Plymouth, England, Oct 18, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In 2018 one of England’s historic monasteries will celebrate the millennium year of its foundation, offering a prime example of the contribution of monastic life to society amid an increasingly fast-paced world.
For the Benedictine monks who inhabit Buckfast Abbey in Devon, reaching such a significant anniversary means “we are the inheritors of a great tradition,” Abbot David Charlesworth told CNA.
“Place matters for Benedictines, so the fact that we are in a place that has been established for many centuries before we came is important.”
Not only to Benedictine monks take the traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, they also make an additional vow of stability, meaning that when they are assigned to a monastery, they stay there. While they might travel or even spend time in other monasteries, they will always be attached to the original, as an individual would be to their family home.
Charlesworth, who served as Abbot at Buckfast from 1992-1999, and was re-elected in 2009, said that in general, human beings “like the idea of roots.”
The concept of monasticism is ultimately rooted in the Gospel and expressed through the Rule of St Benedict, he said, but it is also rooted “in place, in a place, and it is from there, out of that place, that we then live our Baptismal vocation expressed through our monastic vocation.”
When it comes to living this vocation in modern times, the millennium landmark “helps to sort of galvanize our approach as to what we’re doing for the future,” Charlesworth said. This, he added, encompasses “what we’re doing personally, what we’re doing as a community, and what we’re doing as members of the Church of the Southwest of England.”
The abbot spoke to CNA about the millennium anniversary during a sit-down interview inside one of the two main guest houses at Buckfast Abbey, located in Buckfastleigh, about 25 miles northeast of Plymouth.
The abbey was founded in 1018 during the reign of King Cnut and entrusted to care of the Benedictines.
The monks who inhabited the monastery followed the “Regularis Concordia” rule, which was drafted in Winchester around the year 970 for all Benedictine monasteries in an effort to re-establish, in a sense, monastic life.
Just over 100 years later, in 1147, Buckfast became a Cistercian monastery. The Order was founded in 1098 by a group of monks seeking to live a simpler life in more strict observance of the Benedictine Rule.
Under the Cistercians Buckfast thrived, exporting wool to Italy by the 14th century. By the 15th century, the monastery had in essence become a wealthy landowner, while continuing to run an almshouse and school, and support local parishes in the area.
But in 1539 was shut down by the commissioners of King Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries in a bid to confiscate the wealth of the country’s religious institutes during the English Reformation.
The monastery was immediately vacated, stripped and left to decay. During the more than 300 years that Buckfast was without monks, the monastery changed hands four times, eventually landing in those of Dr. James Gale in 1872, who decided to sell the property, but wanted it to go back to a religious community.
Just six weeks after putting an advertisement in the paper, Buckfast was purchased by monks, who moved in shortly after, bringing a close to the 343 year gap in monastic presence at the abbey.
That first group of monks who returned to Buckfast were Benedictines who had been exiled from France and had made their way to Ireland. They moved to Buckfast in 1882 after acquiring the abbey, and began the process of restoring the property.
As the work was being carried out, the ruins to the original Cistercian design from the 1100s were discovered, and the monastery was constructed in its modern form from the ancient layout. The abbey was consecrated in 1932, with the final stone of the large bell tower being laid in 1937.
Now in 2017, the monastery is again a thriving presence in Devon. Not only does Buckfast represent a silent spiritual hub for tourists or visitors who want to get away for a day of prayer, but it also boasts of several other major activities available for people throughout the area.
The Buckfast monks essentially serve as the board of trustees for the St. Mary’s grade school that sits on their property, and the abbey hosts a center for evangelization called the School of the Annunciation, which was established as a response to Church’s call for a new evangelization.
The school offers formation to adults from all walks of life, and it also holds the status of a Catholic Institute for Higher Learning, providing distance-learning opportunities for students to obtain Master’s Degrees in Catechesis and Evangelization, validated by the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.
Buckfast also has a large conference center where they host various congresses and retreats throughout the year, including for non-Catholic groups.
The monastery also offers two refurbished guest houses for pilgrims and tourists to stay. They also have private houses available to rent if people want a longer get-away.
Buckfast also has a cafeteria and an adoration chapel open to visitors. Monks also offer pilgrims the opportunity to pray Vespers with them every evening.
The abbey is known throughout the UK for a tonic wine they brew called Buckfast Tonic Wine. Originally brewed for medicinal purposes, the wine is controversial in some areas of the UK due to its unique recipe, which contains high amounts of alcohol infused with high levels of caffeine.
Reminiscent of the monastery’s early centuries, Buckfast, which is strategically placed beside the River Dart that runs through the area, also generates their own power with a water turbine that provides enough energy not only for their own grounds, but for locals in the nearby area who want to purchase it for their own homes and neighborhoods.
Another means of income for the monastery is renting grazing ground for local farmers.
