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.”
[…]
We read: “The Bavarian Diocese of Augsburg provided a substantive critique of the German handout, with Bishop Bertram Meier identifying several points where the guidance conflicts with Vatican teaching.”
Of course, the so-called “Vatican teaching” struck many as flawed in itself. But, whatever. It’s good news to hear that the five solid dioceses are no longer standing alone, with the twenty-two remainders now split 11-11.
So, where is Cardinal Kasper in all of this? He has chided Germania from more-or-less breaking with the universal Church, but is he not the one who also lit the match to the haystack with his two-hour ramblings introducing the first session of the synod on the family in 2015? The luminary Kasper, only to be corrected at the beginning of the second session by Cardinal Erdo of Hungary, who raised eyebrows by simply stating the obvious: “There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”
About the so-called blessings, whether spontaneous or now scripted, the below-the-belt Cardinal Kasper had no time for below-the-equator African dissenters: (https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/10/dont-listen-to-the-africans-says-catholic-cardinal). (With a later apology.) So, a footnote to the above article—in addition to the German dioceses now dissenting from a memo on German letterhead, non-amnesiacs also recall dissent from Fiducia Supplicans, itself, from: all of continental Africa, Hungary, Poland, Peru, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, parts of France, Spain and Argentina, and numerous individuals as well as the Coptic Church and the patriarch of Bulgaria (who expressed “shock”). Cardinal Muller’s earlier remarks are found here: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/02/does-fiducia-supplicans-affirm-heresy
SUMMARY: The German Luther was initially right when he declined to give absolution to those in the confessional who refused to repent and, instead, hid behind fig-leaf certificates awarding fraudulent “indulgences.”
This “debate” about The Deposit Of Faith is only occurring due to the fact that Vatican II, by refusing to affirm The Charitable Anathema, Instituted By Jesus The Christ, for The Salvation Of Souls , and out of a false ideology, lacking in Charity, and thus void of authentic Life-affirming and Life-Sustaining Salvational Love, that was permitted to subsist within The One Body of Christ, creating a counterfeit, fraudulent magisterium that in denying The Word Of Perfect Divine Eternal Love Incarnate, is anti-Christ, anti Filioque, and anti Papacy, existing in direct conflict with Christ’s True Magisterium, making it appear as if it Christ’s Church is no longer One, Holy, Catholic, And Apostolic Church, In The Unity Of The Holy Ghost, The Spirit Of Perfect Divine Eternal Love Between The Father And His Only Begotten Son, Who Proceeds From Both The Father And His Only Begotten Son. The question is, why are the Faithful not demanding that the counterfeit magisterium that is attempting to subsist within The One Body Of Christ, be anathema when the Faithful know through both Faith and reason, you can only have a Great Apostasy from The True Church Of Christ, and Christ, Himself, warned us that this day would come?
Who’s “debate,” and maybe you can diagram that first sentence?
Notice the effort of the bishops to obfuscate instead of simply following Scripture:
Romans 1:26-27
New International Version
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11
New International Version
9 Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men[a]
10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
11 And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
The legacy of Bergoglio continues.
(Sigh.)
Evil. Error. Confusion. The normalization of sin.
Even though Bergoglio has departed, the Church remains under assault by the Dark Vatican and its minions.
Pope Leo, please move decisively to set things right.
We must stop crucifying our poor, suffering Jesus!
Pope Leo needs to retract Fuducia Supplicans, clarify Church teaching on Amoris Laetitia,reinstate the Latin Mass…
Francis was a disaster. The German Church needs correction.
Let’s face facts – unpleasant as they are to talk about. The Church in Germany (as is the case for the Church in America and elsewhere) is divided between those clergy who are homosexual and support the homosexual agenda and those who are not homosexual. It is divided between those who accept the order of creation as God designed it and those who reject God’s design. The Church is divided between those who recognize sin for what it is and those who do not. The Church in Germany and elsewhere is divided between those who sow confusion and those who prefer clarity. Everyone gets to decide where they fall whether or not they admit it.
Sfiducia Supplicans is heteropraxy. As such, it leads Catholics away from union with God to promote sinful unions with each other.
Why would most German Bishops want this? To be sure, all the usual Protestant reasons: peer pressure, pleasure, popularity, etc.
