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A new school year begins at Glenstal

The Glenstal community – monks, students, colleagues and guests – gathered in the Abbey Church to celebrate a Mass of the Holy Spirit for the start of the academic year 2023/24 on Wednesday 6th September.

Invoking the gifts and guidance of the Holy Spirit as the new school year began, Abbot Brendan Coffey reflected on the healing words of Jesus to the mother-in-law of Peter and reminded those gathered to ‘look to the example of Jesus. Be prepared to use words carefully and well. Use them for building up, for healing… the possibility of giving the gift of the right word, a healing word, lies within the power of each one of us.’

In addition to looking forward to the coming year, the Mass was also an opportunity to look back and to give thanks to God for the previous year: for our academic, sporting,  extra-curricular and personal achievements.

We are particularly proud of our 2023 Leaving Certificate class, who together achieved an average point score of 517. An amazing 19% of the class achieved over 600 points, whilst 10% achieved full marks of 625 points. One student achieved a straight run of eight Higher 1’s.

We heartily celebrate the hard-work and dedication of our students and colleagues in the school and we give God thanks for these spectacular achievements.

As another school year gets underway once again at Glenstal, we pray that these coming months in this ‘School of the Lord’s Service’ may be fruitful for all.

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The Abbot in Benedict’s Rule

 

Ensuring everyone in the monastery is fully alive: Mark Patrick Hederman takes a look at the role of the Abbot and the lessons for Christian leadership – https://shorturl.at/csvCZ (🎙️ audio-only: https://shorturl.at/gvFRU)

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Homily – 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Fr Denis Hooper OSB

When I first looked over today’s readings I was struck by the very first line of the first reading from Jeremiah: “you enticed me Lord, and I let myself be enticed” whilst in another version of this reading I saw that it says, “you duped me Lord, and I let myself be duped.” To be duped is to be deceived. To be enticed is to be tempted. Two different meanings. Jeremiah felt duped and even enticed because God did not fit into the vision of what Jeremiah thought God should be.

The disgraced American financier Bernie Madhoff duped and enticed many wealthy people out of their money – he persuaded millionaires and billionaires who should have known better to put their millions into his ponzy schemes. By the time he was caught it was too late for his victims and he had cheated them out of hundreds of millions!

Words change their meaning over time and in a short number of years many words in our past vocabulary mean exactly the opposite to what they mean now: I heard a golfer recently describe a Big Bertha golf club as “this bad boy” – bad used to mean evil – now bad means good. “Sick” used to mean being ill – now it means great – “these are sick boots.” “Friend” used to mean just that – now it means a list in your contacts. Gay was once short for the name, Gabriel. The warden in the movie Cool Hand Luke used a line that sums up well the
issues we have with the changing of the meanings of words when he said: “what we have here is a failure to communicate.”

You can feel Jesus’ frustration with Peter in today’s Gospel – a case of failing to communicate – when after all they have been through together, three years of it – Peter still doesn’t understand the ultimate purpose of Jesus’ mission. Last week’s Gospel has Peter filled with the Holy Spirit saying to Jesus “you are the Christ” and Jesus telling Peter that he will be the rock on which his Church will be built.

This week we can see Peter as a sort of mouthpiece for the devil. Up to now in Saint Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus has been travelling around with his disciples teaching and healing and for the most part it has been a very pleasant experience for all concerned. What’s not to like about following someone with the powers Jesus has? Healing the sick; changing water into wine. His celebrity sort of rubs off on you and you can bask in the shadow of his glory. But now the story is about to change and Jesus now knows that he must go to Jerusalem to face his death and resurrection. Peter will have none of this and says he won’t let it happen. Peter’s attitude is “if it’s not broken, why fix it?” So, Jesus must rebuke him and tell him this must happen and that no one, especially Peter, should get in the way of it.

We are all like Peter – we can blow hot and cold. We are heading into the Rugby World Cup. It is just pure coincidence that I am wearing green today. Come on the boys in green! Rugby and many team sports if let get out of hand can be extremely dangerous. In rugby there is a conflict between both teams. One team is trying to move towards the goal line in one direction and the other team is trying to do exactly the same but in the opposite direction both teams bump, collide and tackle each other trying to stop each other’s progress. In the middle of these two teams is another team – the officials – men and women assigned to regulate what happens during the games. Each official must have an intimate knowledge of the laws of the game. And Glenstal has a connection with the laws of rugby: the laws of rugby were first written down by Sir Charles Barrington of Glenstal castle when he was a student in Trinity College Dublin in the 1880’s.