Several acres of land had been purchased for Buckfast when it was established in order to preserve the silence of the monastery and ensure that the monks were truly removed with few distractions. However, since the swath of land owned by Buckfast largely serves as a buffer-of-sorts from the outside world, they rent out certain patches to local farmers who need fresh grazing land.
And while Buckfast can’t quite claim to be celebrating 1,000 years of having monks on the property, the millennium anniversary of the monastery’s foundation is recognized as a monumental event not only for the abbey, but the entire region.
Preparations for the anniversary have been underway for 10 years. According to Charlesworth, “not only do we reassess the physical environment of the monastery, but we reassess our spiritual lives as well.”
“Everything is integrated, it’s an integrated system,” he said, noting that while the monks themselves have had retreats and meditations to reflect on, the structure of the monastery itself has also been cleaned and renovated, from the base of the Church floor to the top of the bell tower.
Paintings depicting the history and reconstruction of the monastery have also been produced, and vestments woven in honor of the upcoming anniversary. Exhibits on Buckfast and monasticism are also set to be unveiled, and study workshops are scheduled exploring the role of Christian monasticism both in the past and in the present.
The famous image of Our Lady of Buckfast that greets visitors as they approach the monastery was also redone. Crafted by a local artist with her neighbor and her neighbor’s baby as models, the statue depicts a smiling Mary holding a smiling infant Christ in a relaxed pose on her hip.
Based on the medieval original, which was destroyed during the sacking of the monastery in the 1500s, the statue, according to Charlesworth, is meant to depict “the joy of motherhood.”
“You don’t typically see statues like that,” with Mary’s soft but full smile, and her relaxed pose, he said, explaining that when he initially commissioned the statue in 2012, “I specifically asked that be emphasized…the smiling motherly face of Mary and child.”
When pilgrims arrive, he explained, they see Christ “smiling and looking at them as a child – because he was a child – and there is Mary looking at her Son in the joy of motherhood.”
Various liturgical events are also set to take place, with three major Masses scheduled throughout the year. The first will take place on the May 24 feast of Our Lady of Buckfast, which will mark the diocesan celebration.
The bishops of England, Wales, and Scotland will all be invited to the Mass. Parish priests and representatives of parishes in the area will also be invited.
The next major liturgical event will be the singing of Vespers by the abbey choir on the July 11 feast of St. Benedict. Members of both civil society and the Church of England will be invited for a civic and ecumenical celebration of the anniversary.
Another Mass will be offered on the Aug. 25 feast of the Dedication of the Abbey, which will be more of a community celebration for the abbey parish staff and their families.
On Oct. 27 a Votive Mass will be offered for the Oct. 27 feast of Saints Simon and Jude, which will be celebrated by the Benedictine Abbot Primate, Gregory Polan of Conception Abbey in Missouri, who will come in from Rome for the celebration.
The Mass will primarily be for the monks and nuns o the Benedictine family, particularly those from France and in Germany, since the first monks to re-settle Buckfast in the 19th century were French and German.
With around 120 employees on staff and 3-400,000 visitors a year, Buckfast is far from a small presence in the area. However, there are only 15 monks, including Abbot Charlesworth, who live in the enclosed monastery of the abbey.
But according to Charlesworth, “the vitality of a monastic community witness does not depend so much on the age or number of members as on their manner of living the monastic life.”
Going into the future, he hopes Buckfast Abbey is able to offer a concrete service based on “Christ-centered hospitality” to the mission of the Church as a whole, but specifically the pilgrims who come.
“The monastic life itself is our way of participating in the mission of Christ and his Church,” the abbot said, adding that it offers both the Church and the world “a strong clear sign of the very nature of the Christian life.”
Though the monks are enclosed, that doesn’t mean they are inactive or that their presence isn’t felt, he said, because if lived properly through a life of prayer and asceticism, monastic life “assumes an evangelical importance, being the attitude and behavior which demonstrates our faith at the point of contact with each other and the world.”
“To witness the contentment and pleasure that others experience here is a great joy,” he said, noting that for many of Buckfast’s visitors, the monastery is a place “where they are uplifted and find peace,” which in itself is “an important source of encouragement.”
This opportunity for peace, joy and renewal is a primary way to evangelize, particularly amid a busy and often hectic rhythm, he said.
Evangelization, he said, “should seek to orientate our human freedom towards God, who is the source of truth, goodness and beauty.”
Because of this, a life of prayer is also a mode of evangelization, he said, explaining that “the Spirit given to us in prayer and the sacraments encourages us to spread the Good News of Jesus in word and deed” to the community, and to visitors.
“For us, the three-fold mission of liturgy, hospitality and evangelization helps us to express our commitment, through our monastic calling to the life of the Gospel,” Charlesworth said, stressing that “we do not have to work away from the monastery to bear witness to Jesus.”
“Within the monastic enclosure, if we are willing to cooperate with each other and collaborate with those who share our vision, we have the resources to bring hope and joy to those in need.”
