Message of Abbot Paul - Monday - 4th March 2024
Abbot Paul • March 3, 2024
Today’s message will be short indeed. Yesterday was a very busy day, and I arrived back at Belmont exhausted if emotionally and spiritually uplifted after an exhilarating weekend. It’s difficult to make head or tail of the weather at the moment. We seem to get all four seasons in one day and sometimes the mix is repeated several times in the course of one day. I wonder what our plants make of this and our feathered friends, too.
Today’s Gospel from Luke, (Lk 4: 24-30), sees Jesus speaking in the synagogue at Nazareth. He says, “I tell you solemnly, no prophet is ever accepted in his own country.” Needless to say, this infuriates his fellow townsmen. However, he has more to say and gives two examples from the Old Testament. “There were many widows in Israel, I can assure you, in Elijah’s day, when heaven remained shut for three years and six months and a great famine raged throughout the land, but Elijah was not sent to any one of these: he was sent to a widow at Zarephath, a Sidonian town. And in the prophet Elisha’s time there were many lepers in Israel, but none of these was cured, except the Syrian, Naaman.” What Jesus says is perfectly true. During that long drought and famine, the only miracle Elijah worked was for a foreign, and therefore pagan, widow. In the same way, the only healing of a leper in the days of his successor, the prophet Elisha, was of a Syrian and a pagan, Naaman. Jesus compares himself with the two great prophets, not that they were rejected by Israel, but their teaching was usually ignored.
Luke goes on to tell us, “When they heard this everyone in the synagogue was enraged. They sprang to their feet and hustled him out of the town; and they took him up to the brow of the hill their town was built on, intending to throw him down the cliff, but he slipped through the crowd and walked away.” This first rejection of Jesus by his own townsmen is prophetic in that it begins a series of events that escalate and ultimately end with his arrest, trial, passion and crucifixion. On many occasions, Jesus manages to slip through the crowds and escape. Eventually he will let himself be taken, as for this he came into the world, to give his life for the forgiveness of sinners and their salvation. For that sacrifice we give thanks to God today with all our heart.
Br Meinrad and Br Gildas attend a special service with the Benedictine community of St Paul's Outside the Walls with King Charles and Queen Camilla.
Honesty and Love Before God: Pharisee and Tax Collector; Pope and King - a homily by Abbot Brendan for the 30th Sunday of the Year.
We are sad to announce that Fr Stephen died on Monday 21st October 2055. He was 94. He died peacefully in hospital, having recently fractured his shoulder. He was a beloved member of the monastic community, who had settled back at Belmont after many years on Belmont parishes, including in Abergavenny, Swansea, Hereford and Weobley. He will be much missed. His Requiem Mass will be at Belmont on Wednesday, 5th November at 11.30am followed by burial in the monastic cemetery. The Reception of his Body into the Abbey Church will take place on Tuesday, 4th November, at 5.45pm.
With honoured guests we were delighted to open our doors again of our new guesthouse and conference centre: The Chapterhouse.
"A hymn to the human body." Abbot Brendan's Homily at the annual Mass celebrated at Rotherwas Chapel in Hereford that dates from the 1580s on the feast of the Assumption.
From Francis to Leo: A special event with Christopher Lamb of CNN in conversation with Austin Ivereigh who commentated for the BBC on the transition from Pope Francis to Pope Leo.
On 12th June an Ecumenical Service was held at Hereford Cathedral to celebrate the 1700th anniversary of the Council of Nicea.
