Monastery Our Lady of the Angels

Abbot Raymond’s Trip to Nigeria Jan. 2008

On this year’s trip to Nigeria I was accompanied by our Br Celestine whom I brought back with me to Nunraw last year to join our Community here.

He got a great welcome from his former Monastic Brethren and of course an even greater welcome from his family with whom he spent most of the time of our visit.

During my stay at the monastery the water supply wasn’t working so it was three days before I got the chance of a shower – no small inconvenience in that steamy climate! The only other adventure was when I awoke one morning to see a huge beetle trying to run away with my hearing aid. I don’t know whether it thought it might be a tasty morsel or whether it thought it might be an attractive mate for him!

As regards the monastic life in all its aspects, things are going very well there indeed and they have some fine earnest and talented novices. However there is a very nasty situation arising between the local villagers and the Monks. Some of the villagers say that the Monks should fund the education of their children. This has been a long standing complaint of theirs. But there never was any such agreement.

The old Chief, a devout Catholic, always stood up for the monks, especially against the Pagan element in the Village. However, now that the old chief has died there is no one to restrain them and they have taken to burning the Monk’s crops.

Their valuable Palm Oil Grove was burned while I was there. The Brethren had just finished a hard day’s work digging yams and were just going to bed when suddenly the flames leapt up. They had to rush out in the dark to try to fight the blaze but the grass around the palm trees can be as much as 5 feet high and the blaze was uncontrollable As you can imagine this is a very distressing situation and there was little I could do about it. The Monks have called a meeting with the Village Elders and can only hope that the more reasonable of them will manage to restrain the others and allow the monks to live and work in peace. Meanwhile we can only pray.

Maurus and Placid Again

Maurus and Placid –Further Thoughts.

The 15 Jan 2008 Post on Maurus and Placid has prompted further thought and comment.

The comment about, “Going back to the alleged, “We do not know anything about Maurus and Placid”, it is not true”, much was left unsaid, and in fact it appears there is even more unsaid way beyond the fascinating questions that arise. The point in our Mass Introduction was simply on the Beauty of Holiness, and in particular in the memory of Saints Murus and Placid.

The exclusive preoccupation with written records, now being replaced by adulation of the technology of the digital data banks, can easily cloud perception and sensitivity to the obvious living tradition and continuity in ordinary human transmission of memory, community experience, the physicality of churches, monasteries, shrines etc. The random example of a St. Maurus is but a link in the chain of the life stream of monastic life-history. In that connection, the amazing development of the Maurist Congregation is but another revealing link. The bricks and mortar of ancient monasteries speak volumes. How much louder is the voice of the Beauty of Holiness in the lives that shine through this rich and varied awareness of Saints.

The picture of the Scottish ‘Maurus and Placid’ brings some interesting feedback.

To the community and boys at Fort Augustus Abbey the statue was simply a representation of St. Benedict in an EBC Cowl as patron of the boys at the school. Dom. F., OSB, was kind enough to send the picture of the stone sculpture now located at a suitable site in the Ampleforth Abbey buildings. He wrote that,
“The statue of St. Benedict and two boys came to Ampleforth, where five of the remaining monks of Fort Augustus had joined the community.
It is now erected on a building wall adjoining the monastery and church. A photo attachment is sent with this email.
It is interesting that you saw this as a modern rendition of St. Benedict and Sts Maurus and Placid. That makes a lot of sense. However, I am not aware that this was ever seen as the significance of the statue at Fort Augustus . It was a school icon primarily, and not a monastic one. Hence the boys are in kilts, and the younger is looking to the elder – the descending hierarchy of authority in the school. And both are under St. Benedict (with EBC hood!).
However, Sts. Maurus and Placid fit well.”

Very Helpful. Let me acknowledge; “Many thanks for your kind Email.
Thank you for the picture of the stone sculpture of St. Benedict transferred to Ampleforth.
It is quite unique, and apart from its new Yorkshire location, could not find a more suitable home than Ampleforh Abbey.It will be interesting to compare more traditional iconography of Sts. Maurus and Placid.

Iconography: St. Benedict orders Saint Maurus to the rescue of Saint Placidus. Fra Filippo Lippi, ca.1445.

If there is a Scottish touch to the stone sculpture above, the attached painting seems to show that Fra. Filippo Lippi had a lending to the Cistercians – the white cowls.

Who wrote the Dialogues of Gregory the Great?

All of this has brought me to questions of my own!

If Gregory the Great wrote the Moralia of Job why should literary critics take exception to the hagiographical style of the Dialogues to the extent of denying that Gregory was the author of the Dialogues?

If his scriptural exegesis in the Moralia was thoroughly symbolic, could he not equally well adopt the hagiographical genre of writing in the Dialogues?

Could he not be as versatile as he was accomplished in authorship of both styles?

The allegation of his "promoting superstition" in his stories of, e.g., the miracles of St. Benedict, only seems to indicate the lack of an understanding of the religious outlook of the context.

The scholarship of Francis Clark has succeeded in putting these issues to fore. In spite of the Internet Highway, one drawback is the cost of access. Amazon lists his book, The Gregorian Dialogues, at £182.66.