Now Jesus chose his apostles as sort of officials. He needs them more than ever now that he faces towards Jerusalem and the certainty of a horrible death. Our world is pretty chaotic. Words change meaning at the drop of a hat and we find it hard to negotiate our way through our lives – and we can easily interpret things wrongly. We don’t know yet what the consequences artificial intelligence might bring into our lives. Like sporting officials – like Jesus’s disciples – we must stick to the playbook as best we can.

Let us pray that when the time comes for us we will not get it wrong and will “stand up and fight until we hear the bell” against any and all evil – according to the Way, the Truth and the Life.

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The Prologue of Benedict’s Rule

Fr Columba begins our podcast series on the Rule of Saint Benedict by looking at its Prologue: shorturl.at/xEHTV (🎙️ audio-only version: shorturl.at/dovS9)

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Homily – 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Fr Cuthbert Brennan OSB

The question of identity is an overarching theme in the gospel of Matthew. Not only the identity of Jesus but also deep in the background of Matthew’s gospel is the real the question of identity for the early Jewish Christian community. Were they no longer faithful Jews? Were they wrong to accept Jesus as the Anointed One, the messianic King?

Last week you will remember we had the confrontation with the Canaanite woman, the outsider who challenged Jesus’ narrow understanding of his mission and this week we have the master asking his students to clarify his career path and identity. Each of these encounters is a dialogue of self-discovery, a reflection about identity and mission. But of course Jesus is not having some divine identity crisis but instead has been consistently pigeon-holed by his contemporaries. He is known as Jesus of Nazareth and we all know
that nothing good can come from Nazareth. He is labelled as the carpenter’s son and we are all familiar with the dismissive maxim like father like son. And so Jesus asks what are others saying about him? And the replies are; John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah – all very honourable if mistaken perceptions. And it is Peter inspired by God who makes the profession of faith. And for that he is rewarded with the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

What a useful set of keys to have these days of greed, intolerance and
animosity, where there seems to be at times a deficit of charity and human decency. If we are to live out our call to discipleship, then we cannot insulate ourselves from the issues of our times, but instead we must have the courage to be seen clearly and reflected honestly in the mirror of the other, in their needs, their dignity, their humanity so that they can unlock the potential of their own selves and in doing so our true identity and potential is also unlocked.

Dr. Frank Mayfield was touring Tewksbury Institute when he collided with an elderly floor maid. To cover the awkward moment he asked, "How long have you worked here? Almost since the place opened; the maid replied. What can you tell me about this place?" he asked. I’ll show you; She led him to the basement. She pointed to small prison cells, their bars rusted with age. She said, "That’s where they kept Annie; Who’s Annie? he asked. A young girl brought here because she was incorrigible. Nobody could do anything with her. She’d bite and scream and throw her food at
people. The doctors and nurses couldn’t get near her. I’d see them trying, with her spitting and scratching. I was only a few years younger, and I used to think, I sure would hate to be locked up in a cage. I wanted to help her, but if the doctors and nurses couldn’t help her, what could someone like me do? so I baked her brownies. I walked carefully to her cage and said, Annie I baked brownies just for you.’ I’ll put them down and then I got out of there as fast as I could. I was afraid she might throw them at me. But she took the brownies and ate them. After that, she was nice to me. Sometimes I’d talk to her. Once, I got her laughing. A nurse noticed and told the doctor. They asked me if I’d help them with Annie. I said I’d try. So every time they wanted to see or examine her, I went into the cage and calmed her down and held her hand. They discovered Annie was almost blind. After they worked with her a year, Perkins Institute for the Blind opened. They helped her and she went on to study and become a teacher.

Years later Annie came back to the Tewksbury to visit and asked what she might do to help. The Director had just received a letter from a man about his daughter. She was unruly, blind and deaf, deranged and animalistic … but He didn’t want to put her in an asylum. So he wrote to ask if we knew a teacher who would work with his daughter. That is how Annie Sullivan became the lifelong companion of Helen Keller. Years later, when Keller received the Nobel Prize, she was asked who had the greatest impact on her life. She said, Annie Sullivan. But Annie said, No Helen. The woman with the greatest influence on both our lives was a floor maid at the Tewksbury Institute.”

