Dom Illtud Barrett

Dear Illtud loved collecting things, among them quotations. Glancing through his papers my eye was drawn to this. It simply said, Andrew McKie: “If you look closely enough, there aren’t any ordinary lives.” That is very true and Illtud’s life was anything but ordinary. God took the largest canvas he could find!

You will have noticed that for his memorial card we chose those lovely words of Julian of Norwich that were so close to his heart. “Love was his meaning. Hold on to this and you will know and understand love more and more. But you will not know or learn anything else – ever!” The monastic life is often described as the search for God. If God is love, as St John wrote, then the search for God is also the search for love, and for a Christian that means the love of God made manifest in Christ Jesus our Lord. This love was the goal of Illtud’s life, the prize to be gained at the top of St Benedict’s ladder of humility, “perfect love that casts out fear”. And yet the quest for love can only take root in someone’s heart, in someone’s life because “God loved us first.” Illtud discovered this fundamental truth at a very early age and he remained true to the gift of God’s love until the moment he died.

Today’s readings, chosen from among Illtud’s favourites, speak powerfully of the love of God which transcends all sentimentality and favouritism. David weeps at the death of Saul, his enemy, and of Jonathan, his beloved friend. A few days’ ago I was talking with a young man who was weeping both for his younger brother killed while serving in Iraq and for those who killed him. “As a Christian,” he said, “I love them both and pray for their salvation.” Those words could have been spoken by Illtud, whose prayer and faith were often expressed in tears. “Love your enemies and pray for those who hate you,” were the words of Jesus and Illtud took those words to heart.

In the second reading we discover the source of Illtud’s conviction that “those who abide in love, abide in God, and God in them.” It was God’s love that motivated everything he thought, said or did, that moved him and made him such a loving and lovable person. “We have known and believe the love that God has for us,” wrote St John. Illtud was very much aware of his human frailty and sinfulness, yet at the same time he never doubted that God “sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Confident of God’s forgiveness, he was able to forgive others. Trusting always in God’ mercy and love, he did not fear death.

In the Gospel we hear Jesus say that he stands among us as one who serves. The greatness the disciples so desired comes from serving, a service which, according to St Benedict, needs to be humble and silent in obedience to the will of God. Our love for God can only be real when it results in our doing far more than our duty, in the total sacrifice of ourselves and our own selfish interests as we strive to serve our brethren and those in need. Wherever he was, Cardiff, Belmont, Oxford, Llanarth, Harrington, Stanbrook or Heathfield, Illtud was a hard and accomplished worker, not for personal glory but for love for God and neighbour. Following in the footsteps of Jesus, he walked among us as one who served.

Brian Michael Barrett was born in Cardiff on 28th November 1934, the first of five children. His parents, Julia Veronica and Daniel Thomas Barrett, were fervent Catholics and lived just across the road from St Mary of the Angels, Canton, at that time an Ampleforth parish. In those days Cardiff was a very Catholic city and daily life revolved around the church. Illtud loved his family dearly and, in later life, was proud of the achievements of his nephews and nieces. He studied at St Illtud’s, sharing a desk with Vincent Kane, the well-known broadcaster. At the instigation of Dom Roger Lightbound he was sent to Belmont, where he obtained a state scholarship to Oxford. However, as was the custom then, he entered the novitiate on leaving school and went up to Oxford later. He was clothed by Abbot Anselm Lightbound on 28th September 1952 together with Bishop Mark and Fr Laurence. He was professed by Abbot Alphege Gleeson on St Michael’s Day 1953, the year of the coronation. He was devoted to Her Majesty the Queen, the Queen Mother and all the Royal Family. Indeed, he was a royalist through and through. Three years later he made his Solemn Profession. Illtud, as we all know, was a good actor and a great mimic. His imitations of Belmont monks and of many other people, women too like Auntie Vi and Gertie Crump, were spot on. He loved telling how Abbot Maurice Martin, the gentlest of souls before and after being abbot, hauled him into his office the day before his profession. “Get on your knees, brother. Do think that I am going to profess you?” Well, he was professed and eventually ordained a deacon by Archbishop McGrath of Cardiff and a year later, on 1st June 1961, a priest by Bishop Petit of Menevia together with Fr David.