See Clark, Francis. The "Gregorian" Dialogues and the Origins of Benedictine Monasticism. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 2003. Updates the controversy and refutes attempted rebuttals of the 1987 work. (The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues. 2 vols. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1987).
and its Note: “This book condenses and updates the author's two-volume work, "The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues (Brill, 1987), surveying and clarifying the controversy which that work rekindled. It presents the internal and external evidence showing cogently that the famous book which is the sole source of knowledge about the life of St. Benedict was not written by St. Gregory the Great as is traditionally supposed, but by a later counterfeiter.It makes an essential contribution to the current reassessment of early Benedictine history. It also throws much new light on the life and times of St. Gregory, and confutes the age-old accusation that he was "the father of superstition" who by writing the "Dialogues corrupted the faith and piety of medieval Christendom”.

A gentler introduction is that of
Petersen, Joan M., THE DIALOGUES OF GREGORY THE GREAT IN THEIR LATE ANTIQUE CULTURAL BACKGROUND

Finally, returning to the peace of thoughts on the Beauty of Holiness in the tradition of Gregory is this extract:
The Holiness of Gregory

by James J. O'Donnell
(ccat.sas.upenn.edu/jod/holiness.html#1)

In the Dialogi, the central figure is undoubtedly Gregory, but the interlocutor is of scarcely less importance. It is rather a question of the holiness - - and here the word is not quite the right one -- of the readers of the Dialogi. In emulating Gregory and Peter, they become themselves not saints, not warrior heroes of the soul: but they acquire the 'discernment' (that monastic discretio that so dominates Gregory's catalogues of the virtues to be undistracted by the world and its temptations and to emerge from that world relatively unscathed.

Properly read, then, Gregory's work valorizes not Gregory's holiness but that of his reader. It is a holiness that the Christian reader of Gregory's text learns to acquire through a text. The Dialogi themselves deny 'miracle' a central place very early on: Dial. 2.37, 'hinc ergo, fratres carissimi, hinc certa consideratione colligite, oblata a nobis hostia sacra quantum in nobis soluere ualeat ligaturam cordis, si oblata ab altero potuit in altero soluere uincula corporis.' In short, the most 'popular' of Gregory's works, the Dialogi and the homilies on the gospels, leave the reader in a world, that is to say a text, where holiness is breaking through everywhere, uncontrollably. I mean the holiness that is physically present through the eucharist. Though eucharistic liturgy was increasingly dependent on texts in Gregory's age, it was still then (and in many ways is still now) a venue for holiness that resists reduction to text and narrative. 'Interiority' is a persistent theme of every modern study of Gregory's thought, and rightly so. Holiness is everywhere, holiness is at the altar, and holiness is deep inside the individual.

Beauty of Holiness, Maurus & Placid

15 January

St. Maurus and St. Placid

The Beauty of Holiness

Our Night Office for Sts Maurus and Placid got us off on a wrong footing. It began, “We do not know anything about Maurus and Placid.” It went on with the limp concession, . . . “except for the Dialogue of St. Gregory”.

In the Mass later, the Introduction was more positive; “The beauty of Holiness”.

Without any greater apologia one fact is clear from St. Gregory’s sense of the beauty of holiness in these two young disciples of St. Benedict.

An unusual vision came to mind. I remember once seeing Maurus and Placid being beautifully portrayed in the best of settings. It was at the Abbey of Fort Augustus.

Attached to the school building was this sculpture group of St. Benedict with his young disciples wearing Scottish kilt and sporran above the base of the Corbie (large black raven, classic symbol in Benedictine lore).

I searched every where for a picture of this unique statue. Sadly the school and monastery were closed 1998. It is now ten years since that sad event.

The statue of St Benedict and 2 Scottish boys was commissioned by Fr Oswald Eaves, OSB, who had met the sculptor, Arthur J. Fleishmann (it weighs nearly 2 tons) at the Brussels Exhibition. It was unveiled in September 1960 and stands 9 feet high.

The work disappeared from my ken. Only through the kindness of a Past Pupil of Fort August, Michael Turnbull, have I been able to obtain the above information and the picture. The sculpture has since been moved to Ampleforth Abbey where it is again appropriately expressing the Benedictine dedication to the formation of the young.

Going back to the alleged, “We do not know anything about Maurus and Placid”, it is not true. We learn that St. Maurus was the son of Equitius, born about the year 510, died 584, and that St. Placid was the son of the senator Tertullus. (osb.org/gen/maurus)

Scholarly discussion on the Dialogues of St. Gregory the Great has generated a whole new interest, if not robust controversy, on the subject, (See the studies of Adalbert de Vogue. Pierce Cusack, Francis Clarke.).

Michael Turnbull, mentioned above, has recently published, ROSSLYN CHAPEL REVEALED (Sutton Publishing Ltd). ‘Rosslyn Chapel Revealed’ explains in detail what few have done before — the daily life of the priests and choirboys at Rosslyn Chapel, one of 40 collegiate churches set up as powerhouses of prayer and song — some of the music still happily preserved in major libraries across Europe.

We are looking forward to Michael coming to Nunraw Michael to share some of his discoveries with the community at Nunraw.

Diary opening New Year

Journal for 13th Jan 2008. 1st Sun Ord Time.

Two Weeks of New Year have already got away on me.
Abbot Raymond is expected home from Our Lady of the Angels cistercian Monastery, Nigeria on Wednesday.

We are remembering Francis Ricardo who died 7 January 2008.

