Towering over the emergence of monasticism in the early Church are two figures who represent the complementary aspects of monastic living, and which create a natural tension but not the exclusivity of exclusion: St Antony of Egypt, often called the Father of Monks, leads the way into the eremitical monastic life, that which prefers solitude above all, and the saint whose memory we keep on the 15th May, St Pachomius, whose life and teaching are received as the origins of cenobitic, or community, monastic living…
Category Archives: Celebration of the Saints
Solemnity of Our Father St Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (20th August)
Just a few years after Robert of Molesmes left the Black Monks and journeyed a short distance to found a New Monastery, with a few monastic companions, at a marshy place outside Dijon called Cîteaux, thus giving his new monastic enterprise their name – Cistercians – it seemed as if the venture would fail. TheContinue reading “Solemnity of Our Father St Bernard of Clairvaux, Abbot and Doctor of the Church (20th August)“
St Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, 28th August
We keep the memory of the greatest convert in the Church after St Paul. St Augustine – monk, bishop, theologian, preacher, writer – appeals universally to everyone with a God-seeking heart. Listening to him exultant in his Confessions (Bk X.38) we might make his own new song our own today: Late have I loved you,Continue reading “St Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, 28th August”
11th July – The Solemnity of St Benedict, Abbot
As we celebrate the solemnity of St Benedict today, we present for your consideration a series of thumbnail readings from the celebrated life of St Benedict found in Book II of the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. This short work, a skilful blend of hagiography and history, is the only writing…
17th June – Blessed Marie-Joseph Cassant ocso
In keeping the memory of this Cistercian blessed, we open ourselves to the mystery of God’s work and call in the midst of the obscure, the simple and the ordinary. Blessed Joseph Cassant was born on 6th March, 1878, in Casseneuil in France, and died as a Cistercian – Trappist monk and priest…
St Justin the Martyr, 1st June
With the feast of St Justin the Martyr we are taken right to the dynamic first years of the Church’s growth in the Roman Empire. Justin was born in Samaria around 114AD, and was martyred some time around 165AD, during the reign of the emperor Marcus Aurelius. What makes his life and witness truly outstanding is the fact that his writings – those which have survived – are among the earliest apologetic writings which have come down to us.
21st March – The Transitus of St Benedict
Had we not been observing today the 5th Sunday of Lent we would probably have been celebrating the feast known as the Transitus of St Benedict. We might loosely translate this as the day of his death, but perhaps more precisely we should note that it is his true dies natalis – his birth day!Continue reading “21st March – The Transitus of St Benedict”
19th March – St Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
This solemnity brings with it two events of immediate significance: the year already begun of special veneration for St Joseph, and, beginning on this day, a special year celebrating the joy of married love, coming five years after PopeFrancis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.
17th March – St Patrick, Apostle of the Irish
There is today a pressing need for all of us to read again Patrick’s own testimony about his life, call and subsequent mission to the Irish.
12th January – St Aelred of Rievaulx, Cistercian Abbot (1110-1167)
Today we celebrate the memory of one of the formative abbots and teachers in the early Cistercian tradition who, together with Bernard of Clairvaux, Guerric of Igny and William of St Thierry forms a group often known as the Four Evangelists of Cîteaux: St Aelred of Rievaulx.
Our Lady of Bethlehem Abbey, Portglenone 