We were blessed with the presence of no fewer than five deacons for the Triduum, all from the North American College in Rome. These fine young men will all be ordained priests in the next months. They added much to the ceremonies of Easter and were able to fulfil the requirement of the canonical retreat in preparation for their ordinations. We were delighted to welcome them and to be part of this important step in their lives.
Dom Anselm spent some of his Lent on the well-worn route to Compostella. The weather was not at its best and so the trip was thoroughly penitential in character. The blog http://dialoguewithtrypho.blogspot.co.uk/ gives some accounts of the pilgrims’ journey.
When the Papal Nuncio was unable to celebrate Pontifical Mass at the Shrine of St Augustine in Ramsgate, Fr Abbot was able to step in at the last minute and celebrate and preach. The evening included the blessing of a new reliquary of St Gregory the Great and the dedication of the newly-refurbished cloister garth. Fr Abbot preached on the inadequacy of the monks in the face of their daunting task, and the evangelical power of the daily monastic round and perseverance in prayer and work.
We are pleased to announce the dates of our traditional summer organ recital series. The Cavaillé-Coll at Farnborough is a magnificent instrument, and there are some fine musicians coming this summer to help you appreciate the fact! Recitals start at 3pm, and are on the first Sunday of the month. There is no charge, simply a retiring collection.
May 5 Neil Wright, Farnborough Abbey
June 2 Ulrich Klemm, Stuttgart, Germany
July 7 Cindy Castillo, Basilica of the Sacred Heart, Brussels
August 4 Johannes Trümpler, Marialaach Abbey, Germany
September 1 Jean-Pierre Maudet, Vannes Cathedral, France
October 6 Neil Wright, Farnborough Abbey
A number of followers of this little blog have asked us for more photographs of Dom Michael’s profession in January, and for some explanations of the ceremonies.
For most of you, the most striking aspect was the use of the funeral pall during the litany of the saints. This use was recently reintroduced into our monastic ritual after an absence of thirty or forty years. It is a powerful depiction of the monk’s resolve to die to the world and rise to a new life in Christ. To be ‘buried’ in the way that St Paul speaks of baptism, since monastic profession has long been closely identified with Christian baptism.
Having been questioned about his intentions and resolve to persevere in the obligations of his vows, Brother Michael read his profession chart.
It read as follows:
In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen.
I, Dom Michael Tomas Vician, of Jalsovik in the Diocese of Banska Bystrica, promise for life stability, conversion of life and obedience, according to the Rule of Our holy father Benedict in this monastery of Saint Michael at Farnborough, in the Subiaco Congregation, before God and the saints whose relics are preserved here, in the presence of the Right Reverend Dom Cuthbert Brogan, abbot of this monastery, and the monks of this community. In witness whereof I have written this document with my own hand, on the 5th day of January in the year of our Lord two thousand and thirteen.
Having read this, he showed it to the abbot and monks and to the clergy and people present, and then signed it on the altar. At our simple professions it is signed on the credence table, but at solemn vows it is signed on the altar and, once the abbot has countersigned it, is placed under the corporal, and the Mass is celebrated on it, as a powerful symbol of the monk’s sacrifice being united to the cross of Christ.
The monk then sings the ‘Suscipe’. This is the ancient song of monastic self-offering. Just as on Good Friday and Holy Saturday we sing the Ecce Lignum or Lumen Christi three times on ascending note, so we do with the suscipe. The chant translates, ‘Uphold me Lord according to your promise and I shall live. Let not my trust in you be disappointed.’ The first half he sings with his arms outstretched. The second half he sings humbly kneeling with his arms crossed over his breast. For all these rites, Brother Michael’s friend, Father Christian Leisy of the Abbey of Christ in the Desert, New Mexico, acted as his ‘godfather’ and accompanied him.
The newly-professed was then clothed in the full monastic habit – the cowl. This garment of long sleeves shows that the monk is reclothed in Christ, he has ‘put on the new man’ as St Paul puts it.
Finally comes the presentation of the signs of profession. The Antiphonale Monasticum, newly-bound in calf by the abbot, was presented as a sign of Brother Michael’s obligation to ‘put nothing before the work of God’ – the divine office. All then give the new monk the kiss of peace.
The Mass then proceeded as usual.
Fr Tibor, of the London Slovak Mission, was particularly pleased by our efforts to produce a Slovak translation of the ceremonies for Brother Michael’s family and friends.
And Brother Michael’s parents and his ‘little’ brother David were very proud of him. David was in his village’s particular version of national costume for the day.
Adriana and Jozef, Brother Michael’s parents were beaming with pride, and with thanks to God for the wonderful vocation to which their son has been called.