A scrub maid who chose the power of the keys. Identity is performative. In birth and baptism we were created and recreated in the image of God and were given our own set of keys. We can use those keys to bind ourselves and others or unlock the doors of dignity and affirmation.

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New Podcast on Rule of Saint Benedict

When a novice monk enters the monastery, the Abbot presents him with a copy of the Rule of Saint Benedict and tells him:

‘This is the Rule under which we strive to serve Christ the true king. If you feel able to follow it, come in; if not, freely depart.’

For nearly a millennium and a half, monks and nuns have followed the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the manner and example laid down by Saint Benedict in his Rule.

This sixth-century document has a relevance and wisdom for the twenty-first century, and not just for monks and nuns: it can be a practical guide, a spiritual teacher and a useful toolbox for all of us. The Rule has so much to offer that is has even been offered as a tool for parents, teachers, politicians, corporate leaders and more.

The Rule famously begins with the word Ausculta, “Listen!”, and we invite you to listen to the wisdom of Saint Benedict from his Rule with a 10-episode podcast released each Sunday by the monks of Glenstal Abbey on our social media channels.

Buy a copy of the Rule at our online shop here.

Subscribe to our YouTube page here, or visit our SoundCloud page for audio-only episodes here.

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Homily – 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Fr Christopher Dillon OSB

For once it is the words of the Old Testament which sound kinder than
those of the New. “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the
peoples” is a much more generous sounding statement from the prophet Isaiah than those words ascribed to Jesus, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. But, while universalism is proposed there in place of the more familiar exclusivity of the Jewish people, the real issue is to be found in Jesus’ concluding words to the foreigner, “Woman, you have great faith.”

Indeed, it is the case that we hear Jesus praising the faith only of foreigners, while he is more likely to be represented as saying to one of his own, even Peter, “Oh you of little faith!” That God should have an interest in and command of the whole world is nothing surprising to us; God is after all infinite and unique. It is relatively easy, then, to subscribe to his achingly mother-love for us all, in his mercy. It is the
way God is. But our having great faith; that is another matter. In general, the instances of great faith to which our attention is called are ascribed to outsiders as opposed to what St Benedict would call “the domestics of the faith”, those who are familiar with it all; that is, those who should know better.

St Paul refers to them as “disobedient”, even, “imprisoned in disobedience”. Probably, a better description of those so-called faithful would be lazy, dulled by entitlement, smug or self-assured. Would any of those epithets rest easily on any of us? I have to admit to a twinge of misgiving. Our times are increasingly familiar with popular disappointment with traditional authorities, fading trust in certainties and growing cynicism with regard to the truth, so that faith of any kind is at a premium. Religious believers who cling grimly to the literal truth of the scriptures are derided for their simplicity, so how are we to read this woman’s faith? Certainly, she is desperate for help, any help, and clearly she has heard about Jesus. At the very least, we are in the same boat; we too have heard about Jesus. But is our faith in him as great as hers? Jesus has spoken of himself as embodying the Truth. Is he our Truth? And, if so, what does that mean?

We are being invited by these readings, I think, to reconsider what it means for us to believe in God, to believe in Jesus, to belong to the Church as the community of believers. To what extent does any of it shape the way I live my life, if I allow it to shape my life? These are important questions, because they contribute to the maintenance of
a perspective for the reality in which each of us lives. What matters more or less? To be able to assert in all sincerity that God is; that God loves me in and through Jesus Christ and that God has made me to live with God for eternity, is already enormous. It is material for lengthy consideration and endless gratitude, very much, as it happens, in the terms expressed by the Collect Prayer for this Mass,

“O God, who have prepared for those who love you
good things which no eye can see,
fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of your love,
so that, loving you in all things and above all things,
we may attain your promises which surpass every human desire.”

In a time of cynicism and fractured trust, we have cause to be grateful to this anonymous Canaanite woman whose faith and perspective so impressed Jesus, as it prompts us to consider the nature of our own attachment to the person of Jesus and to his teaching. So, by way of conclusion, may I put a question to you? How often do you read
the Gospels, in order to hear Jesus for yourself speaking directly to you, rather than hearing only the snippets which are offered to you at Mass? It is something, I suggest, to which we could all give better effort and attention. It is something which would richly inform our consideration of what it is that we actually believe, in the religious dimension of our life.