One reason less discussed for this apostasy is greed. Germans who check the box to declare themselves Catholics pay taxes to the Church. Roughly 75% of those folk agree with these fraudulent “blessings.” Together, German Catholics pay over 5 billion euro in taxes every year to the Church. Lord knows this money piles up and gives inordinate power to those, like Cardinal Marx and his friends, who control it. Some studies think the total assets of the German Catholic Church is 265 billion euro. Most diocese have more money than the Vatican. God knows, none of this is fully transparent.
Pray and stay Catholic. Jesus Christ is Lord.
Good to see that Our Bishop here in Augsburg Diocese is finally speaking out against the way the German Bishops are leading us!
And what does it mean “an important step toward a Church that is oriented to people’s life realities and respects love in all its expressions”?, particularly: “love in all its expressions”?!. We forgot Augustine: disordered love is the essence of sin. When we seek ultimate happiness (frui-fruitio) in a created thing, like money, power, or another person, we are loving it in a way that it wasn’t meant to be loved.
“… an important step toward a Church that is oriented to people’s life realities and respects love in all its expressions.” This statement is not even clever enough to count as deceitful. It is a blatant invitation to engage in sinful behavior.
Some of those expressions of love are still criminally prosecuted. Even in Germany.
“Love” has its boundaries.
One has to wonder if the authors of Fiducia Supplicans weren’t some of the very people Pope Francis was aiming his supposed “faux pas” repeatedly saying there is “too much faggotry” within the Vatican at. Clearly they suffer from a scheming mindset to so clearly state the Christ’s clear teaching to us only to then intentionally labor with their words to restrict the Church’s freedom to bring God’s blessings through our liturgical life (the “Work of the [God’s] People”). They do this by legal lingo slight of hand. FS’s Intro II.8. does this with the words, “Blessings are among the most widespread and evolving sacramentals” hint, hint. Then, “Indeed, they lead us to grasp God’s presence (small “p” because we are not sure He really is Present???) in ALL the events of life…” again, hint, hint. Then in Intro II.9. “From a STRICTLY liturgical point of view, a blessing requires that what is blessed be conformed to God’s will, as expressed in the teachings of the Church.” Only to then (after two more buffering paragraphs for camouflage sake) state in Intro II.12. “One must also avoid the risk of REDUCING THE MEANING OF BLESSINGS to this point of view alone…” But for those awake enough to see the lie of our enemy the Divider (Diabolos)/False Accuser (Satan) worked in here, it is precisely this artificial framing of the Church’s liturgical life under terms of pharisaic legal restrictiveness that is the slight of hand, for this is an utterly false framing! Oh Lord Jesus Christ our Good Shepherd, have mercy and bring humbling repentance to the hearts, minds and lives of all such “wolves in shepherds clothing” who would make themselves the servants of the dragon against Your Church in these ways!!!
Is there a possibility that the pro-gay-blessing German clergy/bishops could break away (schism?) from the Roman Catholic Church and establish a “new” type of Catholic Church in Germany? It does sound like the “gay rights crowd” of Catholics is in the minority–is this correct? Or do they outnumber the traditional Catholics, if not in population, perhaps in funds (from various “stars” and celebrities)?
From what I understand, Germany has a history of tolerance for sexual behaviors that are generally considered “sinful” by both Catholic and Protestant churches (as well as by Muslims). After WWI, there were entire blocks of the big cities that were filled with nightclubs catering to various non-straight sexual appetites. (The music Cabaret makes this clear, although I’m not sure how much of that is true to real-life.) And even though Adolf Hitler condemned homosexuality and sent many homosexuals to concentration camps, he tolerated it for his staff and military leaders.
Is this “legacy” making a comeback in Germany?
This is the war to decapitate the Body of Christ.
“Eminence” Marx, (like his American counterparts of the “Francis-Legacy-cult”) is an office-holder of “The Revolution of the Janitors.”
Per this essay:
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/revolt-of-the-janitors-on-the-detroit-massacre
They are fit to be confronted and opposed and fought.
And the he obfuscating bishops and the Vatican not only ignore scripture (see my citation of Scripture above) but also great Christian thinkers like St. Augustine:
“Those sins which are against nature, like those of the men of Sodom, are in all times and places to be detested and punished. Even if all nations committed such sins, they should all alike be held guilty by God’s law” (Confessions 3.8).
As for the homosexuality that the Catholic Church in Germany endorses, their open borders policy with regard to those worship an islamic god will take care of that problem. The solution will not be a pretty one.