Frank was born 5 Oct 1936. He and his his late brother, Joe, came to work at the construction of the new Abbey at Nunraw in 1962. As master-terrazo workers thay had already been working as voluteers. Until his sudden death he had been a resident in one of the cottages of the property. In later years Frank took up work as a male nurse in the Edinburgh hospitals. Not unrelated to that occupation, he became a regular as a Brancardier helping the sick in the annual pilgrimages to Lourdes. He was a member of the Knights of St. Columba. He was well known at St. Mary’s Metropolitan Cathedral. Until the present Christmas and New Year he continued as a faithful Passkeepr at the nine o’clock Sunday Mass.
It would be true to say that Nunraw Abbey became, as it were, the load star, of his wider interestes directed to the Archdicese, Lourdes and the Church.
He was 71. May he rest in peace.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Note the source of the text in the Post for the 1st Jan 2008, Solemnity of the Mother of God, - Origin of the Church in the Marian Consent. (Von Balthaser Reader, trs R. J. Daly 1982, p.213, §49).

Following Von Balthasar might seem a lonely road to travell to find hidden treasures of the spiritual journey. I am happy to discover that this particular less travelled road is now a major Internet highway of interest in Websites and Bloggs.

At the Mass for the Guesthouse this morning I found myself drawing indirectly from Von Balthaser.

The Liturgy for the Baptism of the Lord brings in the links with the Anointing of the Messih from the Acts and the fourfold Gospel account of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan. Since all four Evangelist record the occasion they obviously took it as very important. It is another example of the immersion in the Scriptures which Von Balthasar takes as bedrock in any Christian formation. Side by side with this constant imbibing of the Word he states the necessary context of worship, the liturgical life of accompaniment of people in the Church.

An exclusive concentration on the Bible can rather lopsided. Very devoted scholars can spend a lifetime on the details. The discussion regarding Von Balthasar’s Bible hermeneutics brings in, for one example, the question of ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’. The issue can be very complex, fragmentary analysis of the parts or the synthesising of the whole OT & NT. I suggested that for simplicity’s sake I would invent my own solution and call it CHRONIC, (laugther from the guests). That is, a daily, ‘chronic’, devotion to the Word that has to be embodied in worship, in the Eucharist. It is a big loss for those who claim that they only need nature to enable them to pray in the woods and skies and don’t need to go to Church. What a wonderful life it is to enjoy the framework of Word and Worship in community of the Church . The monastic observance is an obviously privileged environment for this enterprise.

SAINT AELRED Nunraw Patron

SAINT AELRED January 12th. Patronal Feast of Nunraw Abbey

SAINT AELRED (The more familiar form of the name Aelred is Alfred. We are in changed days from the time St. Aelred had 500 monks at HIS MONASTERY OF Rievaulx - DAYS FOR PRAYER FOR VOCATIONS TO THIS SMALL COMMUNITY OF NUNRAW UNDER AELRED'S PATRONAGE).

This painting of St. Aelred reminds me of the former late Abbot of Pluscarden, Dom Alfred Spencer OSB(Subiaco).

He had this picture in the windowsill of his room when I was visiting him during his last illness. He recalled that as a Novice in Prinknash Abbey he wished to take the name of Aelred. Another monk already had that name so his Abbot suggested he take the name of Alfred as a substitute. Before parting Dom Alfred kindly gave me this picture which is now with Fr. Aelred at Nunraw.

Saint Aelred was born at Hexham in 1110. After studies at Hexham, Durham and perhaps Roxburgh, and further sound education at the Scottish Court where he was the steward and the confidant of King David, he entered the newly founded abbey of Rievaulx in Yorkshire. Aelred became novicemaster and afterwards abbot of Revesby, a daughter house of Rievaulx. He was then thirty-three years old, a normal age at which to become abbot in this fresh and flourishing period of a new order.

About 1147 Aelred was chosen abbot of Rievaulx. He died there on the twelfth of January 1167. Walter Daniel, Aelred's enthusiastic biographer, various friends together with Aelred's own writings bear witness that he was a good father, always setting a good example and a source of peace. He could see beneath men's foolish or thoughtless actions, he never seemed to have a grievance against anyone. Aelred used to say: 'It is the singular and supreme glory of the house of Rievaulx that above all else it teaches tolerance of the infirm and compassion with others in their necessities. All whether weak or strong should find in Rievaulx a haunt of peace, and there, like the fish in the broad seas, possess the welcome, happy, spacious peace of charity.'

At first sight a strange theory for an abbot who stood at the head of a severe Cistercian House. But it sheds light on Aelred's character and his affection for everyone of the brothers who lived within the cloister.

No wonder that Aelred's high estimation of love and affection in an ideal spiritual friendship was not always followed or rightly interpreted; by the older and infirm monks. He himself tells of monks being zealous in their malice, whispering in corners, murmuring against their abbot and spreading false reports about him. But the saintly abbot was indifferent to the opinions of these murmurers and indulgent to the feebleness of everyone. He demanded the same attitude of mind from his monks. 'My sons, say what you will, only let no vile word, no detraction of a brother proceed from your mouth.'

Aelred survived in the memory of Rievaulx's monks as the fine and prudent shepherd, as the abbot who loved peace and the salvation of the brethren and inward quiet.

The Mirror of Charity

The essence of St. Aelred's teaching is contained in his book The Mirror of Charity. This was written at the request or St. Bernard. Aelred was slow to comply saying that "he had not come from the schools but from the kitchens where subsisting peasant-like and, rustic amid cliffs and mountains you sweat with axe and maul for your daily bread..."

The following extract from the beginning of the Mirror of Charity illustrates the main theme of the book.