Amongst Brother Michael’s friend were young Milan and Veronika, who were married last year.
They were not the only Slavs present on the day.
After the Mass there was a great celebration lunch. The abbot lifted the monastic enclosure, so many of our friends had their first view of the interior of the monastery. Our monastery was built for a very small community. We moved the tables of the refectory to allow for a large number of guests.
Bishop Egan, Prior Hugh O.Praem., Provost Ignatius Cong. Orat. and Brother Michael’s parish priest and family, enjoyed a little more elbow room in business class – our monastic calefactory was transformed for the day. On the window ledge, the Infant of Prague showed his solidarity with the Monastic Order by wearing his cowl.
We were pleased to welcome today His Excellency Monsieur Bernard Emié, Ambassador of the French Republic to the Court of St James. With his charming wife and daughters he came to visit the Abbey and to see the tombs of the Imperial Family in the Abbey Crypt with Professor John Rogister.
Given Napoleon III’s contribution to the entente cordiale, it was a delight to welcome His Excellency to Farnborough for his first visit to us. He added a number of details about the Empress’ life to our knowledge of her, especially about her grand tour at the time of the opening of the Suez Canal.
In the course of each year we receive many French pilgrims at the Abbey, but it is a particular honour for us to count the Ambassador amongst them.
Dom Michael Vician (aged 28) made his Solemn Profession on January 5th after five years in the monastery. In a ceremony lasting more than two hours, Brother Michael lay prostrate on the sanctuary floor, covered with the funeral pall whilst the Litany of the Saints was chanted, a sign of his death to the world. He then sang the three-fold Suscipe me Domine chant (uphold me, Lord, according to your promise, and I shall live…), read his chart of profession, was clothed, in accordance with ancient custom, in the Benedictine cowl and presented with the Antiphonale Monasticum as a sign that he should ‘put nothing before the Work of God’.
The monastic community welcomed many friends for the occasion. Among them were the Premonstratensian Canons of Chelmsford, Oratorians, Carmelites, Dominicans, Blessed Sacrament Fathers, and Benedictines of other monasteries, including nuns of Tyburn where Fr Abbot has served as confessor for many years, and the Novice Master of Douai Abbey.
Bishop Philip Egan, the recently consecrated bishop of the Portsmouth Diocese in which the Abbey is located attended as a guest of the monks and spoke at the end of the Mass:
‘In today’s culture, organised religion and in particular Christianity, is often side-lined or relegated to the private domain. Even some of those who do profess a religion, tend to treat their faith in the manner of an ‘added-extra’, a hobby, something extrinsic to the rest of their living. Yet as we saw symbolised so powerfully in Bro. Michael’s prostration on the floor of the sanctuary, covered with the funeral pall, not only for him but for anyone whom Jesus has called to be his disciple, faith can never be an added-extra. Our love for God, our discipleship of Christ, our Catholic Faith is never just a hobby. It has to be the most important thing in life. My faith is the most important thing in my life. My love for Jesus Christ has to be the most important thing in my life. –Because Jesus Christ and His Gospel is the only way to true, genuine, lasting human happiness and fulfilment. Indeed, as St. Augustine taught, the human heart is restless until it rests in God. This is why being a disciple of Christ, being a friend of Jesus, being in love with God and giving myself entirely to him, is the most exciting adventure a human being can ever undertake.
Today, we rejoice in the Solemn Profession and Monastic Consecration of Brother Michael Vician. It’s a wonderful day, a day of great joy and happiness, a day never to be forgotten for Bro. Tomas Michael, for his family and for this dear community of Farnborough Abbey, dedicated to St.Michael the Archangel. I thank Abbot Cuthbert for the invitation to be here today as the Bishop of the Diocese in which this Abbey stands. And so on behalf of all the priests and people of the Diocese of Portsmouth, I invoke the prayers of our own patron saints and martyrs, above all Mary Immaculate and St. Edmund of Abingdon. May the Lord bless you abundantly. We wish you, Bro. Michael, every happiness in your vocation and we promise to pray for you that every day you will be faithful to your vows and grow deeper and deeper in love with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.’
A much larger selection of photographs of the day will appear on the blog shortly.
Our Brother Michael and Brother Anselm today were present at the reception of a dozen Anglican sisters into Full Communion with the Catholic Church. They were received by the Ordinary of the Ordinariate, Mgr Newton, in the Oxford Oratory Church.
We welcome and congratulate these brave women. The ‘conversio morum’ conversion of life of our Benedictine Rule is not just a conversion we make at the start, but one we should make at every moment of our monastic life. These sisters, after many years of leaving all for Christ, have again left all for Christ today and thrown themselves into an uncertain future and the hands of Providence.
