Temporary Profession of Br Andrew

Br Andrew, right holds up the profession document he signed and placed on the altar during Mass. He is standing with Fr Brendan, the Novice Master.

Singing and Signing the Vows

On the feast of the Conversion of St Paul, 25th January, Br Andrew made his temporary profession in the Abbey Church. Some of his friends and family joined him for this very happy occasion. Br Andrew hails from Bolton in Lancashire.

According to the custom of the English Benedictine Congregation, a monk makes his profession after a year of being a novice. But in order to continue the process of discernment vows are only taken for 3 years at this stage, only then will a life-time's commitment be made.

Br Andrew sang his vows and promised "in the presence of God and his saints", stability, conversatio morum and obedience. These are the traditional Benedictine vows reflecting a monk's commitment to be rooted in his monastic family (stability), being faithful to the monastic way of seeking God (conversatio morum) and an openness to listen and respond to the challenges presented by the Abbot and community (in obedience).

After signing his vows Br Andrew placed the written document under the corporal, the small cloth covering the altar. Mass continued with the offering of the Eucharistic gifts over this document which symbolised Br Andrew's offering of this life in the service of God.

Br Andrew was clothed in the monastic cowl which had been blessed in a private ceremony the night before.

Abbot Paul's Homily

Today we celebrate the Conversion of St Paul, an unusual feast, the only one of its kind in the Calendar. It is an excellent day for a monastic profession and most appropriate, for what is the monastic life but a life of conversion? That is our purpose and our charism. Everything we do as monks, our work, our prayer and our life in community, everything serves for God to chip away at our making and perfecting, like Michelangelo working on the Pieta.

Although other models of monastic life are more popular and perhaps more obvious: the prophet Elijah, St John the Baptist, Our Lady or Christ himself, I have always seen in St Paul, in his life and in his work, the example of the perfect monk, the man of God. And, because of his missionary activity and his ability to combine that with a life of manual work, theological study and contemplative prayer, the very best model for an English Benedictine monk and a monk of Belmont. So, Br Andrew, let us take a look at St Paul's Conversion and see in it the reflection of our own.

The first thing we learn from the Acts of the Apostles is that Paul was called personally by Jesus, the risen Lord. He was called not because he was a disciple and a saint already, but because he was still an enemy, a virulent opponent of the Gospel. Saul was someone who sought perfection by his own efforts, by his observance of the Law. He was angry, well-organised and very much in charge: he knew what he wanted. But on the road to Damascus, the unexpected, the unspeakable happened. God intervened and things would never be the same again, for Paul, for the Church and for the History of the World.

Few of us have had a calling and a conversion as dramatic and as world-shattering as Paul's, but each one of us has to live through the personal drama of his own calling, and throughout life in ongoing drama, tragic at times, of his particular calling. It is not easy for any of us, but God knows what he is doing.

A vocation is God's call, his gift, and it is through his grace that we respond. He wants you, Andrew, to enter into an ever-deepening relationship and friendship with him. He wants you to turn to him constantly, to search for him always, to listen to his voice and discern his will and, in obedience, to do it joyfully and without delay. And he has called you to be part of a particular community in the Body of Christ, the Church.

Now the next thing we learn from Acts is that a call from Jesus involves placing ourselves in another's hands. Saul was struck blind. They had to take him by the hand and lead him into Damascus. In the monastic life this is particularly true in the novitiate and our years of formation, but, let us be honest, it remains true throughout life. As abbot, I am acutely aware that I depend entirely on the community. I would be nothing and life would be meaningless without the brethren, all of them, the living and the dead. The beauty of the monastic life, the coenobitic life, is that we are all in each other's hands. We depend on each other, we support one another, we need each other, we love one another as Christ loves us. To be successful in the monastic life, (the wrong word, I hate it, but I would rather talk about success than mere survival), to survive, to succeed, to persevere in the monastery until death, you have to remain a novice at heart, a beginner, a learner, ever eager for the things of God.

Caravaggio, The Conversion of St Paul

But St Paul was not only a monk in his calling and initial formation. He remained a monk throughout his life and his conversion, like ours, was an ongoing process. At every turn God was forming him, preparing him for heaven. Now the word monk does not only mean someone who lives alone for God, emphasising the aspect of solitude, withdrawal from the world, silence, detachment, austerity. It means rather someone who lives for God alone, whose heart and mind are focussed on God, on the God who makes him one, whole, perfect and complete. He who is at one with God will be at one with himself.

The journey into God equally involves a journey into self, into the very depths of ones being. How many people leave the monastic life and abandon the search for God because they cannot face that journey, which can be painful and frightening. And yet knowing God is intrinsically bound up with self-knowledge, just as we cannot love God without loving our neighbour. Indeed we cannot love God unless we love him as ourselves. "It is not I who live but Christ who lives in me," wrote St Paul. In Christ we discover our true identity. In the search for God we discover who we really are, we come to know ourselves. Seeing ourselves in God and God in us, we come to that perfect love which casts our fear.

Contemplation is not simply a way of prayer; it is a way of life. "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. To have seen me is to have seen the Father," said Jesus to his disciples. The goal and purpose of our monastic observance, of our monastic vows is contemplation: to see God and to know him, to love and serve him, to worship and adore him. We come to see him in our brethren, in the abbot, in the sick, in the young and the old, in our guests and in the poor.

St Paul, of course, became the greatest missionary the world has ever known. Had it not been for his conversion and calling, would there even be a Church today? He was certainly God's chosen instrument, the thirteenth apostle. That is how God works: through human beings, the clay jars that contain the treasure of his grace. All Christian life is essentially missionary and evangelical. You cannot be a Christian without proclaiming the Gospel, without bringing others to Christ.

Some missionaries, like St Paul, travel great distances and undergo enormous dangers in order to preach the Gospel. Think of the Celtic monks or St Augustine of Canterbury, the English Benedictine monks of penal times or the Swiss and German monks and nuns in North America - they were as much part of the Wild West as were the cowboys and Indians. But you do not need to go far in order to preach the Gospel. Think of the crowds who came to see St Antony and the desert fathers or St Simon Stylites and his companions. Nearer our own day we have the Cure of Ars and Padre Pio. And you, Andrew, who are an Internet buff, know perfectly well that the battle for people's hearts and minds today, the battle between good and evil, is being waged out there in cyberspace. Benedict was right. You do not have to leave the enclosure of the monastery or the confines of your own cell in order to find your way to God and help others do the same.

Today's second reading was from St Paul to the Philippians, a short book often quoted by St Benedict in the Rule. In it St Paul talks of all the monastic virtues: the essentials, which, if you put them into practice throughout your monastic life, will bring you much happiness as well as prepare you for heaven and an eternity of bliss. No competition, no conceit, always be self-effacing. Consider others to be better than yourself and put others first. Being a monk really means living in Christ, being moved by love and guided by the Spirit, realising that all you have is shared, that nothing is yours but everything is ours. Be all tenderness and sympathy. Above all, "be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind."