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.
Our flock of Wiltshire horn sheep has increased tremendously this year. Eleven lambs were born in the octave of Easter, including a set of triplets. Mothers and babies are doing well. They were not affected by the Schmallenberg virus which has been causing birth defects in lambs in other parts of Hampshire. Two lambs had trouble with their feet and were walking on their knuckles, but the abbot put a splint on them and they are now fine.
The bees have come back to life. We have twenty-five colonies. First inspections showed them to be good and strong and healthy, but the weather changes often throw them into confusion at this time of year. The photographs of the sheep and bees were taken by Brother Michael, probably with a long -distance lens for the bees!
The picture above shows Fr Wulstan’s coffin shortly after its arrival in the Abbey Church. On it are a chalice and stole and, on a silver dish, his trademark woolly hat which he wore for work, and latterly during the day and the night.
The following are notes from Fr Abbot’s reflections on the life of Dom Wulstan.
Oh dear, dear, Fr Wulstan. We have spent so long trying to work out how we were supposed to live with you. Now we are having to learn how to live without you! So far it has been very hard indeed.
When I was first made prior of the community at the tender age of twenty-nine, Fr Wulstan shuffled along and smirked – ‘That makes you my father’, he said. He liked the idea of having a father who was an awful lot younger than he was. A little while later he shuffled up to me again and laughed this time. ‘You’ll have to preach at my funeral’, he said. And what a challenge this is! What a short straw to draw! What on earth is one supposed to say at Fr Wulstan’s funeral?
He himself had his own preaching style. He never preached on the gospel, but took a more Lutheran approach and usually preached on St Paul in general and the Letter to the Romans in particular. He would often whet our appetites by beginning, ‘The gospel today…….’ but then bring us down to earth with a bump, ‘is self-explanatory’. Or what of the poor bride at whose wedding he preached? ‘I frankly prefer funerals to weddings,’ he began, ‘there’s no come-back at funerals!’
Although he has died at the grand old age of ninety-nine, he has still managed to take us by surprise. A friend of the community remarked yesterday that he ‘had a good innings’ – but then asked what sort of cricketer would claim a good innings if he had so narrowly missed scoring a century. The poor Queen had her pen poised to write that telegram for Fr Wulstan’s 100th birthday this year, but he has pulled the paper from under her. As Fr Aldo remarked: ‘Instead of a letter from the Queen he gets to see the face of God – a wonderful consolation prize!’
He kept a photo in his desk drawer of himself – little Reggie Hibberd, as a youngster at Epsom College almost one hundred years ago. Everything that we knew of the old man is in that young man; the hair lip, the eyes refusing to meet the camera. In many ways the picture looked just like the ninety-nine-year-old version, but in a peaked cap and shorts. I would have dearly loved to use that photo in his memorial booklet but in the last months he cut himself out and chopped himself up into little pieces. Typical Fr Wulstan!
He was rather like one of those hard chocolates with a soft centre which he loved so much. There was a crusty – even difficult – exterior that had to be navigated before you found the treasure within. He could be phenomenally rude and abrupt. When I was a little eighteen year-old novice, he turned to me at the sign of peace and said ‘I hate you’ – and then he smiled. It took me years to work him out. One had to discern that there was often a great gulf between what he said and what he meant. You had to persevere to be a friend of Fr Wulstan, and it was worth the effort. In the community we would hear him in the bathroom, practising the complaints he would make about us later in the day. They would usually start: ‘I am sorry Fr Prior, but I must protest….’ Splash, splash. Then later in the day on passing the Prior’s door you might hear the same voice at the live performance of his complaint to the Prior. He could be phenomenally rude. Occasionally he met his match. He asked an English Heritage officer if he could get a grant for being old. The English Heritage officer told him he wouldn’t get a grant but might well be subject to a preservation order!
He had a wicked sense of humour. In the last years he occasionally celebrated Mass in his room. ‘Let me be quite clear about this Mass,’ he said to the brother deputed to assist him, ‘In the primitive Church the sign of peace was given, so I shall insist on the sign of peace! And in the primitive Church communion was given under both kinds, so I shall insist upon it! And in the primitive Church there was no enforced clerical celibacy!’ We were worried about how this last one might affect the rubrics!
He took delight in the attention given him in the evenings and mornings. The monks compared his getting up to the Levée of Louis XIV and his going to bed also had various levels of ritual. He would giggle on his bed like a child as we shouted ‘Wiggle!’ to get him in the right position on his pillows, and he would glow with joy as we genuflected as the dish with his false teeth was carried by!
In his own emotional life he was somewhere between a soup and a jelly – but he was a rock of stability for so many others. He would describe himself as a reluctant Benedictine and said that he had never lived a day without wondering whether he would not have been better placed elsewhere. Yet in his eighty years in the monastery he proved himself a giant of monastic stability. That Pauline doctrine of being perfected through weakness was very much his. Although he never really got to grips emotionally with his own vocation he held together the vocations, marriages and lives of so many others. I can think of so many little examples. He shook the hand of one of my friends and saw his wedding ring. ‘Always wear that’, he said, ‘never take it off’. To a young person: ‘never lose that smile’. When I told him that he had been a spiritual director to two bishops and an archbishop of the present hierarchy, he grunted, ‘I can’t remember these people’.
And yet – at the end of his life all of us who lived with him have to confess that he was an exemplary monk. His room was a centre of the monastery, the heart of the house. He would read his Greek New Testament – especially the Gospel of St John. He pored over the Fathers of the Church – but thought St Augustine’s Latin ‘shoddy’ in places. He would read Newman’s sermons – mostly the Anglican ones it must be said- but didn’t approve of the beatification. ‘Newman was a great man and had a great mind, but he held grudges for years on end. Yes, I know you are going to say that I didn’t speak to Fr Odo for years, but I’m not up for beatification, am I?!’
He remained faithful to the Divine Office until the very end. Even in his nineties he would climb the hill to attend the Office, and would then spend twenty minutes descending the stairs to the crypt backwards, to return to the monastery. Those who saw him at community prayer saw only the tip of the iceberg of the great effort and sacrifice he made to participate in that prayer. Once confined to his room, he fell asleep so often with the breviary in his hands, that we were not surprised when eventually he fell asleep in the Lord still armed with his psalter.
And the loss to us is massive. We have not known what to do with ourselves in these last two weeks. He was a brother to the brothers, a father to the brothers, and a grandfather to the brothers. We adored him.
Fr Wulstan would frequently complain that he couldn’t do more. He swept the drive for fifty years, having taken the job from Dom Zerr who swept it for the preceding fifty, – and was still out there in his nineties with Brother Thomas. Then he did the refectory and the washing-up, though he dribbled so much that we had to wash up all over again once he had left the kitchen. He took care of the library, though the logic of the shelving was very much his own. We tried to work out why certain books were together in a corner. The only answer we could come up with was ‘books by monastic authors of whom Fr Wulstan doesn’t approve.’ He burnt our copy of Monks and Movies by Abbot Upson.
He always wanted to contribute to the life of the community and often apologised that he couldn’t. In the end he could do very little and yet did not understand how his contribution was massive and at the heart of community. His ability to reach across the generations was to be marvelled at and our young brothers should never forget the privilege of being formed at his feet. They would cut his hair and cut his nails, and listen out for him in the night when he needed help or reassurance. Not many one-hundred-year olds end their days with twenty-something-year–olds as their closest friends and companions. Not many twenty-somethings have that privilege.
A French friend commented yesterday on the grande humanité of Fr Wulstan. – I can hear Fr Wulstan grunting, ‘grande humanité? O my!’
St Benedict directs his sons not to be successful but to be faithful. ‘He that perseveres to the end shall be saved.’
The gospel, Fr Wulstan, may well be self-explanatory. But just as the film gives life to the book, the Beatitudes make a deeper impression on us when we see them lived in a Christian soul.
The gospel has been self-explanatory to us in this brother whose life we have been privileged to share. Christian death has been also, in many ways, self-explanatory. We have watched Fr Wulstan die so well. He would call us in every time he remembered another little fault he thought he’d committed against us. It was as if he were ticking everything off his little check-list in recent months, before departing from us.
And so we give thanks to God, for such a remarkable lesson in fidelity and humility. We cannot begrudge him the rest for which he longed. But we commend his soul to God with fervent prayers. We ask for him a merciful judgement and speedy company with the saints. And the greatest honour we can pay him is to add to these poor prayers of ours our own resolve to be faithful to the memory of our dear Father Wulstan by our own perseverance in prayer and fidelity and attentiveness to Christ’s call to each of us.
The community bade farewell to Fr Wulstan with a Solemn Requiem Mass celebrated in the Abbey Church. Despite his absence from public life for many years, the church was packed to the doors and a great number of mourners were obliged to stand. Many of his friends travelled great distances to be with us. One oblate of the community crossed the Atlantic for the funeral. Monsieur and Madame Mabin came from France for the day with the abbot’s little God-daughter, Brune, and many personal friends of Fr Wulstan came from all over England. We were pleased to see a number of old friends at the Mass. Two of our former organists, Dr Anthony Noble and Andrew Knowles were present, as were Dr Anthony Geraghty and his father and other members of the former Abbey Choir. A number of those who had tried their vocations with us across the years were present, and we were pleased to catch up with their news.
Our Brother Michael was at one of our monasteries in the United States when Fr Wulstan died and so he flew home for the occasion. Our friends the Praemonstratensians from Chelmsford were represented by their Conventual Prior, Fr Hugh and their Brother Stephen who assisted on the sanctuary. Monastic brethren from other monasteries came to support us, as did Fr Aldo Tapparo, an old friend of ours who is a parish priest in Oxford.
Fr Wulstan’s body was moved to the Abbey Church the evening before the funeral and the coffin was placed in the centre of the sanctuary and choir. On the coffin was placed a stole and the chalice of Fr Benedict Steuart. Fr Benedict was a Farnborough monk who went to be first Prior of Caldey when the community converted to Catholicism. It was under him that Fr Wulstan began his monastic life, during what Fr Wulstan always called ‘the Benedictine’ years.
In a break with our tradition, the organ was used for the Requiem, and in addition to the Chant, the hymn O Thou who Camest from Above was sung with great enthusiasm by all.
Fr Abbot spoke in the course of the day about Fr Wulstan. We will reproduce his notes in the next blog instalment.
Our oldest monk, Fr Wulstan, died on Saturday. He was 99 years old and more than 79 years a son of St Benedict, almost 70 years a priest. With him dies a great chunk of the history of our community and his loss is keenly felt by our little community, especially by Brother Thomas, Brother Michael, and Brother Anselm who cared for him day and night for these last years.
Dom Wulstan was born in October 1912 in Essex, the son and grandson of officials of the Westminster Bank. He studied at Epsom College from 1926 to 1930. Having fallen under the High Anglican spell of ‘South Coast religion’, which was at its height at the time, he was received into the Catholic Church in May 1928. In August of 1930 he took the Capuchin habit at Pantasaph Friary, but left the following May, convinced that the Franciscan way was not for him. He would often recount that the Capuchin declarations obliged him to sport a beard ‘both natural and manly’ but the teenage Reginald Hibberd was not up to a beard, so he left.
He visited Farnborough Abbey for a week in August 1931. He fell in love with it. The community at the time was nigh entirely French, but a young junior from Romford, Brother Joseph Warrilow, encouraged him to apply. Abbot du Boisrouvray discouraged him. ‘There is nothing here for an English,’ he said. The abbot’s English was not strong, the novice master spoke very little English, and even Joseph Warrilow had been obliged to spend 6 months at Malestroit before entering Farnborough. So, rejected by his first love, he went to Prinknash Abbey near Gloucester. Fr Wulstan’s father approved of Prinknash because in those days a dowry was expected from the candidate to pay his keep, and Prinknash’s rates were more reasonable than Farnborough’s.
Prinknash was at its height. Its conversion from being an Anglican community to being a Catholic one had attracted vocations and it was full of energy and youth. Fr Wulstan would boast that the oldest member of the community in those days was in his 60s, and they all thought him ancient! Fr Wulstan had no room when he entered, but had to make do with a curtained bay-window near the present-day sacristy. His Novice-Master was Fr Illtyd or ‘Tootles’ as Fr Wulstan called him.
Eventually he was ordained deacon. He was always keen to point out that the grand ordinations of today were not ‘traditional’! He was ordained deacon quietly in the Lady Chapel of Downside Abbey while the Conventual Mass was in progress in the main church. He lamented that today’s ordinations resembled society weddings.
In October 1942 he was ordained a priest. His ordination was delayed because he was discovered reading the Church Times. For a convert to read an Anglican newspaper was evidence enough that he might be seeking valid orders in order to return to the Church of England. As an old man he would still sneak the Church Times to his cell tucked inside the Catholic Herald, and often complained that the Church of England he loved no longer existed.
He found his early monastic life frustrating. He would tell tales of picking strawberries which were left to rot, and claimed that the Prinknash of before WWII defined itself more by what it didn’t do than by what it did. ‘We do not preach’ he would say, we do not serve parishes, we do not do this, do that, or do the other…I was often left wondering what exactly we did do!’ He took delight in giving an example of the futility of his work. He spent years in the vestment workshop sewing maniples, only to find their use discontinued in the 1960s.
Two World Wars had depleted the Farnborough French community and they approached Prinknash in the hope that some English monks might be loaned or donated to turn Farnborough into an English-speaking monastery. Negotiations with Abbot Wilfrid Upson proved fruitful, though when the deal was sealed it was felt that the jurisdiction for Farnborough would be better given to the Cassinese Congregation of the Primitive Observance. Solesmes was still ‘la Congregation de France’ and the future of Farnborough would be English. So Father Wulstan found himself able to return to his first love, Farnborough, in 1947. He would often tell stories at recreation of Dom Zerr, the last French monk to die at Farnborough in the 1960s. Zerr thought that the English arrivals ‘barked like dogs’ when they sang out the chant rather than whispering it in the French manner. So Father Wulstan was a great bridge – the only person to have met all three abbots of Farnborough. From 1961 until the 1980s he served as guest master, and was responsible for tours of the church and crypt. A famous actress attended one such tour and followed him onto the sanctuary for a closer look at the altar. ‘Madam,’ he said, ‘kindly remove yourself from my sanctuary.’ ‘Do you know who I am?’ she retorted. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea or interest, ‘he replied. ‘Kindly remove yourself from my sanctuary!’
He loved the Second Vatican Council and would eagerly read each new decree with his friend Dr Alan Porter. He would frequently advocate avant-garde liturgical practices but would denounce them wherever he witnessed them in other places! He said he hated Latin but would sway, and raise and lower his gradual as he sang the chant and clearly loved it. He said he liked the way we sing the chant at Farnborough because ‘we sing it as it is written, without the new-fangled theories ruining it’. He loved correcting spiky novices on ceremonial. There was a discussion once about ceremonies at Mass. ‘No, no, no’, said Fr Wulstan, ‘ you young ones know nothing ! the deacon doesn’t stand at the side and pass the holy water, he maintains an erect posture at the epistle corner whilst he proffers lustral water to the abbot!’ He feigned a lack of interest in the liturgy and liked to think of himself as being Protestant in his tastes, though this was far from true.
He said he liked Therese of Lisieux ‘because she was a simple bible Christian’. He was too. He always had a Greek Testament to hand and loved the commentaries of the giant scholars of the nineteenth century. He loved history and would read again and again his favourite authors and biographies. Architecture too was a passion. He loved the Cathedral of Amiens, and would take day trips there, but wouldn’t stay the night in case he had to eat foreign food or meet a French person. He always claimed to detest the French, perhaps a throw-back to his rejection in the 1930s. He referred to them as our ‘eternal enemy’. He claimed not to know a word of French language, though two published works in our library give his name as the translator! Americans also suffered under him. A young American beamed, ‘Have a nice day!’ Dom Wulstan replied, ‘Don’t assault me with your New World imperatives!’ Woe betide anyone who intruded an Americanism into a refectory reading, or thought it all right to write alright! To say ‘O.K.’ was to end the conversation. His between-the-wars English had no time for changing pronunciation. The Book of Common Prayer was at his side till the end. He read the psalms again and again and would offer the first two or three of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion as beautiful and orthodox expressions of the doctrine of the Trinity. His post communion thanksgiving was always a eucharistic hymn from the English Hymnal in his choir stall. He would follow the words with his finger. He considered the hymns of Wesley Catholic. . He was delighted to hear from brethren from Ghana that their language was Twi. ‘I like the idea of talking twee!’ he said. He had no truck with modernity. The radio was the wireless. The car was the motor car.
He was ‘old school’ when it came to poverty. He was given ten pounds in a birthday card once, and asked to retain five to buy a second hand book. He then handed in the change of three pounds.
He was not always easy. Once, during a Visitation, a monk of another house complimented him on being so helpful. ‘I had always heard you were the most difficult man in the province’ he said. This hurt Fr Wulstan a great deal and every few weeks he would recall this comment and the pain that it caused him. If it were true of his earlier years it was certainly untrue of his old age. He could be difficult, but those who persevered in friendship with him found him kind in the extreme and a faithful friend. For a time he assisted in the parish within which the monastery is located. He would visit some families and take Holy Communion to the elderly. For a couple of years he assisted the Benedictine nuns of Oulton as chaplain – his first experience of life outside of the monastery since his teens.
In the mid 1980s he gave up his bicycle. He would sweep the main drive of the monastery most afternoons, a task he took over from Dom Zerr in 1947, and would make little bonfires of the leaves. These provided a natural clock for the other working monks who could see that tea time was approaching as the fires got nearer to the monastery. Even in his 90s he would help Brother Thomas with this task. His signature woolly hat which served him in his outdoor work went with him to his chair and to his bed. When the abbot brought him Holy Communion he would knock this hat onto his shoulder. He remained faithful to the Divine Office for as long as he could. The Abbey Church at Farnborough is built on a hill, and so he would return to the monastery via the internal staircase to the crypt, walking backwards down the stairs for safety. He loved the liturgy, and knew the rubrics and old monastic customs and ceremonies very well. He would repeat and indeed lived, Abbot Cabrol’s frequent saying that a monk should always be in the chapel, the library, at his work, or in his cell.
For the last few years he was confined to his room, which came to be a centre of the life of the community. A steady stream of faithful friends came to see him. His German friends visited annually. He gave up his pipe, which he had smoked for years, though some pleasures continued. Although he never left his room, a drawer of Cadburys’ chocolate buttons miraculously replenished itself. He was spoon fed his meals by the brethren, and took great delight in being fed occasionally by Fr Abbot. ‘Shows how things have changed since my day!’ he would comment. The young members of the community adored him and very much miss him. There was a ‘saying goodnight to Fr Wulstan’ ritual after supper and before community recreation. He would encourage perseverance and stability by his words and by his example. Fr Wulstan once declared himself a ‘reluctant Benedictine’. He wondered daily where other paths might have led him, yet, after more than 79 years in the Benedictine habit he proved his stability in the monastery and his perseverance usque ad mortem even unto death.
His last public engagement was the Golden Jubilee of priesthood of Fr Magnus last September. We carried Fr Wulstan downstairs in his wheelchair to the refectory. He burst into tears, and the young monks rushed to wipe his eyes and hold his hands. One of the guests was very moved by this and commented on how he had realised that a monastery is, in fact, a family.
In his last weeks he constantly thanked the brethren for their kindness to him and asked forgiveness for any ways in which he had offended them. Often in the night he would press his call bell and ask for the abbot to check that he had said all the office the abbot had agreed he should say. Towards the end, this was just the canticles of Lauds, Vespers, and Compline. He would usually fall asleep before he reached the ‘Amen’.
On the 18th February he was unwell after breakfast. Fr Abbot anointed him and one of the brothers read morning prayer to him. At the end of these prayers he fell asleep in the Lord.
May he Rest in Peace.
Fr Wulstan’s Requiem Mass will be at the Abbey on Friday March 2nd at 2p.m.