We are delighted to hear that the Rule of St Benedict will be a guiding star for them. By waiting until January 1st they have chosen to be received in the centenary year of the Caldey conversions. It was in 1913 that Abbot Cabrol of Farnborough and his friend Blessed Columba Marmion sailed to the Island of Caldey to welcome the Anglican monks there into what Newman called the ‘one true fold of the Redeemer’. It was lovely that some Farnborough monks should be present for this occasion today. God bless these dear sisters!
Fr Abbot shared some thoughts on Fr Magnus, whose funeral took place yesterday in the Abbey Church. Our little community was delighted to be supported by brethren from Prinknash and Pluscarden, as well as Chilworth, Douai and Ealing abbeys, and diocesan clergy friends.
Magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde: These words begin the confessions of St Augustine. You are great O Lord and worthy to be praised. ‘Magnus’ means great, a great man. ‘Man’ – the confessions continue – ‘is but a particle of God’s creation. God rouses us to delight in His praise; for God has raised us for himself and our hearts to not rest till they rest in Him.’
Young Michael Wilson and siblings.
From the outside our Fr Magnus always seemed to be a very restless man – he could not keep still. He blamed this on events in his childhood. If chatting in the kitchen he would wipe the surfaces as he spoke. When the monks looked after the parish for a while, parishioners were so taken aback at his energy that he quickly picked up a series of nicknames – the Flying Scotsman, Perpetual Motion, the Elgin Marvel! In the liturgy he could not keep still – there was always a twitch or a sudden look around. A visitor saw him twitching during Mass and said ‘that man has not long for this world’ -this was in 1965. A visiting deacon remarked that assisting Fr Magnus at the altar was like deaconing an unexploded bomb. In the refectory in the 1980’s we would have recorded music during lunch on Sundays. If Fr Magnus was the server that week you were in for a treat. Swan Lake would have him gliding down the lino, to the 1812 Overture he would crash down the stainless steel dishes with the cannon fire.
Magnus the Salopian.
Magnus in the kilt just before entering the monastery.
The interior was quite different. Solid as a rock. If your first principles were right – then everything else would fall into place. Fr Magnus was a lawyer. He had studied law at Oxford, before his conversion to Catholicism and transfer to theology. He helped write our Constitutions to bring them up to date wiht the new Code of Canon Law. His Prinknash nickname was ‘Fr Crash Barriers’ -– the gospel is the road, he said, and you should be fine with the gospel – but leave the road and you need the crash barriers. When our community hit some canonical bumps on its road, Fr
Young Magnus with no trousers.
Magnus never doubted that we were right and things would end well, and he was right and things did end well. There were other certainties – the double entry system never let him down. He was particularly happy when –during the restoration work on the Abbey Church in 2000 –he proved the mighty computers of English Heritage to be wrong in their calculations. The computer was out by 18 pence – Fr Magnus’ double entry books were right.
Magnus the little novice in his short scapular
He was quite tight-fisted as a bursar. I could never get out of him how much money we did or didn’t have. If I asked how much we had in the bank he would answer ‘we can’t touch our reserves.’ When I told him the Provincial Chapter had raised the amount an abbot could spend he replied ‘that’s very nice for those who have that sort of money.’! In the mid 1990s you would find a calendar on the wall from the 1960’s. If the first of January is a Monday and this is a leap year – then you don’t need to waste money on a new calendar! So his office continued in a 60′s time -warp with the old calendar and its pictures of Scotland. When a delegation of monks approached him about the need for a new kitchen, he suggested a new strip of Formica on the table would brighten the place up.
duly professed and tonsured.
He was a creature of rituals. The bath at 12 minutes past four on a Wednesday. The daily faithful slamming shut of the windows which Fr Wulstan had faithfully opened earlier. Then there was the infuriating endless winding of clocks with his scapular over one shoulder – it used to drive me nuts – and now I find myself doing exactly the same thing.
Go to him with a problem and you couldn’t wish for better. Even though he was very trying to live with, he was the most supportive and gentle community member one could hope to find.
The kitchen door bell would ring in my early days and people giving strange names would come to see him, ‘Ginger’ for example. They were members of an Alcoholics Anonymous group, who would come to chat with him. The 12 steps of AA was another of Father Magnus’ systems. He knew their programme so well that many presumed him to be a recovering alcoholic himself. His novices, from his novice master days knew his kindness. Many of his ex-novices who found that the monastic life was not
After his first Mass with his Dominican friend Fr Fabian - who was present at his funeral.
their vocation, nonetheless, continued to drink from his wisdom and found it helped them in their marriages and secular lives. Magnus was a true gentleman – his courtesy and deferential welcome was afforded to all in like measure.
