explained, “Love is the strongest force the world possesses, yet it is the humblest imaginable.”

Ultimately, the greatest leap of faith Christians are invited to take is to
believe in this entirely counterintuitive and countercultural idea that the
forces of humility, generous love, and tender, nonviolent creativity are the instruments of world change. This is Jesus’ message. He taught that falling into the ground and dying lead to ousting the ruler of this world.

Jesus was planted on Calvary, St Patrick was planted in Ireland, we were
planted deep in a baptismal pool and it is here at our liturgies that we
rehearse transformation, we learn to germinate, we practise dying so that our lives when we leave here, can give seed to justice and care, respect and dignity, love of neighbour equal to a love of God.

Jesus knew what he was living for. And he knew what he was dying for. He was the grain of wheat that died and produced much fruit. That fruit is us. That leaves only one question on this St Patrick’s Day – What are we dying for?

On 6 March 2024, the Benedictine Community at Kylemore Abbey hosted a one-day symposium on the history of nuns and female monasticism, to mark the launch of Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland (Four Courts Press, 2023).

Organised in association with the University of Notre Dame Kylemore Abbey Global Centre, over 75 guests attended the programme, travelling from all parts of Ireland for this unique gathering.

Throughout the long history of Irish monasticism, the experience of women monastics has, until recently, been relatively sidelined. A desire to redress this inspired the decision to dedicate the fifth Glenstal History Conference in 2021 to exploring the various ways in which women responded to the monastic and ascetic vocation in medieval and early modern Ireland, with the publication Brides of Christ bringing together the contributions made at that conference. This work highlights the extraordinary Irish women who found creative and dynamic ways to pursue their calling as ‘Brides of Christ’ between the fifth and the seventeenth centuries, often in the face of tremendous difficulties and challenges.

Last week’s Symposium, entitled Keepers of the Sacred Flame, drew speakers from Ireland and the US, including Dr Tracy Collins of the National Monuments Service; Sr Faustina Greally of the Poor Clares in Galway, Dr Bronagh Ann McShane of Trinity College Dublin; Professor Amy Mulligan of the University of Notre Dame; Dr Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB of Glenstal Abbey, and Professor Deirdre Raftery of University College Dublin.

Following the Symposium, M. Máire Hickey OSB, former abbess of Kylemore Abbey launched Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland. The book’s editors include Glenstal Abbey’s Br Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB and Fr Martin Browne OSB.

To purchase a copy of the book please visit Glenstal’s online shop here.

Fr Lino Moreira OSB

In his dialogue with Nicodemus, a Pharisee who came to see him during the night, Jesus spoke about the light of faith, and at one point he said: ‘As Moses has lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life’ (Jn 3:14-15). Jesus was referring to chapter 21 of the Book of Numbers, where fiery serpents are said to have been sent among the Israelites in the desert to punish them for speaking against God. Moses interceded for the people, and then God told him what he had to do to save them. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole – reports the sacred author. – And if a serpent bit anyone, they would
look at the bronze serpent and live (Nm 21:9).

Nicodemus was very familiar with this story, and Jesus told him that the bronze serpent was an image of himself, and that whoever looked at him with faith would be rescued from the power of Satan and live forever. But what exactly did Jesus mean by saying that the Son of Man must be lifted up? As is often the case in Saint John’s gospel, the assertion has a double meaning. Jesus was not simply predicting that he would be crucified in Jerusalem, he was explaining that his death on the cross would be the moment of his exaltation, the occasion when – having accomplished the task entrusted to him by his Father – he would be glorified with the glory that was his from the beginning
(cf. Jn 17:4-5; 19:30).

Seen in this light, the crucifixion of Jesus was not a humiliation, but
rather a revelation to the world that the Son of Man was also the Son of God, and that the one into whose hands the Father had placed all things (cf. Jn 13:3) was enthroned on the cross as supreme king over the whole creation. That is why Jesus said to Pontius Pilate: ‘You are right in saying that I am a king. For this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me’ (Jn 18:37).

As king of all creation Jesus was commissioned by God the Father to
judge the world on his behalf. And again according to Saint John’s gospel, judgement is an on-going event, not just something that will take place at the end of time. As we have heard today, Jesus gives a verdict for the here and now when he says that whoever believes in him is not condemned (cf. Jn 3:18). And then he explains that a genuine believer is someone who does what is true (cf. 3:21) – an idiom which means the exact opposite of doing evil (cf. 3:20). So we should ask ourselves constantly, as we go about our daily life, whether we are doing what is true – that is to say, whether we are living by the
truth and our deeds are good. Conscious of the many times we have fallen short, we may be inclined to think that the standards set by Jesus are simply too high for an ordinary human being – a fact which seems to find confirmation in Saint Paul’s sobering words: I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want (Rm 7:19). However, perfection is our goal, not our point of departure. Jesus calls all God’s children, saints and sinners alike, to come to him with full confidence, so that through his divine power they may overcome the darkness of evil and experience the joy of a new life. Let us, then, never lose hope, mindful of what our Redeemer said to some Pharisees who were less sympathetic than Nicodemus: ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (Jn 8:12).

All are invited to join the monks of Glenstal Abbey in celebrating the Easter Triduum: the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday, the Celebration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday and the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. The Liturgy of the Hours – Morning, Midday, Evening and Night Prayer – will be celebrated as appropriate each day also. 

Participants in our annual retreat will be able to deepen and enrich their experience of these holy days through a number of talks and and personal time. Talks include:

• ‘Exploring the Silence: Jesus’ Answer to Pilate’s Taunts’ with Emmaus O’Herlihy OSB.
• ‘Food for the Journey: the Eucharist in the Irish Tradition’ with Colmán Ó Clabaigh OSB.
• ‘Life in the Tomb’ with Columba McCann OSB.
• ‘Looking for the Living: Hope for a New World?’ with Nóirín Lynch, director of An Teach Spioradálta in County Clare.

This year’s annual retreat takes place from Thursday 28th March Sunday 31st March with residential (full bed and board), non-residential (meals included) and student options available.

To book please email events@glenstal.com or call 061 621005.