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 6 Neil Wright (Farnborough Abbey)
June 3 Peter Stevens (Westminster Cathedral)
July 1 Fausto Caporali (Cremona, Italy)
August 5 Nigel Kerry (OLEM Cambridge)
September 2 Peter King (Bath Abbey)
October 7 Neil Wright (Farnborough Abbey)
Today a Requiem Mass was celebrated for the repose of the soul of the Emperor Napoléon III who lies buried in the crypt of our church. The Souvenir Napoléonien sent a delegation to lay a wreath at the tomb and Fr Abbot had a long chat with the Princess Napoléon in Paris to catch up with news of the family. Tonight the Princess will hear Mass at the Church of Saint Augustin in Paris for the repose of the Emperor’s soul.
The French history of the Abbey means that we often are asked to welcome French visitors and groups. This weekend we welcomed a French scout troop who came to our Sunday Mass, renewed their scout promises and braved the English weather. A few years ago Fr Abbot performed the marriage of Nicolas Métivier to his wife Jeanne-Marie in the cathedral at Sees. Nicolas first came to Farnborough as a scout. This year sees the ordination to the priesthood, at Notre Dame de Paris, of Paul-Marie de Brunhoff, a scout of the same troop who is an old friend of the Farnborough community. It is a great encouragement to us that such fine young men as these have remained such faithful friends of our monastery across so many years. God bless them, and God bless this weekend’s scouts as they make promises which will help shape their future !
St Cecilia’s Abbey, Ryde is a cloistered community of Benedictine nuns of the Solesmes Congregation. They are good friends of our community. They have been blessed with a number of young vocations who have persevered to solemn vows in these last years. This week saw the profession of Sr Elizabeth Burgess. She made her solemn (life) vows as a nun and received the Consecration of Virgins. Our abbot was delegated by our bishop to preside at the Mass and concomitant ceremonies. The liturgy took over two hours and was sung in Latin in exquisite Gregorian Chant.
Sister’s faith owes much to the Oxford Oratory Fathers. A good number of them were present and participating in the Mass. Their Provost, Father Daniel, preached a fine homily. He also sang a fine song at the recreation afterwards, as did Fr Dominic ‘give me a B flat’ Jacob. They added much to the happy atmosphere of the day with their presence and good humour.
If you have daughters – send them to Ryde!
The nuns of the Carmel of the Holy Trinity are much more technologically gifted than their Benedictine brothers at Farnborough! They have added a short video of their recent solemn profession to their news page.
http://carmelitesnottinghill.org.uk/video-of-sr-desiree-solemn-profession/
We were kindly invited by our neighbours at Douai Abbey for the simple profession of Brother Anselm (photo-left). Douai is, like us, in the Portsmouth Diocese. We are a diocese rich in monasteries, since to Farnborough and Douai must also be added Quarr, Ryde, and East Hendred. We are a forty-minute drive from Douai and have many friends there, indeed our abbot and Fr Alban are old friends from their student days. We were interested to see the profession rite of the English Benedictine Congregation. The novice signs his chart at the altar, does not sing the Suscipe, and is given the cowl. In our own tradition the chart is signed on the altar only at Solemn Profession, and the cowl is given only at solemn vows. A fine tea followed in the guest refectory and we were able to catch up with Douai’s news and chat with old friends.
On 30th November, Feast of St Andrew, Sr Desirée of Jesus made Solemn Vows in the Carmel of the Most Holy Trinity, Notting Hill, London. Our Fr Abbot presided at the Mass and preached the homily.
The Fathers of the London Oratory have long been friends of the monks of Farnborough. Many of the fathers make their retreats with us and they come to us to prepare for ordinations. Recently Fr Edward Cong. Orat. was ordained. Three of us went to attend the ordination.
Fr Abbot laying hands on Brother Edward:
The altar prepared for the Solemnity of Christ the King.
We were blessed with a visit from our friends the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer yesterday. They visited us for the afternoon and evening, Vespers and Benediction, then they stayed with us to eat. Fr Abbot dispensed the silence at supper so that we could use the limited time of their visit to hear their news and catch up with their progress. Their community uses the 1962 Missale Romanum and their spirituality and observance are rooted in the early vision of St Alphonsus Liguori. Their monastery is on a remote island in the diocese of Aberdeen. God bless our friends
, the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer!
