Easter 2013

We were blessed with the presence of no fewer than five deacons for the Triduum, all from the North American College in Rome. These fine young men will all be ordained priests in the next months. They added much to the ceremonies of Easter and were able to fulfil the requirement of the canonical retreat in preparation for their ordinations. We were delighted to welcome them and to be part of this important step in their lives.

The Camino

Pugin and Ramsgate

When the Papal Nuncio was unable to celebrate Pontifical Mass at the Shrine of St Augustine in Ramsgate, Fr Abbot was able to step in at the last minute and celebrate and preach. The evening included the blessing of a new reliquary of St Gregory the Great and the dedication of the newly-refurbished cloister garth. Fr Abbot preached on the inadequacy of the monks in the face of their daunting task, and the evangelical power of the daily monastic round and perseverance in prayer and work.

More profession photographs

A number of followers of this little blog have asked us for more photographs of Dom Michael’s profession in January, and for some explanations of the ceremonies.

For most of you, the most striking aspect was the use of the funeral pall during the litany of the saints. This use was recently reintroduced into our monastic ritual after an absence of thirty or forty years. It is a powerful depiction of the monk’s resolve to die to the world and rise to a new life in Christ. To be ‘buried’ in the way that St Paul speaks of baptism, since monastic profession has long been closely identified with Christian baptism.

Having been questioned about his intentions and resolve to persevere in the obligations of his vows, Brother Michael read his profession chart.

It read as follows:

In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ Amen.

I, Dom Michael Tomas Vician, of Jalsovik in the Diocese of Banska Bystrica, promise for life stability, conversion of life and obedience, according to the Rule of Our holy father Benedict in this monastery of Saint Michael at Farnborough, in the Subiaco Congregation, before God and the saints whose relics are preserved here, in the presence of the  Right Reverend Dom Cuthbert Brogan, abbot of this monastery, and the monks of this community. In witness whereof I have written this document with my own hand, on the 5th day of January in the year of our Lord two thousand and thirteen.

Having read this, he showed it to the abbot and monks and to the clergy and people present, and then signed it on the altar. At our simple professions it is signed on the credence table, but at solemn vows it is signed on the altar and, once the abbot has countersigned it, is placed under the corporal, and the Mass is celebrated on it, as a powerful symbol of the monk’s sacrifice being united to the cross of Christ.

The monk then sings the ‘Suscipe’. This is the ancient song of monastic self-offering. Just as on Good Friday and Holy Saturday we sing the Ecce Lignum or Lumen Christi three times on ascending note, so we do with the suscipe. The chant translates, ‘Uphold me Lord according to your promise and I shall live. Let not my trust in you be disappointed.’ The first half he sings with his arms outstretched. The second half he sings humbly kneeling with his arms crossed over his breast. For all these rites, Brother Michael’s friend, Father Christian Leisy of the Abbey of Christ in the Desert, New Mexico, acted as his ‘godfather’ and accompanied him.

The newly-professed was then clothed in the full monastic habit – the cowl. This garment of long sleeves shows that the monk is reclothed in Christ, he has ‘put on the new man’ as St Paul puts it.

Finally comes the presentation of the signs of profession. The Antiphonale Monasticum, newly-bound in calf by the abbot, was presented as a sign of Brother Michael’s obligation to ‘put nothing before the work of God’ – the divine office. All then give the new monk the kiss of peace.

The Mass then proceeded as usual.

Fr Tibor, of the London Slovak Mission, was particularly pleased by our efforts to produce a Slovak translation of the ceremonies for Brother Michael’s family and friends.

And Brother Michael’s parents and his ‘little’ brother David were very proud of him. David was in his village’s particular version of national costume for the day.

Adriana and Jozef, Brother Michael’s parents were beaming with pride, and with thanks to God for the wonderful vocation to which their son has been called.

Amongst Brother Michael’s friend were young Milan and Veronika, who were married last year.

They were not the only Slavs present on the day.

After the Mass there was a great celebration lunch. The abbot lifted the monastic enclosure, so many of our friends had their first view of the interior of the monastery. Our monastery was built for a very small community. We moved the tables of the refectory to allow for a large number of guests.

Bishop Egan, Prior Hugh O.Praem., Provost Ignatius Cong. Orat. and Brother Michael’s parish priest and family, enjoyed a little more elbow room in business class – our monastic calefactory was transformed for the day. On the window ledge, the Infant of Prague showed his solidarity with the Monastic Order by wearing his cowl.

