FEATURE
Our Lady of Glastonbury Dom Bede Rowe, Rector of the Shrine, on a living Benedictine tradition in the West Country
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t is night. The tabernacle lamp glows softly as the shrouded figures begin to illuminate the Church - first through the glow of choir candles, then a harsher light. The shadows of the sanctuary are dispelled. The rest of the Church lies in darkness. Flickering votive flames cast the long shades of the saints onto her walls. The town sleeps. The men don their garments - black on black. The books are laid out. The lights are lit. They stand in silence. Waiting for the time, for the clock to reach its appointed moment. The hands creep to half past four. The hour has come. The praise of God is to begin. They bow, and move with gracious solemnity to their work, to the task allotted them by God. The sons of Saint Benedict enter into the House of God, and bend the knee before the One who made them. They kneel to recollect who they are and what it is they do. At a sign, they stand and trace upon themselves the mark of their Lord, the Holy Cross of Christ, their means of salvation. The ancient third psalm begins: “Dómine, quid multiplicáti sunt qui tríbulant me?” - recited at St Benedict’s command… At any point for almost a thousand years, from the Holy Rule being adopted by the monks of Glastonbury, to the destruction of the Abbey by the King’s forces at the time of the so-called reformation, this description of the Night Office would have been more or less accurate. In this most holy place, the oldest shrine of Our Lady in our country, and possibly the oldest north of the Alps, the praises of God have been sung by monks, and for most of that time by the monks of St Benedict. The very ground and monastic ruins are infused with prayer. But the description given above is not just history - it is what happens now. It happens every day in the Shrine Church of Our Lady of Glastonbury. In August 2019, Bishop Declan Lang, Bishop of Clifton, canonically promulgated the statutes of the Community of Our Lady of Glastonbury as a private clerical association, living under the Rule of Our Holy Father St Benedict.
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From that day, our community existed and the monastic Office was again taken up in Glastonbury. We were ordained as Diocesan secular priests, but over many years we asked the Bishop for permission to live a common life under the rule of St Benedict. Eventually, after much prayer, he granted us permission to form a rule of life and live in common. We took up the Rule of Our Holy Father St Benedict, and put it into practice for our day, and in our time. We have just put forward our constitutions to become a Public Association. Pope Francis limited the power of Diocesan Bishops to approve new communities, so this is the highest level we can currently reach under the authority of the Bishop. We are ‘Diocesan Benedictines’. Diocesan Benedictines is a fairly new idea, though of course in the 19th century Abbé Guéranger, the founder of the Abbey of Solesmes, and Abbé Muard, the founder of the monastery of La Pierre-qui-Vire, had both been Diocesan Priests. It means that we are not part of a Benedictine Congregation, such as the Subiaco Congregation or the English Benedictine Congregation. Rather, we are
founded by the Diocesan Bishop, and it is his responsibility to ‘visit’ us, to make sure that we are living according to our Rule. As with anything, of course there are strengths and weaknesses in this system, but it suits us at this time, so that we can pursue our work, and sing our prayers in the way we want. These two elements are essential in the life of any monastery, ‘ora et labora’ - work and prayer. Our ‘work’ is to serve the parishes which the Bishop gives us. We are the Parish Priests of four parishes: Our Lady in Glastonbury, St Michael in Shepton Mallet, Ss Joseph and Teresa in Wells, and Our Lady Queen of Apostles in Cheddar, and our monastery is the presbytery at Glastonbury. This is what gives us our name, the Community of Our Lady of Glastonbury, and it is also our link with those generations of monks and their ruined Abbey. The parishes are normal diocesan parishes in which we offer the New Rites of Mass and the Sacraments as correctly and with as much dignity as possible. Our ‘prayer’ is the heart of our community. Our conventual life is according to the ancient cursus of Psalms
SUMMER 2021