"Let your voice sound in my ears, good Jesus, so that my heart may learn how to love you, my mind how to know you the inmost being of my soul how to love you. Let the inmost core of my heart embrace you, my one and only true good, my dear and delightful joy. But, my God, what is love? Unless I am mistaken, love is a wonderful delight of the spirit: all the more attractive because more chaste; all the more gentle, because more guileless; and all the more enjoyable because more ample. It is the heart's palate which tastes that you are sweet, the heart's eye which sees that you are good. And it is the place capable of receiving you, great as you are. Someone who loves you grasps you. The more one loves the more one grasps, because you yourself are love, for you are charity."

"Meanwhile I shall seek you, O Lord:, seek you by loving you. Someone who advances on this way of love surely seeks you, and someone who loves you perfectly, O Lord, has already found you. And what is more equitable than that your creature should love you, since it is from you it received the ability to love? Creatures without reason or without sensation cannot love you; that is not their nature. Of course they also have their own nature, their beauty and their order, not that thereby they are or can be happy by loving you, but that thereby, thanks to you, by their own qualities they may help us to love you."

In his introduction St. Aelred gives us an interesting tip. He says that if the length of this book puts you off, look through the chapter headings and see which you would like to read, and which leave out. But the main thrust is easy to spot. The art of arts is the art of love.

"Those who love you, rest in you. There is true rest, true tranquility , true peace, true Sabbath for the mind."

Epiphany 2008

To Sr. Christina, (in Australia)

Happy Birthday on Epiphany Day.
And may 2008 bring you many more Blessings and Joys.
Thank you for your Christmas letter and all your great communications/inspirationals in recent months.
The great thing is having Nivard around to catch all the news items I might miss.
Since Abbot Raymond went to Our Lady of the Angels, Nigeria, taking the second organist, Br Celestine, with him, Fr. Nivard has been filling the breach. And so the Work of God - the Choir Office – has continued uninterrupted.
A good neighbour sent us a greeting Card for Epiphany. You may like it. See the Note and attached picture.

Epiphany. Willam Blake ‘Adoration of the Kings’

In this painting by William Blake we see the three Magi dressed in red, orange and purple offer gifts to Joseph and Mary in the stable. An ox and ass can be seen in the corner of the stable. A star shines in through the doorway of the stable. (Presented to Brighton through the National Art Collections Fund in 1949. Art Fund Website preserving the UK’s best art).

Friday we had heavy snow in the East of Scotland. There was a Scottish Border’s Catholic Youth Group planning to come to Nunraw to be de-briefed from their Rome Pilgrimage last Autumn. They would be collected from the various parishes, Galashiels, Melrose, Kelso, Hawick. But it was not to be. It was cancelled. The Sutra main road was closed – incidentally the near-by Poor Clare Sisters of Humbie were also snowed in.

After all the bustle of Christmas celebrations it has been a welcome time to relax.

And it so happened I came across an amazing paper-back to enjoy some light reading. It has been worth it weight in gold.

The sub-title, “Out of Egypt” caught my eye because we had been hearing about the “Flight into Egypt” and I was already searching. Reading, Anne Rice, “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. A novel”, I have not been able to put it down – a rare experience these days.

Anne Rice was a good New Orleans Catholic until she lost her faith at the age of 18 in the campus culture of US University life. She became a best selling author of books on legends of Vampires, covens of witches, etc.

She recovered her Catholic Faith and has now dedicated her work to writing about Jesus.

Anne Rice describes the genesis of her conversion. It began in 1998 with a return to the Catholic faith she had abandoned. Thereafter she embarked on an intense search into the question of Jesus, eventually "reading the Bible constantly" and then devouring all the scholarly works of the prominent Jesus researchers. The book, published 2005, included an Author’s Note giving a most enlightening account of her recovery in the Faith. There are 276 Customer Reviews on the Amazon book Website. Belief Net choose “Christ the Lord Out of Egypt” as the 2005 Spiritual Book of the Year. Her Anne Rice Website contains a wealth of further reading and Links.

Why should the devil have all the best tunes?

During the Christmas UK cinemas are screening the fantasy, “Golden Compass” for the target audience of children.

Reuters reports: Vatican calls Golden Compass movie hopeless

The Vatican newspaper, l’Osservatore Romano, called the movie "the most anti-Christmas film possible", "its objective was to bash Christianity and promote atheism" to children. In author Philip Pullman’s world, hope simply does not exist, because there is no salvation but only personal, individualistic capacity to control the situation and dominate events,”

In contrast, it is reassuring that there are writers, like Anne Rice, to show that ‘the devil does not always have the best tunes’, (. . . wherever that quote originated, see William Booth).

In “Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt”, Anne Rice combines her passionate research with a mastery of the art of story telling. Maybe it could be called a talent for Christian "Contemporary Midrash". It is a gripping narrative of the events of the Epiphany of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, the return to Galilee, the years hidden at Nazareth, apart from the visit of the twelve year old Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem.

“Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son." Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23

On a personal note I was taking up this theme of Jesus in Egypt from reflecting on my own memories at five years old. If the memories of a five year old through wartime evacuation to another country (1939-45) seem to get ever fresher and clearer, the experience of the much brighter Jesus in Egypt could only give lasting shape to his understanding of what we now call the Middle East. Anne Rice brings so much of that Jewish background to the fore in her story of Christ the Lord. Told in the first person of Jesus, at times, the story moved me to tears.

I look forward to the sequel, “Christ the Lord: Road to Cana”, due for publication March 2008

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Solemnity 1st Jan 2008

HOLY FAMILY 2007

From Abbot Raymond
Dear Associates.

