Dies Memorabilis 2009
150th Anniversary of Monastic Life at Belmont

When the monastery was officially opened in 1859 monastic life returned to Herefordshire after a lapse of some three hundred years. It was an event that greatly astonished the neighbourhood.
Dom Alphonsus Morrall of Downside (the first novice master at Belmont) was present on this day and left an account of the proceedings:

" November 21st 1859. On this anniversary the new church of St. Michael's was blessed by Dom Norbert Sweeney, the late Prior of St. Gregory's, Downside. As the church had not originally been designed for a community, and alterations were contemplated to form the east end into a regular choir, only the nave and transepts were used; the arches of the chancel and of the side chapels being bricked up. In consequence of the workmen being employed in the church all the afternoon, it could not be blessed before it had become dark. The Prior with cross-bearer and two acolytes and two attendants, and accompanied by Mr. Wegg-Prosser, the founder of the church, then proceeded round the church over the rough ground and heaps of mortar, and blessed it according to the Roman Ritual. They then went to the chapel-school [the current Parish Centre], and brought the Blessed Sacrament into the church, when Vespers were sung, and Benediction given by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Brown, the Bishop of the Diocese."

Workmen worked in the church throughout the night and the Blessed Sacrament was removed into the monastery. The Divine Office was recited in the chapter room and the first Mass was said at 7.OOam by Bishop Brown and served by Mr. Wegg-Prosser. At 11.OOam Pontifical High Mass was sung by Bishop Ullathorne of Birmingham. The temporary altar is now the one in the sacristy. And so the community life at Belmont officially began with a community of nineteen monks and lay brothers. The monastery was placed under the protection of St. Michael by a Papal Decree of December 18th 1859.

Dies Memorabilis -
A Memorable Day for Monks in England

The present day English Congregation can claim canonical continuity with the congregation erected in the thirteenth century by the Holy See. The oldest monasteries of that congregation claimed continuity with the monasteries restored by Sts. Dunstan, Ethelwold and Oswald in the tenth century. These monasteries had bound themselves together by a document known as the Regularis Concordia. These monasteries in turn claimed moral continuity with the monasteries founded by Sts. Wilfrid and Benet Biscop in the seventh century, who in turn were inspired by what they saw at St. Augustine's monastery at Canterbury. St. Augustine had been a monk at Pope Gregory the Great's monastery in Rome and had been sent to England in 597. The seventh century monasteries had been destroyed by the Viking invaders in the ninth century.

From the tenth to the sixteenth century the black monks of St. Benedict played an integral part in every aspect of English life; religious, social and economic. Under King Henry VIII the congregation nearly came to extinction with the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s.

For the Congregation, the Feast of the Presentation of Our Lady, 21st November is known as the Dies Memorabilis because of two significan events that took place on this day.

In 1556 Abbot John Feckenham, a learned and pious monk of Evesham, with fourteen Benedictine monks took possession of the restored Abbey of St.Peter's Westminster. (One of these monks was the last Cistercian abbot of Dore Abbey, Herefordshire). This revival lasted only two years and eight months; the monks were driven out again, when Elizabeth I came to the throne.

In 1607 Dom Sigebert Buckley, the last surviving monk of Westminster, clothed and professed the two novices Robert Sadler and Edward Maihew, and so aggregated and incorporated them as successors of the old English Congregation. Fr. Buckley had refused to take the oath of supremacy and so was imprisoned during Queen Elizabeth's reign, being released at the accession of James L At the age of 86 Fr.Buckley was willing and anxious to pass on the habit and succession of Westminster. How to do this legally was arranged by a young lawyer of Abergavenny who had gone to Italy and returned a Benedictine monk Br. Augustine Baker drew up a legal instrument for the aggregation and succession which satisfied all ecclesiastical law. These two monks joined others, exiled in France, who were training for work on the English mission

To these important events, we can add the opening of the monastery at Belmont in 1859, first as the Common Novitiate adn House of Studies of the Congregation, and then as an independant house.

For the Belmont Community in 2009 it is a true moment of celebration.