Message of Abbot Paul - Saturday 19th June
Message from Fr Paul for Saturday, 19th June 2021
Yesterday it was a blessed being able to take the day off to visit my mother in South Wales. We had a fantastic lunch together and, after a short siesta, Toby and I went down to the beach. It was deserted: we had miles of dunes and golden sands all to ourselves. Admittedly, it was a grey afternoon, yet mild and wind free. The highlight, however, was to check up on my childhood friends, whom I visit every June, thankfully unnoticed by others, my beloved Welsh orchids (Southern Marsh Orchid). Since returning from Peru in 2000, I’ve visited them every year and they’ve never failed to keep the appointment and to amaze me. They are fragile and precarious and could so easily be bulldozed away like so many of their relatives to make way for yet more concrete and steel. May the good Lord preserve the dunes and marshland behind from any further development, as most of their habitat has disappeared since I was a boy. Just one small, neglected field remains. Why do human beings, who can also create such beauty, destroy the natural God-given beauty around us to create concrete jungles and wastelands in the name of progress? Will my beloved orchids survive another year and return next June to greet me? I can’t help but wonder with fear and trepidation.
Today, 19th June, we celebrate the feast of St Romuald, hermit and reformer of Benedictine monasteries, who died on this day in the year 1027. He was born at Ravenna in 951 and initiated the Camaldolese reform, which sought to return to the original spirit of St Benedict and combine the eremitical with the coenobitic way of life. A deeply spiritual man, his teaching and example was a powerful influence for good and a call to simplicity in the Church’s life in the 11th century.
In our Gospel passage we continue our reading of Matthew, (Mt 6: 24-34), where Jesus speaks to his disciples of the need to trust in Divine Providence and warns them against setting their hearts on money and other material things. Perhaps more than any other monastic reformer, this section of the Sermon on the Mount was very close to the heart of St Romuald. Let us listen to the words of Jesus: “No one can be the slave of two masters: he will either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with respect and the second with scorn. You cannot be the slave both of God and of money. That is why I am telling you not to worry about your life and what you are to eat, nor about your body and how you are to clothe it. Surely life means more than food, and the body more than clothing! Look at the birds in the sky. They do not sow or reap or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they are? Can any of you, for all his worrying, add one single cubit to his span of life? And why worry about clothing? Think of the flowers growing in the fields; they never have to work or spin; yet I assure you that not even Solomon in all his regalia was robed like one of these. Now if that is how God clothes the grass in the field which is there today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, will he not much more look after you, you men of little faith? So do not worry; do not say, “What are we to eat? What are we to drink? How are we to be clothed?” It is the pagans who set their hearts on all these things. Your heavenly Father knows you need them all. Set your hearts on his kingdom first, and on his righteousness, and all these other things will be given you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow: tomorrow will take care of itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
How difficult it is for us in the world today not to worry about money and about the future. Even so, the Lord asks to trust in him and to lay our burdens on his shoulders. After all, it’s not worry that will solve our problems. Heavenly Father, give us the grace and humility we need to trust in you and never to despair when things are tight or go wrong. Help us to be calm and to find peace even in the most difficult of situations and to focus on what really matters. Help us to set our hearts of your kingdom and to receive your gifts with gratitude and faith. Amen.