I am off to Africa on 1st Jan. to inspect our Monastery of Our Lady of the Angels in Nigeria.
I will be away for two weeks.
Please pray that it may be a safe and spiritually profitable trip.

Meanwhile here are some thoughts on today's feast of THE HOLY FAMILY.

HOLY FAMILY 2007
When the Son of God entered this world there was a great flurry of activity in heaven and on earth. Angelic messengers were sent scurrying here and there: to Mary, to Joseph, to the Shepherds, to the Magi, and Hosts of Angels sang in the sky. The infancy stories are a patchwork of beautiful and intriguing and very memorable events. But then, apart from the loss and finding in the temple when Jesus was twelve years old, there is complete silence for another thirty years. We know that Jesus began his public ministry only when he was about thirty years of age.

What then are we to make of those thirty long silent years. By any standards thirty years is a long time in anyone’s life. They must have some import, some deep meaning for us. When we think about it, it is not so hard to understand, and it is very comforting to the very least of us. Jesus came to show us what life is all about and how to live it. So he is surely saying to us by his hidden life that the meaning and purpose of life is not to be found in doing great things. It is to be found in the simple round of ordinary everyday life. It is to be found in the way we cope with our daily duties, no matter how small and unimportant they seem to be . It is to be found in our daily dealings with those around us. It is to be found in the beauty and harmony of our relationships with those who share our lives. Love is its own standard of greatness. It is not measured by external accomplishments, no matter how great.

Let us examine ourselves then regarding our attitude to life. Are we content with our little lot, do we find peace and personal fulfilment in it? Or do we hanker for bigger and better things. If so we are surely missing out on life. Just as the greatest things in life are free. So, the littlest things in life are the most satisfying and fulfilling , when properly understood, in the light of the thirty years of hidden life of Christ.

________________________________________________________

Two Christmases – Response.

The Two Christmases – Response.

Our friend David has kindly agreed to let me include his response to Abbot Raymond’s Christmas Day Mass Homily.

The picture, a family heirloom of the Abbot, most aptly illustrates the theme, “the Angel left her”.

___________________________________________________________________

Letter from David:

Dear Fr. Raymond,

I found your homily on Christmas day, which you have copied here in part, most moving. I have long meditated on the annunciation. If I say the odd decade of the rosary, this is the one I tend to favour. The conception of Jesus is the most powerful of all mysteries. How can we comprehend it? Yet we are an intimate part of this mystery…. The most intimate part. Mary, our mother, was, in one sense, “but” an instrument of God’s love for us all. We look to her as our mother, and yet she is “only” our mother because God the Father loves us all as his children. He created the whole world and mankind, not “just” Mary. He made us in his own image and likeness! We tend to think of her as special and the rest of humanity as “nothing”. This is wrong. Mary is special, but so are all of us. She is special precisely because and only because we are all special.

We all yearn for love, perhaps (probably) selfishly. Yet here we have the proof that God loves each one of us in the same way, yet infinitely, that we all yearn to love, and be loved. In her “fiat”, Mary showed her love not only of God but of all mankind, selflessly. She knew what her assent to the Divine will meant. She was steeped in the scriptures. We tend not to understand just how much this understanding of scriptures shaped her whole realisation of who she was. It was the basis of her totally sublime love of God. We must not forget that Adam was immaculately conceived in the same way as Mary was. Mary still had free will, as Adam did. But Mary chose not to eat the forbidden fruit. Instead, she handed herself over totally to the will of god. At every moment in Mary’s life she chose the best path. This was not just a “spur of the moment” thing at the time of annunciation, as our lives tend to be. There was not a single moment where she faltered. How wonderful is this?

It was because she understood and loved so completely and so steadfastly that she could become the mother of Jesus and be the guiding hand in her son’s upbringing. Where we try imperfectly to assent to that love in faith, after her loving assent to the will of God, she “knew” because she had conceived of the Holy Spirit and not of man. But this conviction only followed the conception, the “proof”. And she rushed off to Elizabeth to have this proof confirmed.

Mary’s total conviction must have been an influence in the childhood upbringing of Jesus. He knew who he was because Mary knew who he was. How could she not, from the earliest age, have told him of this mystery and talked to him about what it meant and what it would mean to him and to her. Joseph was also convinced of who this child was, or he would have divorced Mary. We know this from the Gospels. This conviction of Mary’s is more than faith. It is an incredible mystery. How could Jesus, the man, remain steadfast in this conviction? Think of his temptations. The devil, who is far from stupid, thought he could shake his belief in himself or he would not have bothered tempting him. His mother is the root of his faith in himself. We might tend to think that such an idea is heresy, since he is Divine. But he could not rely on his divinity. He is equally human and thinks and works as we do. His mother and Joseph are the ones that cement his conviction of who he is. His own life of prayer and self-denial confirms this conviction and brings his divinity to bear on that conviction. As a man he has to believe in himself until the moment of his death. It is both at the last supper, where he asserts his faith, and definitively in his resurrection that he confirms this faith in himself.

For me, the most telling moment is when he cries out on the cross “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. At that point he is truly human. He is dying as a man for all men. This is what he believed. Thus he came into the world. And thus, as a babe, in the arms of his mother, he learned who he was. Blasphemy again, but there is a very real sense in which Jesus is no more divine than we are. He is left hanging on the cross shouting at his Father for having abandoned him, only his faith left. He did not have Mary’s conviction at that point, only his own powerful faith, nurtured by Mary, in his father and in his own mission. There is great comfort in this thought. We must believe in our own mission and in our own resurrection, as Jesus did.

