All Saints O.S.B. 13th November 2021 We’ve tended to conflate All Saints OSB and All Souls OSB, in recent years, partly because we’ve already celebrated them, in a sense, within the feasts of All Saints and All Souls of last week and partly because we recognise, now, that it’s not …
Saint Martin of Tours, 11th November 2021 What is it that has made St. Martin so popular a saint, in both his own day, and ever since? Perhaps it’s partly no doubt because of Sulpicius Severus’ successful hagiography and especially the story of his dividing of his cloak (or capella …
Dedication of the Lateran Basilica, 9th November 2021Patronal feast of the Monastery of Christ Our Saviour Before it was ever known as Turvey Abbey in the eighteenth century, this site was known simply as Turvey Farm or Farmhouse and, until the mid-twentieth century, was indeed, a working farm, almost, that …
Sunday 32B, 7th November 2021 Many years ago I once asked Bishop Cormac Murphy O’Connor, as he was then, what a rich man had asked me that he should do, as a devout Catholic, with all his excess money. Cormac replied in jest ‘Tell him to give it to the …
Dedication of the Oratory, 5th November 2021 We’ve been fortunate, on the monks’ side, to have had our architect, Roger Forrester, living immediately next door and our builder, Richard Jackson, just across the road in Jack’s Lane. Roger, sadly, is no longer with us but it’s been an eye-opener watching …
All Souls, 2nd November 2021 We said yesterday that other people become part of us – and we a part of them. This is true for us whether dead or alive. And it’s not just a question of memory or DNA but of a living tradition which transcends death: a …
All Saints, 1st November 2021 Whether we like it or not, we influence one another, become, in a sense, part of one another. God saves us as a body, as a Church, as a people. Here, in today’s readings, we see this communal hope expressed in terms of a multitude …
Sunday 31B, 31st October 2021 We’ve all become very wary now of those phone calls which begin with ‘May I speak to the person who is in charge of your gas and electricity?’ and goes on to say ‘We’re not trying to sell you anything but you could save yourself …
Saints Simon and Jude, 28th October 2021 Simon and Jude are little known and, indeed, Jude has attracted to himself the title ‘patron of lost causes’ because, supposedly, few people would pray to a man otherwise known as Judas. But we were reminded last night, by Paul, that it’s not …
Sunday 30B, 24th October 2021 We cannot truly know another person unless we can to some extent become that other person, experience the subjectivity of the other person as our own. Thomas Merton, p 91, ‘Redeeming Time’ The marvel is that Jesus does this, but without sin, knows us as …
