Message of Abbot Paul - Friday 6th October 2023

Today, 6th October, we remember St Bruno, founder of the Carthusians, who died on this day at Serra San Bruno, Calabria, in the year 1101. Born in Cologne around 1030, he studied in Germany and France, was ordained and became a canon. He taught at Rheims and was a renowned scholar, a friend and teacher of Popes and other leaders. All the while he felt that God was calling him to the solitary life, but with the help of a community of brothers. He founded the first two Carthusian houses of Calabria himself and refused the Archbishopric of Reggio Calabria. In many ways one of the most attractive of saintly founders, we ask his intercession today for the Church and for the Synod taking place in Rome.

Yesterday we visited the old market to do the rounds of the usual store owners where my cases are filled for the return to the U.K. A large amount of incense from Mount Athos for Peru, olives and olive oil for my mother and myself, then loukoumia, mastica and other local delicacies, visits to bakers, cheese sellers, fishmongers, butchers, fruit and vegetable sellers. Everything has to be touched and tasted for quality, even grains of incense burnt to see if the perfume is intense enough. Real, old fashioned shopping, and it takes a long time, especially if you stop for a drink and a snack, and long discussions putting the world to rights.

Today’s Gospel from Luke, (Lk10: 13-16), sees the lament of Jesus for the towns, where he had preached the Good News, for their lack of repentance and conversion. I wonder what he is saying today of the towns and villages where we live. Even Capernaum is singled out for lamentation. He ends by telling his disciples, “Anyone who listens to you, listens to me; anyone who rejects you, rejects me, and those who reject me, reject the one who sent me.” We pray for the grace never to reject Jesus.