You said in your homily that “the angel left her” before the moment of her conception. What a moment that was. Mary alone in the Divine presence. The point you were making, I felt, that genuinely brought tears to my eyes, was that we can all share this moment. At any time in our lives we can share it, whenever and wherever we want. We only have to say with Mary the prayer “fiat”. That “fiat” brings Jesus into our soul and heart just as it brought Jesus into the womb of Mary. Thus, we can share in her conviction that her son is the son of God, and the belief that our lives and our death can bring Jesus into the world and our own poor souls to heaven. This experience, this “fiat” can lead to more than faith, it can lead to sharing in the conviction of Mary, just as Jesus did.

God bless, and thank you.
David.

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Christmas blessings to all our associates

from

Fr Raymond and the Community

TWO CHRISTMASES

Abbot Raymond at Christmas Day Mass

THE TWO CHRISTMASES

If we think of Christmas as the celebration of the Incarnation; the celebration of the Word of God becoming Flesh, then it is right and fitting that the event should be celebrated publicly by the whole world. It should be proclaimed aloud on the housetops for everyone to hear; for everyone to learn about and rejoice in.

But it is also right and fitting that there should be another celebration; a secret and hidden one. One that would acknowledge quietly the ineffable wonder of this Great Mystery; a wonder too great for words; a wonder to great f or any kind of adequate celebration; too great even for God’s angels to appreciate. And in fact there is such a celebration. And this celebration is found not only in the liturgy of the Church but in the liturgy of the living events of salvation history and even in the liturgy of heaven itself.

This other and hidden celebration of the Incarnation is what I would like to call, the “Other Christmas.” Note that I don’t call it the “Second Christmas” because, in fact, it was the first of the two. It was, in fact, that most precious moment when the Most Blessed Virgin Mother conceived the Word of God in her sacred womb. This moment was the very highest point in human history. No matter what happened after that, nothing could ever equal the sublimity of it. It was the very moment when Heaven touched the earth; when the Creator bestowed his most loving kiss upon us his creatures. So let’s compare these two very different celebrations of the Incarnation.

At the first, the annunciation, it was most intimate and private and secret. Not only was no one else in the world present, but not even the angel Gabriel was present for this most sacred of moments. We read that the angel Gabriel announced: “Behold you will conceive and bear a Son” and then to assure the frightened little Maid he says: “For nothing will be impossible to God” then comes that most significant phrase, “and the angel left her”. Yes not even the greatest of the angels was worthy to be present at the moment of that conception. It was the most intimate and sacred, one to one event of all human history. How fittingly it is said then that “The angel left her”.

The second celebration, the Bethlehem Scene, is open to all the world and to heaven itself. There are myriads of angels in the skies above singing “glory to God in the highest and peace on earth to men of goodwill” and the representatives of all peoples, the shepherds, the magi, are there. Then the whole of Christian society down the centuries openly proclaims and exults and rejoices in Mary’s bringing forth of the Divine Babe.

This is all most fitting, of course, but, as we join with the whole world and with the angels of heaven themselves in the joy of our public celebrations on this Christmas of the year 2007 let us remember also that most silent and intimate moment of the incarnation when only two were there: God and Mary. And let us beg her that she may share something of the sublimity of that moment with us her children.

Mary and Joseph

Mary and Joseph...
Some thoughts on Joseph's role in the Christmas Saga.

A Blessed Christmas
from
Fr Raymond

IT IS NOT GOOD FOR WOMAN TO BE ALONE
Joseph’s role in the Christmas Saga is much more than providing a smokescreen for the virgin birth. His presence on the scene certainly meant that, to all intents and purposes he was the father of the child and so there was no scandal and Mary didn’t have to run the gauntlet of shame as an unmarried mother. To the shepherds, to the Magi, to all the neighbouring countryside she was a married woman and there was nothing scandalous about her childbearing. However, I would like to think that there is a much deeper significance to Joseph’s role in the story than that.
This significance is hinted at in that primordial word of God spoken about the human race when he first created it: “It is not good for Man to be alone” This saying is equally valid in the form “It is not good for Woman to be alone”.
From this dawn of the creation of our race, at every great juncture in the history of salvation, man and woman have appeared side by side.
We read from the very first “So God created Mankind in his own image, male and female he created them”. Then when they fell, it was together they fell, both equally implicated in their fall. Then at the flood it was not just Noah who was saved, but Noah and his wife. And so on down the centuries of the Patriarchs; the stories are not about the Patriarchs themselves but about the Patriarchs and their wives; not about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob but about Abraham and Sara, about Isaac and Rebecca, about Jacob and Rachel. And how very significant the role of each of the Matriarchs is in salvation history! This pattern arches over and undergirds the whole of salvation history right down to the coming of the Angel Gabriel to announce the conception of the Saviour. The Angel Gabriel is sent, not “to a Virgin whose name was Mary” but “to a virgin betrothed to a man”. Moreover we are even told the man’s name, Joseph, before we are told that the Virgin’s name was Mary. As much as to say that it is more important for us to realise her bond with Joseph than to know her personal name. It is as the representative of the whole human race that she stands before Gabriel. It is not to her as the solitary Virgin Mary that he is sent, but to her as the primordial “Woman” of prophecy.
Then when the Christ, the New Adam, does arrive, and when he finally sets about the work of our redemption, Mary, the New Eve, is always at his side. She is there not only during the scenes of the infancy, but right to the last, to the top of Calvary’s hill . She stands at the foot of the Cross. Here again we restore the original form of our opening quotation: “It is not good for man…..” not even this man, or rather, especially for this man, and especially at this climactic point in mankind’s history, “it is not good for this man to be alone.” “….at the foot of the cross stood Mary his Mother”.
And after Our Lord's glorious Ascension into Heaven, he, the New Adam, reached back down to earth and caught his Mother, the New Eve, by the hand and lifted her bodily into the "New Paradise".
It is not good for Man, or Woman, to be alone.
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Striking Gold in Ambrose