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Brides of Christ book

 

A new book on the role and experience of women in Irish monastic history is now available to purchase at our online shop: https://shorturl.at/cinBX

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Homily – Assumption of BVM

Fr Jarek Kurek OSB

Over the last few years, as a curious non-native English-speaking foreigner, I explored the beginnings of the English language and wondered who the first authors might be. Strangely, the answer is not easily found. Some say Shakespeare, others point to Chaucer. But in fact, it was the Poems written in Old English in the 9th century.
Now, what has the origins of the English language got to do with the feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary to heaven? I will tell you in a second, before that an important point.
Today we contemplate Mary following her Son on her own journey to heaven. But there is another theme closely intertwined with it.
The perennial battle between good and evil: the woman and the dragon, glory and abyss, heaven and hell. The battle we all fight. On earth, we witness the almost unending clashing between God and Devil, between good and evil. I said ‘almost unending’, as this struggle is supposed to be over at the end of times, with the monks here often pronouncing the words of the Father spoken to Jesus: Sede a dextris meis, donac ponam inimicos tuos scabellum pedum tuorum; ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool’, a reference to which we also had in the second reading, and yesterday’s reading at vigils.
Returning to the ‘linguistic’ introduction, those who were first to use the English language were acutely aware of this conflict, and so we are left with a beautiful piece of writing called ‘Christ and Satan’. It was monks of the 9th century who explored the theme, monks of whom some followed the Rule of St Benedict also. Anyhow, the Christian monks were the ones who with their poems were at the start of what is today a lingua franca of the world.
Those monks may be good teachers for us today in terms of what to do and what not to do so that we may reach, with Mary, the celestial heights.
Mary is for us an example of obedience, whereas the words the monks put in the mouth of Satan show the opposite of this desirable attitude and its consequences: ‘I’ve learned a hard lesson: Whoever refuses to listen to the Lord, the King of heaven, will discover the darkness of love’s loss and be dispossessed of eternal delight’.
To avoid it and instead share the lot of Mary, the monks guide us that we constantly ‘aspire to achieve a homeland in heaven with the King of Kings, who is called Christ’.
What do we do? The monks insist we ‘live in this earthly realm with our mind on God’. In doing so, ‘our souls will shine when we seek God’s and our home where saints and angels stand by the throne of the living Lord’, the Son of Mary and the Son of God.
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Homily – 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Fr Luke Macnamara OSB

Elijah goes to meet God at the mountain of Horeb. He does not meet God in the wind, earthquake or fire, but hears a voice in the silence. While God’s power is manifest in wind, earthquake, and fire, God’s very own presence is in a still voice of silence. This seems puzzling. How can one hear silence, not to mention a fine or still silence? Yet this sheer silence has a voice, and the key characteristic of a voice is that it speaks. God is closest not through great works of power, which we can observe in the wonders of his creation, but in the most gentle manner possible, a whisper, in which he speaks to us. This reveals
something of how God relates to us.

God’s presence requires careful listening. The voice from the still silence cannot be heard in a noisy or busy environment. Elijah travelled 40 days to get to Horeb, and waited alone until after the wind, earthquake, and fire passed by, until he heard the voice of silence. Jesus at the beginning of the Gospel story sends away his disciples and afterwards the crowds, before climbing a mountain so that he can be alone to pray to the Father. It is striking that the Gospel text twice refers to Jesus being alone by himself while he prayed. Earlier in the
Sermon on the Mount, Jesus advises disciples: “go into your inner room, close the door and there pray to the your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matt 6:6) What Jesus teaches his disciples to do, he now models for us by going up the mountain. Private personal prayer is a central pillar of a disciple’s relationship with God.

Prayer is not confined in secret to our inner rooms. There are very public moments where we are motivated to pray, when we like Peter, find ourselves sinking. There may be many causes, loss of health, loss of relationship, loss of personal standing or reputation, loss of job or money. In such situations we may make the prayer of Peter to Jesus our own – “Lord save me.” We do this together in a very public way at the beginning of every Mass with the invocation, “Lord have mercy.” Peter makes his prayer in doubt but through the encounter with Jesus this doubting prayer ends in salvation and worship. So we may feel that our prayer of the “Lord have mercy” has been half hearted, but through the encounter with Jesus through word and sacrament, it too ends in our salvation and our worship.

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