Visit of the French Ambassador

Given Napoleon III’s contribution to the entente cordiale, it was a delight to welcome His Excellency to Farnborough for his first visit to us. He added a number of details about the Empress’ life to our knowledge of her, especially about her grand tour at the time of the opening of the Suez Canal.

In the course of each year we receive many French pilgrims at the Abbey, but it is a particular honour for us to count the Ambassador amongst them.

Solemn Profession

Dom Michael Vician (aged 28) made his Solemn Profession on January 5th after five years in the monastery. In a ceremony lasting more than two hours, Brother Michael lay prostrate on the sanctuary floor, covered with the funeral pall whilst the Litany of the Saints was chanted, a sign of his death to the world. He then sang the three-fold Suscipe me Domine chant (uphold me, Lord, according to your promise, and I shall live…), read his chart of profession, was clothed, i

n accordance with ancient custom, in the Benedictine cowl and presented with the Antiphonale Monasticum as a sign that he should ‘put nothing before the Work of God’.

The monastic community welcomed many friends for the occasion. Among them were the Premonstratensian Canons of Chelmsford, Oratorians, Carmelites, Dominicans, Blessed Sacrament Fathers, and Benedictines of other monasteries, including nuns of Tyburn where Fr Abbot has served as confessor for many years, and the Novice Master of Douai Abbey.

Bishop Philip Egan,  the recently consecrated bishop of the Portsmouth Diocese in which the Abbey is located attended as a guest of the monks and spoke at the end of the Mass:

‘In today’s culture,  organised  religion and in particular Christianity, is often side-lined or relegated to the private domain.  Even some of those who do profess a religion, tend to treat their faith in the manner of an ‘added-extra’, a  hobby,  something extrinsic  to the rest of  their  living. Yet  as we saw symbolised  so  powerfully in Bro. Michael’s prostration on the floor of the sanctuary,  covered with the funeral pall, not only for him but  for anyone whom Jesus has called to be his disciple, faith can never be an added-extra. Our love for God, our discipleship of Christ, our Catholic Faith is never just a hobby. It  has to be  the most important thing in life.  My faith is the most important thing in my life.  My love for Jesus Christ has to be the most important thing in my life.  –Because  Jesus Christ and His Gospel is the only way to true, genuine, lasting human happiness and fulfilment. Indeed, as St. Augustine taught, the human heart is restless until it rests in God.  This is why being a disciple of Christ, being a friend of Jesus, being in love with God and giving myself entirely to him, is the most exciting adventure a human being can ever undertake.

Today, we rejoice in the Solemn Profession and Monastic Consecration of Brother  Michael Vician. It’s a wonderful day, a day  of  great joy and happiness, a day never to be forgotten for Bro. Tomas Michael, for his family and for this dear community of  Farnborough Abbey, dedicated to St.Michael the Archangel. I thank Abbot Cuthbert for the

invitation to be here today as the Bishop of the Diocese in which this Abbey stands.  And so on behalf of all the priests and people of the Diocese of Portsmouth, I invoke the prayers of our  own patron saints and marty

rs, above all Mary Immaculate and St. Edmund of Abingdon. May the  Lord bless you abundantly. We wish you, Bro. Michael, every happiness in your vocation and we promise to pray for you that every day you will be faithful to your vows and grow deeper and deeper in love with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.’

A much larger selection of photographs of the day will appear on the blog shortly.

The Wantage Conversions

We welcome and congratulate these brave women. The ‘conversio morum’ conversion of life of our Benedictine Rule is not just a conversion we make at the start, but one we should make at every moment of our monastic life. These sisters, after many years of leaving all for Christ, have again left all for Christ today and thrown themselves into an uncertain future and the hands of Providence.

We are delighted to hear that the Rule of St Benedict will be a guiding star for them. By waiting until January 1st they have chosen to be received in the centenary year of the Caldey conversions. It was in 1913 that Abbot Cabrol of Farnborough and his friend Blessed Columba Marmion sailed to the Island of Caldey to welcome the Anglican monks there into what Newman called the ‘one true fold of the Redeemer’. It was lovely that some Farnborough monks should be present for this occasion today. God bless these dear sisters!

Dom Magnus Michael Maclean Hiam Wilson

Fr Abbot shared some thoughts on Fr Magnus, whose funeral took place yesterday in the Abbey Church. Our little community was delighted to be supported by brethren from Prinknash and Pluscarden, as well as Chilworth, Douai and Ealing abbeys, and diocesan clergy friends.

Magnus es, domine, et laudabilis valde: These words begin the confessions of St Augustine. You are great O Lord and worthy to be praised. ‘Magnus’ means great, a great man. ‘Man’ – the confessions continue – ‘is but a particle of God’s creation. God rouses us to delight in His praise; for God has raised us for himself and our hearts to not rest till they rest in Him.’

From the outside our Fr Magnus always seemed to be a very restless man – he could not keep still. He blamed this on events in his childhood. If chatting in the kitchen he would wipe the surfaces as he spoke. When the monks looked after the parish for a while, parishioners were so taken aback at his energy that he quickly picked up a series

of nicknames – the Flying Scotsman, Perpetual Motion, the Elgin Marvel! In the liturgy he could not keep still – there was always a twitch or a sudden look around. A visitor saw him twitching during Mass and said ‘that man has not long for this world’ -this was in 1965. A visiting deacon remarked that assisting Fr Magnus at the altar was like deaconing an unexploded bomb. In the refectory in the 1980’s we would have recorded music during lunch on Sundays. If Fr Magnus was the server that week you were in for a treat. Swan Lake would have him gliding down the lino, to the 1812 Overture he would crash down the stainless steel dishes with the cannon fire.

The interior was quite different. Solid as a rock. If your first principles were right – then everything else would fall into place. Fr Magnus was a lawyer. He had studied law at Oxford, before his conversion to Catholicism and transfer to theology. He helped write our Constitutions to bring them up to date wiht the new Code of Canon Law.  His Prinknash nickname was ‘Fr Crash Barriers’ -– the gospel is the road, he said, and you should be fine with the gospel – but leave the road and you need the crash barriers. When our community hit some canonical bumps on its road, Fr Magnus never doubted that we were right and things would end well, and he was right and things did end well. There were other certainties – the double entry system never let him down. He was particularly happy when –during the restoration work on the Abbey Church in 2000 –he proved the mighty computers of English Heritage to be wrong in their calculations. The computer was out by 18 pence – Fr Magnus’ double entry books were right.

As a monk he was one of the great figures of the province and our Congregation. He had been the first postulant of Pluscarden, the Novice Master of Prinknash , Prior of Farnborough, member of the Provincial Chapter from time immemorial, member of the Juridical Commission of the Subiaco Congregation. It was unthinkable for anything to happen without his being involved in it somehow. As a monk he was utterly reliable. Always at the Divine Office. He had a Padre-Pio sort of quality of always being back in choir when we all thought he was out at a meeting or some other duty.His singing was awful – he would listen very attentively to the pitch pipe at the start of the office and then sing a completely different note. He preferred the 6^th Gregorian mode – ‘three blind mice – in the sixth mode – no dreadful semitones.’

Dom Magnus Wilson

The funeral of Dom Magnus Wilson will be at the Abbey Church on Wednesday November 28th at 2pm, followed by burial in the monastery cemetery. An obituary will follow on this site.

Those who have gone before us…

The province’s governing body meets every four years at the provincial chapter, and in between chapters the province is governed by an abbot visitor, assisted by his council. Our Visitor is the Abbot of Pluscarden, Abbot Anselm Atkinson. His council is elected and our abbot is one of the two abbots elected to the council.

The term ‘English’ in English Province is misleading. The English Province includes monasteries in Scotland, England, Germany, Ghana, the USA and Mexico! Our Visitor therefore has delegated some of his duties to our Abbot Cuthbert, who will care for the monastery of Christ in the Desert in the US, and its houses in the US and Mexico. This nomination of our abbot as ‘Vicar’ has been approved by the Provincial Council and by our Roman authorities. It means that our abbot will be responsible for carrying out or arranging the canonical visitations and for encouraging monastic life in the houses of this ‘vicariate’.

A little groups of us took some young visiting religious to Waverley Abbey, an old Cistercian ruin, not far from our abbey. We walked there and gathered within the walls of the ancient abbey church and sang the Salve Regina and prayed for the souls of all the monks who had lived and died there in centuries past.