Striking Gold on a Vanishing Reading from Ambrose of Milan.
The ‘pale moon was rising’ on the 20th December when I took this snap of the Child Jesus head high over Mary in the Hew Lorimer sculpture of Our Lady of the Isles. The figure in the picture was the preliminary "maquet" made by the artist for the granite statue on South Uist.
In this model the Child Jesus places his left hand on top Mary’s head with great assurance, and looks out to the world with his right hand in the sign of blessing. One could accompany a video of the subject with the Great O Antiphons expressing the titles of the Saviour in the last seven days preparing for Christmas. O come, O come, Emmanuel, (John M Neal).
In that context the Reading at the Night Office was ringing bells for me this morning, 21st December. It so happens that this wonderful Reading does not appear in the more recent Edition of Word in Season. Not to worry, the same Reading is part of the ‘Breviary’ for today. (Note: ‘Word in Season’ 1981 Edition. New edition 2001).
During Advent we think of the two persons most directly involved in the history of our salvation: Saint John the Baptist and our Lady. Ambrose shows how God prepared each of them for their vocation, and then applies Elizabeth's words to each individual believer. The commentary from which this passage is taken is made up of homilies given between 377 and 389.

Saint Ambrose writes:

When announcing the mystery to the Virgin Mary, the angel helped her to believe by giving her a precedent. He told her of the motherhood of a woman who was old and barren, for this demonstrated God's power to do whatever he wills. At this news Mary set out for the hill country, not because she doubted the angel's word, felt uncertain of the message, or questioned the precedent, but because of her own eager desire.
She was anxious to be of service and joy impelled her to make haste. Filled with God, where could she hasten but to the heights? The Holy Spirit does not proceed by slow, laborious efforts. Quickly, too, the blessings of her coming and of the Lord's presence were revealed: As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting the child leapt in her womb and she was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Notice the choice of words and the meaning of each one. Elizabeth was the first to hear Mary's voice, but John was the first to be aware of grace. She heard with the ears of the body; he leapt for joy because of the mystery. She was aware of Mary's presence, he of the Lord's. The woman perceived the presence of a woman, the child that of a child. The women spoke of God's grace while the children gave effect to it within them, revealing to their mothers the mystery of love, and by a double miracle the mothers prophesied under the inspiration of their sons.
The child leapt in the womb; the mother was filled with the Holy Spirit. The mother was not filled before her son, but once he had been filled with the Holy Spirit, he filled his mother too. John leapt for joy and so did the spirit of Mary. When John leapt Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, but we do not learn that Mary was then filled with the Holy Spirit, only that her spirit rejoiced.
Her son, who is beyond our understanding, was active in his mother in a way beyond our understanding. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit after conceiving a son; Mary was filled before. You are blessed, said Elizabeth; because you have believed. You too are blessed because you have heard and believed.
The soul of every believer conceives and brings forth the Word of God and recognizes his works. Let Mary's soul be in each of you to glorify the Lord. Let her spirit be in each of you to rejoice in the Lord. Christ has only one mother in the flesh, but we all bring forth Christ by faith. Every soul free from the contamination of sin and inviolate in its purity can receive the Word of God. The soul that attains this goal glorifies the Lord just as Mary's soul did, while her spirit rejoiced in God her Saviour. The Lord is glorified, as we read also in another text, Glorify the Lord with me, not because the human voice can add anything to the Lord, but because the Lord grows and is glorified within us. Since Christ is the image of God, the soul that does what is right and holy makes brighter that image of God in whose likeness it was made, and in so doing is exalted by a certain participation in its grandeur.

From a commentary on Saint Luke's gospel by Saint Ambrose (Ub. 2, 19.22-23.26-27;CCL 14, 39-42)

Knights Templar

Knights Templar. Christmas Carol Service.
On Saturday 15th December the Knights mustered, with their families, to the Abbey Guesthouse Chapel for a Carol Service.
Expectations were heightened by some delay in the arrival of the good Knight who produced the Carol booklet. A large seven branch candelabra MINORA seemed an apt focal form of illumination in the Chapel. The organist had brought his own keyboard and set the atmosphere under the painted ceiling of the shields of the Holy Roman Empire. The singing ushered in a procession of the Knights in their Red & White regalia.
Without too much organizing the five carols gave the framework in which the members contributed Reading Intercessions etc.
There was a short Christmas meditation.
'A light that shines in the dark."
“ ‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse ... " So begins "The Night before Christmas", the story of a visit by St Nicholas on Christmas Eve. The author, Clement C. Moore, wrote it for his children nearly two hundred years ago.
In Beverley Minster, in York England, there is a misericord that has an image of mice dancing while a cat plays a fiddle. Centuries ago people danced to carols and so perhaps this is what the mice are doing. They and the cat are full of joy and (unusually for cats and mice) they are friends. It brings to mind the prophecy of I~ that the "wolf will live with the lamb" for, through God's gift, humanity w redeemed and creation restored to its original innocence. This is aja great that it should make us dance. (from The Living Word).
The illustration is of the seal of the Grand Priory of South East Scotland and the Nunraw shield. Note the symbol of the Lamb bearing the Templar (Cistercian) flag, halved in black and white.