As a monk he was one of the great figures of the province and our Congregation. He had been the first postulant of Pluscarden, the Novice Master of Prinknash , Prior of Farnborough, member of the Provincial Chapter from time immemorial, member of the Juridical Commission of the Subiaco Congregation. It was unthinkable for anything to happen without his being involved in it somehow. As a monk he was utterly reliable. Always at the Divine Office. He had a Padre-Pio sort of quality of always being back in choir when we all thought he was out at a meeting or some other duty.
ordination day
His singing was awful – he would listen very attentively to the pitch pipe at the start of the office and then sing a completely different note. He preferred the 6th Gregorian mode – ‘three blind mice – in the sixth mode – no dreadful semitones.’
He delighted in the poem of George Mackay Brown which said that his patron ‘St Magnus the Martyr Earl of Orkney had been ‘armed with the psalter.’
He was armed with the psalter when his health began to suffer. His stroke occurred in choir – during vigils on the Solemnity of St John the Baptist. We were told he would not wake up, but he did – while I was trying to access our bank accounts. His last four years with the Little Sisters of the Poor saw him abandon his bed, then his wheelchair then his Zimmer , then his stick. When I lunched with him a few weeks ago he was mooting being the main celebrant at Mass again. He lived to speak with the Holy Father during his visit to England.
Il faut toujours dire, Dieu soit béni, – you should always say blessed be God- a saying of St Jeanne Jugan the foundress of the Little Sisters. This, Fr Magnus explained was the same as our Benedictine Ut in omnibus glorificetur Deus that in all things God might be glorified.
Magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde: you are great O Lord and worthy of Praise. Today, O Lord, we return to you our beloved Magnus – a great man – a poor creature in whom you awoke the delight of your praise, whose soul ,we pray, will find its rest, now that it truly rests in you. Amen.
The funeral of Dom Magnus Wilson will be at the Abbey Church on Wednesday November 28th at 2pm, followed by burial in the monastery cemetery. An obituary will follow on this site.
Earlier this summer there was a meeting of the Provincial Council of the English Province of the Benedictine Congregation of Subiaco in our monastery. Farnborough was a good choice, because we are near to the London airports and brethren were coming from Scotland and Chicago for this gathering. The Benedictine Order is not an order in the way that others are. It is a confederation of various Benedictine congregations, and these congregations are themselves groupings of monasteries which, in our tradition, are independent and autonomous. The Congregation of Subiaco is very large, with monasteries in five continents. It is broken into provinces, of which the English Province is one.
The province’s governing body meets every four years at the provincial chapter, and in between chapters the province is governed by an abbot visitor, assisted by his council. Our Visitor is the Abbot of Pluscarden, Abbot Anselm Atkinson. His council is elected and our abbot is one of the two abbots elected to the council.
The term ‘English’ in English Province is misleading. The English Province includes monasteries in Scotland, England, Germany, Ghana, the USA and Mexico! Our Visitor therefore has delegated some of his duties to our Abbot Cuthbert, who will care for the monastery of Christ in the Desert in the US, and its houses in the US and Mexico. This nomination of our abbot as ‘Vicar’ has been approved by the Provincial Council and by our Roman authorities. It means that our abbot will be responsible for carrying out or arranging the canonical visitations and for encouraging monastic life in the houses of this ‘vicariate’.
A little groups of us took some young visiting religious to Waverley Abbey, an old Cistercian ruin, not far from our abbey. We walked there and gathered within the walls of the ancient abbey church and sang the Salve Regina and prayed for the souls of all the monks who had lived and died there in centuries past.
Today we celebrate the Feast of title and a wonderful solemnity for us. Usually our Conventual Mass is at 6.30am, but this morning we celebrated at the decadent hour of 8am! Our feast day is an opportunity to greet all our friends, and also to bring you up to date with our news of the summer, which we will do in the next days.
Our Abbot Cuthbert and Brother Michael visited Brother Michael’s family in Slovakia. They went to the cathedral at Nitra to visit the places associated with the ancient Benedictine saints Andrew Svorad and Benedict the martyr. The bishop invited them to lunch and presented them with the gift of relics of these saints in his private chapel in a gallery looking down into the cathedral. We were delighted to welcome these saints to our monastery, and the abbot was delighted to meet some of the clergy of Nitra, who afforded him a very warm welcome.
