Saturday 30 July of the Seventeenth Week in Ordinary Time.
MASS of the Saturday of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
The exciting news of a monk of Glenstal Abbey elected to the monastery of the Dormition Abbey in Jerusalem.
Fr. Gregory Collins wrote The Glenstal Book of Icons, Praying with the Glenstal Icons. An extract from his Byzantine prayers commemorating Mary is apt for this Saturday Votive Mass.
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| Father Abbot Gregory Collins OSB |
New abbot of the Dormition
With profound gratitude to God and to all who in these days have accompanied our monastic community in their prayers,
we are happy to announce that on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 the monastic chapter of our Abbey, presided over by Abbot Primate Dr. Notker Wolf OSB, has elected
Father Gregory Collins of Glenstal Abbey,
as the sixth abbot of Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.
we are happy to announce that on Tuesday, July 26, 2011 the monastic chapter of our Abbey, presided over by Abbot Primate Dr. Notker Wolf OSB, has elected
Father Gregory Collins of Glenstal Abbey,
as the sixth abbot of Dormition Abbey on Mount Zion in Jerusalem.
The Monks of Dormition Abbey
Gregory Collins OSB, The Glenstal Book of Icons (Dublin: Columba Press, 2002)
Prayers before the Icons of Mary as Hodegetria, p, 59.
Calling to mind our all-holy, sinless, most blessed and glorious Lady, the Mother of God, and ever-virgin Mary, let us commit ourselves, and one another, and all our life to Christ our God!
(Byzantine prayer commemorating Mary)
Let us magnify the Mother of God, the Mother of the light!
It is truly right to praise you, all blessed and immaculate Theotokos, the Mother of our God! You are higher than the Cherubim and incomparably more glorious than the Seraphim, for without sin you have given birth to God the Word. True bearer of God, we magnify you!
(Byzantine hymns to the Theotokos, adapted)
Lord Jesus Christ, by the prayers of your most pure Mother, purify the eyes of our hearts to see the mysteries of the Father's kingdom!
Lord Jesus Christ, by the prayers of your most pure Mother, open our inner ears to receive your word!
Lord Jesus Christ, by the prayers of your most pure Mother, send the Holy Spirit to guide us into the truth!
What shall we call you, O most favoured one? Heaven, because the sun of righteousness has shown forth through you? Paradise, because your have made the bloom of incorruptibility to spring up? Virgin, because you have remained the undefiled one? Pure Mother, because you have given birth to your Son, the God of all things? 0 pray to him for us that he may save our souls!
(Byzantine prayer to the Mother of God)
Father Abbot Gregory
Father Abbot Gregory Collins OSB (enlarge picture)Gregory Collins was born in 1960 in Belfast, Northern Ireland and grew up there also. - About himself he says that he was happy to be both an Irishman and Englishman. To overcome barriers between people to a certain extent it is already in the cradle. He feels so deeply the ecumenical idea of reconciliation between the churches and committed.Prior to 1989 only one in the Irish Benedictine Glenstal (County Limerick) occurred, Gregory Collins is at the Queen's University in Belfast Byzantine studies and scholastic philosophy, and also taught. In 1988/89 he was on a scholarship at the British School of Archaeology in Athens to deepen his studies, he finally graduated in 1991 with a doctorate.
After the First Profession in Glenstal in 1991, he taught for a time in Nigeria. From 1992 to 1996 he taught at the school of his abbey. - During this period he will put his Solemn Profession (1994) and was ordained a priest (1995). In 1996/97, he studied at the Jung Institute in Zurich depth psychology. It was during this time chaplain at the Lioba Sisters in Freiburg, therefore, also stems from the more southern German-Swiss melody, when he speaks German.
After this stay on the continent, he returned to the Emerald Isle after Glenstal and was from 1998 to 2002 Director of the Abbey School. - From 2002 to 2008, Father Gregory taught as a lecturer in Orthodox theology and history of theology at the Benedictine High School St. Anselm in Rome, where he led as director of the Monastic Institute (2004-2008). - During these years he spent some months in the Holy Land and gave lectures at the Dormition of the academic year and at the Salesian Institute Ratisbonne (2007).
After it is 2008 again returned to his home abbey Glenstal, he has priests, lay people, monks and, more religious, a variety of retreats, courses, conferences and lectures: in Ireland and England, in Germany, America and Poland, India and Nigeria. - Was specifically mentioned at a lecture on Evagrius Ponticus Dumberton Oaks Center for Byzantine Research in Washington. Until his election as abbot of the Dormition in July 2011 he lectured at the University of Limerick .
Besides his theological emphasis on the Byzantine and monastic theology dealt with Father Gregory Eastern Christianity in all its diversity, but also with the history and theology of the Anglican and Lutheran churches, especially Karl Barth. Art History and interreligious dialogue are also among his interests as the polyphonic music of the 16th . Century,
he needs to rest - hardly surprising for an Irishman in Ireland, its mountains and the sea.
he needs to rest - hardly surprising for an Irishman in Ireland, its mountains and the sea.
Publications:
- Come and Receive Light: Meditations for Ministers of Christ (2003)
- The Glenstal Book of Icons (2002)
- (2011) A Vision of the Benedictine Spiritual life: meeting Christ in his Mysteries
- Free for All: A Contemporary Theology of Monastic Life (work in progress)
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