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Bishop Shevchuk is absolutely correct in his statement. The 23 Eastern Catholic Churches are self-governed, autonomous Churches in communion with Rome, and are therefore under a different code of canon law. Not only does it seem like there a different meaning of the word “blessing” in the Byzantine Rite, a blessing can refer to someone giving someone else permission to do certain things, which in this case, is gravely unacceptable. I’m also worried that this decree will ruin any progress Rome has made towards reuniting with the Orthodox Churches. I’m not a sedevacantist; Pope Francis IS our Pope, but he needs to stop playing people pleaser. Hopefully the next Pope will reverse this, and change the meaning of the word “blessing” to match the Eastern Rite definition.
So, had the Declaration been routinely vetted for collegial consultation (as was the Catechism), then this bit of late news would not be happening.
Instead, has ghost-writer Fernandez thrown up another roadblock to progress in reunion between the Catholic Church (Latin and Eastern Rites) and the Orthodox Churches? We’ve already heard that open-bar synodality in the West doesn’t measure up to the eastern understanding of synods of bishops.
On the matter of radical secularists co-opting the Church with the homosexual lifestyle, the Holy Father need only recall his 2021 Instruction prohibiting blessings (surely meaning the inventive non-blessing blessings!) and stick with it. We also might be reminded, here, of how Nicaea was a matter of faithful remembering and, therefore, rejection of polytheistic Arianism, more than it was the simple inclusiveness of contour-free synodality.
It’s almost as if closing out the so-called “backwardists,” those retrogrades who don’t know how to love, is a bit that has come back to bite. To parse Richard M. Weaver, “Deafness has Consequences.”
Faithful Catholic bishops and pastors should likewise opt out of this latest Bergoglio imbroglio.
The major archbishop’s reasoning is quite compelling:
“Pastoral discernment urges us to avoid ambiguous gestures, expressions, and concepts that would distort or misrepresent God’s word and the teaching of the Church.”
‘”Pastoral discernment urges us to avoid ambiguous gestures, expressions and concepts that would distort or misrepresent God’s word and the teaching of the Church”, [Ukrainian Archbishop Sviatislav Shevchuk] said’.
Too rigid for Rome, it would seem.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk has good reason to rescind, insofar as Eastern liturgical praxis, as well as his apparent disagreement with Fiducia Supplicans. Although Fiducia is a Declaration, we recall the liturgical plight of the Syriac Malabar Christians of India. I hope he’s right. We’ve reached the moment in Church history in which we may question the pontificate of Francis 1. Many are using words such as, against Christ, blasphemy, doing evil against the Father. How might we interpret this?
Pope Francis appears to be a type of Antichrist. Insofar as type anyone who consistently repudiates Christ by diminishing his doctrine is a form or type of Antichrist. What do the relevant texts say, perhaps the foremost is the Apostle in 2 Thess 2. Generally the Greek, 2 Thess 4 ὥστε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ καθίσαι, ἀποδεικνύντα ἑαυτὸν ὅτι ἔστιν θεός is translated as ‘seating himself in God’s temple as God’, whereas the Gk text uses the active participle ἀποδεικνύντα, which may be translated, ‘as if he were God’. That is how Saint Jerome translates the sentence in the Vulgate, ita ut in templo Dei sedeat ostendens se tamquam sit Deus. Which translates as if he were God. We can add to this that the inveterate sinner, atheist, person who subverts Christ’s words is a form of Antichrist. We find the ancient Fathers applying the word Antichrist to Gnostics like Marcion and others.
Francis, we know, is the pope. That he’s a man with convictions he perceives are best for a failing Church. Convictions a growing number of Catholics including bishops and cardinals are in conflict with, realized in this latest teaching, Fiducia Supplicans. Credentialed commentators have acknowledged that Fiducia textual quoting of Card Carlo Martini’s circumstantial ethics of meeting the needs of the moment rather than being locked into inflexible doctrine undermines the entire corpus of Christ’s revelation.
As said elsewhere Catholics must remain loyal to the Deposit of the Faith and perennial doctrine. We should continue to remain loyal to the Chair of Peter insofar as it is instituted by Christ. Although if the person who holds the Chair is manifestly in conflict with the faith revealed by Christ and conveyed by the Apostles we’re certainly not required to submit to what is sinful. In this way we remain loyal to Christ and the Church as it was instituted by Our Lord. Similarly if what promotes sin and the loss of souls is propagated, we’re obliged to reveal that error or errors to the faithful and instruct them to follow tradition.
Francis does not fear God. He does not fear His Holy Word. The ramifications of this double failure has serious consequences for the Church.
Since Francis took over the Chair of Peter, he’s been speaking from both sides of his mouth, like a snake oil salesman attempting to sell the latest fad and hoping we will buy it. Nope we stay True to God’s word and avoid sin at all costs even when it comes out of one side of the mouth of Bergoglio