During the same visit they were pleased to encounter the Benedictine nuns of Trstín. They are living in a little village together in order to prepare for the move to their new huge monastery, to which they took Fr Abbot and Brother Michael for a visit. The advance party consists of two Germans and a Slovak. The nuns were very pleased indeed to have some Benedictine company for the day, especially when they are so far from their own mother-house in Italy.
We are often described by local people as an ‘oasis’ in Farnborough. As the town has grown around us, we remain a very green area. Geographically speaking we are at the heart of the town, though we probably fulfil the role of its lung more than anything else! We are blessed with a number of helpers and volunteers. Recently the ‘Blooming Marvellous’ group from Rushmoor Volunteer Services returned to do more clearing and tidying of our woodland. They were joined by staff from ‘Enterprise’ car hire, who came to help as part of their company’s interest and investment in the local community. A day of hard, solid, work brought good results. Fr Abbot gave our visitors a tour of the church and crypt at the end of the afternoon.
We were pleased to welcome another group of young people from the Slovak Mission in London for a weekend of prayer. Young Catholics from the parish there have made us a ‘second home’ in the last couple of years.
We rejoiced with our friends, the nuns of the Notting Hill Carmel, at the Solemn Profession of Sr Pamela of the Holy Spirit on May 10th.
Four of us attended the Mass and the reception which followed. Bishop Arnold was the celebrant, with a good number of priest friends of the community supporting him.
Fr Abbot has just returned from St Cecilia’s Abbey, Ryde, http://www.stceciliasabbey.org.uk where he preached the annual retreat. His theme was the Christian Altar, using the rites of dedication as a peg on which to hang various themes of monastic spirituality and practice.
A visiting priest recently asked if we were ‘twinned’ in some way with Ryde!
We are not ‘twinned’, but we do enjoy a strong friendship with the community there. Our abbot has received the last two Solemn Professions, we have collaborated on several publications, and support each other with prayer and such mutual help as we are able to give.
Fr Abbot and Dom Michael attended the four hour Mass of Dedication of the Abbey Church of Saint Michel de Kergonan in Brittany. Farnborough and Kergonan have many historic links as well as modern bonds of friendship. Five years ago the Abbey Church of the nuns burnt to the ground and had to be completely rebuilt. The liturgy was a model of what one might call the new Liturgical Movement. It was utterly monastic. Four hours of chant, of lavish ceremonies, processions and profound symbolism. The bishop was clearly at one with all that was happening, and carefully drew on the richness of symbolic fare in his homily.
It was interesting to see that some ceremonies absent from the modern rites were included. For example, the Bishop traced Greek and Latin alphabet in sand (Kergonan is by the sea!) on the pavement before the sanctuary.
There were abbots galore and nuns from everywhere! Monks and nuns alternated the chant. Our abbot was pleased to see so many old friends from the Congregation of Solesmes, as well as abbots of other orders and Benedictine congregations. We are looking forward to seeing the DVD which was filmed on the day. We know that some of our friends will be amused to see the concelebrants’ vestments , prepared for some of the abbots.
Le Barroux – Farnborough – Fontgombault. Les Francais!
Three of the brethren attended the ordination to the sacred priesthood of Frs James Bradley and Daniel Lloyd of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in St Patrick’s, Soho Square. Bishops Hopes, an auxiliary bishop in Westminster, presided and Mgr Newton preached.
Brothers Michael and Anselm had the honour of being in the sanctuary serving. Our community has done its best to welcome and support those Anglicans who have taken up the Holy Father’s generous initiative.
We have had some lovely people passing through our portals in the last month or so. Dom Aidan Bellenger, abbot of Downside dropped in for a fraternal visit. Lord Nicholas Windsor dropped in with another friend of ours to say hello to the abbot. Major works in the monastery have obliged to us to limit guests at the moment, but we were able to accept a small group of retreatants for Holy Week.
Fr Aldo Tapparo, an ‘old’ (no offence Father!) friend of the community, came for lunch in the Easter Octave with Fr Nicholas Edmonds-Smith of the Oxford Oratory. Brother Michael cooked a superb lunch of poached salmon in a Martini, walnut and French bean sauce with halved grapes.
We also were delighted to offer hospitality to two ordinands preparing for ordination. Chris Seiler (pictured below), of the North American College, in Vatican City, came to prepare for his ordination to the Diaconate. Also we welcomed Deacon James Bradley for his priestly ordination retreat. Deacon James deaconed our Conventual Mass beautifully. He is a member of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, which enjoys full communion with the Catholic Church, but which brings with it Anglican patrimony. An English seminarian also spent a few days of retreat with us.
Please pray for these two in the early days of their ministry as priest and deacon in God’s holy Church, and pray that many more will respond to the Lord’s call to the priesthood and the religious life.