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Peace 'abounds even more'

Some thoughts on the coming Prince of Peace.
Fr Raymond

“Peace! Peace!” – but there is no peace!
The Christian proclamation about the coming of the Messiah says that: “The wolf will live with the lamb”; “The calf and the lion cub feed together”; “Justice and peace will flourish.” Are Christians so blind to the reality of things? Is our never ending chronicle of war and violence; of hunger and homelessness what we call the peace of the Messianic Age? We know the Bible is true in speaking of the peace and justice of the Messianic age. Yet we know the newspapers are also true in portraying the woes and afflictions of society. How can we reconcile these two “Truths”?

The answer perhaps is this: We are living in two different, coexistent, worlds at once. The Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Satan. The Kingdom of Satan gets much more publicity, but the Kingdom of God is very much more alive and active. Great works of evil are taking place around us daily, but there are also great works of goodness, compassion and service, taking place around us. Consider the countless humanitarian organisations of all kinds focussing around the globe wherever there is misfortune or sickness or any kind of need.

Yes, evil abounds but the Scriptures assure us that: “Grace abounds even more.” There a great flood of love and peace at work in the minds and hearts of men. Let us not be deceived by the smog of evil. The Kingdom of God is truly among us.

Lilies for the Immaculate Conception 8^th December 2007.
Our thanks to the kind donor.

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St Lucy

St. Lucy, Nunraw, Lucia di Lammermoor.

The feast of St. Lucy. December 13, has something of a resonance at Nunraw which, in the guise of the RAVENSWOOD of Walter Scott’s novel, the Bride of Lammermoor, is also celebrated in Donizetti opera, Lucia di Lammermoor.
St. Lucy is one the most popular names for centuries.

We thank God for the gifts of light and of eyesight dramatized in every aspect of the story of the martyrdom of Lucy and the traditions associated with her name. She is the patron of all those who suffer eye ailments and blindness.

Drama, music, art and poetry have recounted the moving experience suffered not only by Lucy but by those denied eyesight at birth, impaired by disease or by violence. One can easily add the feminist aspect to Lucy’s death. The martyrdom she suffered for her faith had the hallmark of male domination in the vengeance of the thwarted suitor for her marriage.

The poet John Donne was still following the old calendar when he wrote, A Nocturnal upon Saint Lucy's Day. It is interesting to note that Donne wrote his will on St Lucy's Day (December 13th) 1630. His poem 'A Nocturnal upon S. Lucy's Day, being the shortest day' concerns his despair at the death of a loved one. Donne expresses a feeling of utter negation and hopelessness, saying that "I am every dead thing...re-begot of absence, darkness, death". In that melancholy state it seems he chose to write his will on the date he had described as "Both the year's, and the day's deep midnight."

On St Lucy’s Day it is interesting to recall the Fr. Michael Sherry’s account of the Walter Scott connection. Sir Walter Scott. “It has been said that Nunraw has a strong claim to be recognised as the "Ravenswood" of Sir Walter Scott's "Bride of Lammermoor." (Trans. E L. Antiq. Vol. 1, Part V). This tradition led Lily Pons, world-famous for her interpretation of the part in Donizetti's opera, "Lucia di Lammermoor," to visit the original "Ravenswood" in June, 1948. She was much surprised to find it occupied by monks. It is known that Sir Walter Scott stayed in Gifford, while doing some of his writing, and took long walks in the vicinity of Garvald. Certainly there are points in the description of "Ravenswood" castle as "in a gorge of a pass or mountain glen ascending from the fertile plains of East Lothian" (Chap. II) and his mention of the ancient proprietors as inter-married with the Douglasses and Hays, which support the claim. Further, Scott's reference to the rumour of Lucy Ashton's marriage as the most talked of matter "betwixt Lammer Law and Traprain" certainly shows that the locality was providing him with a backdrop to his story. In his introduction, Sir Walter admits that his story of the reluctant "Bride" is founded on several versions of the marriage on 24th August, 1669. of Janet Dalrymple, daughter of the first Lord Stair, to David Dunbar of Baldoon, near Wigtown, followed by the death of the unhappy girl three weeks later The historian will hasten to point out that all this took place in Galloway nearly a century before the Dalrymple family's short ownership of Nunraw”. (Nunraw Past and Present, 1950, see Nunraw Website).

Later study of the background is to be found in Wikipedia, “Synopsis -
The plot of Sir Walter Scott's original novel is based on an actual incident in the history of the Stair family. Events take place in the Lammermuirs area of Lowland Scotland, in 1669. It may be noted that while the libretto retains much of Scott's basic intrigue, it also contains very substantial changes in terms of characters and events.
The story concerns a feud between two families, the Ashtons and the Ravenswoods. When the opera begins, the Ashtons are in the ascendancy and have taken possession of Ravenswood Castle, the ancestral home of their rivals. Edgardo (Sir Edgar), Master of Ravenswood and last surviving member of his family, has been forced to live in a lonely tower by the sea, known as the Wolf's Crag. The Ashtons, despite their success, are threatened by changing political and religious forces. Enrico (Lord Henry Ashton) hopes to gain the protection of the important Arturo (Lord Arthur Bucklaw) to whom he intends to marry his sister Lucia (Lucy)".