He began teaching in the school in 1958, becoming Head of History and monk in charge of the school choir and school singing in general. He had a beautiful voice, powerful and true. However, in those days there was no amplification system in the church, yet you could hear his voice above the entire school. Illtud ruined his voice at school singing practices. He had a first class mind and a memory that even a modern computer would envy. He was an excellent teacher, never failing to keep the interest of his students. He seemed to know intimate details about the private lives of every monarch and pope in history and peppered his classes and conversations with tasty morsels always apt to the topic at hand. He served as Housemaster of Kindersley for two periods and was Headmaster of our prep school at Llanarth for five years. He was a firm disciplinarian but, at the same time, a loving and caring father. He taught for 26 years, often having to fulfil other duties both in the school and in the monastery. He was a Cantor for many years. Who can forget him intoning the Solemn “Alma” at the beginning of Advent? He always made sure he was Cantor that night! Then he was Sacristan and Master of Ceremonies. We were never short of new vestments in those days and not even Cluny in its heyday could compete with Illtud’s brilliantly choreographed ceremonial. I remember a guest saying to me during High Mass, “This is what heaven must be like!” And he was right. The highlight of all this was his being chosen as MC for the Benedictine celebration at Westminster Abbey in 1980. He was a historian and a liturgist of distinction and we were looking forward to his contribution to the new History of Belmont, which, God willing, will be published at the end of 2009, Belmont’s 150th anniversary.

As the school master chapter of his life closed, so another opened. Often we only know one side of a person’s character, or just one area of their life. For the last 25 years of his life Illtud served as pastor and chaplain, first at St Mary’s, Harrington, in Cumbria, then with the Benedictine nuns at Stanbrook and finally, for no less than 17 years, with Sr. Mary Garson’s Benedictine Sisters of Grace and Compassion at Holy Cross Priory, Heathfield, Sussex.

Here are a few words written by one of the Stanbrook nuns. “…a line of gratitude for Belmont’s gift of Fr Illtud as chaplain to Stanbrook from 1987 to 1990. He was a tremendous force for good... He was discreet and understanding, but never interfering... liturgically we were blessed to have his orthodox theology, encyclopaedic grasp of praxis, combined with a magnificent sense of style plus the ability to leap into the breach, ready to sing an intonation even if he didn’t have the text or music handed to him, or to rise to Sunday bidding prayers when the person allocated didn’t turn up at Mass. His sense of humour, plus his temper, kept him human.”

His humour and his temper: Illtud really was a great entertainer. He could keep you riveted to your seat. He could make you laugh and he could make you cry, he could make you think and he could make you change your mind. There was never a dull moment. Can you remember him and Abbot Alan doing the two cleaning ladies in their turbans and pinafores? As for the temper, it was certainly dramatic. He knew how to play to the gallery. But that is what it was, play-acting, making fun of himself. In his last letter to me, written just a few days before he died, he recalled an episode in the sacristy after Vespers on Christmas Eve 1969. Br. Robert and I were acolytes at this new-fangled celebration of First Vespers combined with the Vigil Mass of Christmas. By the time we got to the Magnificat, after Communion, I was completely lost and didn’t know what to do or where to go. Br. Robert stood frozen to the spot and couldn’t move in any direction. In the end the procession left the church without us. When we finally made our way into the sacristy, Illtud, like a roaring lion, came across to us, seething. “You have ruined my Christmas.” Later that night, after Midnight Mass and a few gin and tonics, he was sweetness itself. But Illtud never forgot. The memory of that night and countless similar memories caused him amusement years after. The great thing about Illtud was that he could laugh at himself, especially at his temper.

What really marked this second half of his monastic life was the debilitating and excruciatingly painful lupus, at first wrongly diagnosed. It was his hell on earth, his purgatory, his judgement. Illtud had always been a handsome, good-looking fellow. He stood out in a crowd. But now he graciously accepted as God’s will the loss of physical beauty and good health. He was unable to continue at Stanbrook, so Abbot Alan arranged with Sr. Mary Garson for him to go to Holy Cross Priory. After two years he was able to take on the duties of chaplain. He said Mass and heard confessions every day, gave classes on Benedictine history, spirituality and liturgy to novices and juniors from Asia and Africa and took care of the spiritual welfare of the sick, the elderly and the dying at the large nursing home. He prepared hundreds of souls for death and was there with them when the moment came, holding their hand and gently praying. His work at Holy Cross was not just a fitting climax to his life, but through pain and suffering he gradually grew into that holy monk the Lord had destined him to be. To quote the letter to the Hebrews, “He was made perfect through suffering.”

I will bring this homily to an end with a prayer I found on his desk. It is probably one of the last things he wrote in that elegant, italic script of his. I like to think that he might have read it the night he died, shortly before the heart attack that took him from us. He was prepared for death and had nothing to fear. It is a prayer based on a vision of St Bernard as recorded in the Annals of Clairvaux.

Prayer to the Shoulder Wound of Our Lord

O most loving Jesus, meek Lamb of God, I, a miserable sinner, salute and worship the most Sacred Wound of Thy Shoulder on which Thou didst bear that heavy Cross, which so tore Thy Flesh and laid bare Thy Bones so as to inflict on Thee an anguish greater than any other wound of Thy most blessed Body. I adore Thee, O Jesus most sorrowful; I praise and glorify Thee, and give Thee thanks of this most sacred and painful Wound, beseeching Thee by that exceeding pain, and by the crushing burden of Thy Heavy Cross, to be merciful to me, a sinner, to forgive me all my mortal and venial sins, and to lead me on towards heaven along the Way of the Cross. Amen.