St Michael's Abbey
Welcome to our new blog
Wecome to our blog. For some time we have been pressed by our friends and our relatives to allow them an internet window into the life of our little monastic family at Farnborough. We hope to include not only news, but also occasional articles about our history and our work. And so we begin…
This last week has seen us busy with visitors. Our guest house at the moment is closed for refurbishment, new bathrooms and heating, but we managed to find room for a number of monks (and a nun!) of our order who passed through this week.
The abbot of Kergonan in Brittany was the first. Dom Philippe stayed a night with us whilst in England on business. He was followed on Tuesday by two more abbots, a prioress and a German monk who came to Farnborough for a meeting of monastic superiors. On Thursday the abbot of Ealing came to luncheon and on Saturday the abbot of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes came for a fraternal visit with another English Congregation abbot. We have been quite ecumenical in welcoming monks from the Subiaco, Solesmes, and English Benedictines!
Benedictine monks vow stability to one monastery for life, but this does not cut us off from the wider monastic family. On the contrary, our monastic profession unites us with the whole order and its whole history. We rightly speak of the monastic ‘family’, and it is always a joy to visit other communities and to welcome monks of other monasteries to our little house here on the Hampshire-Surrey border.