Message of Abbot Paul - Tuesday 14th November 2023

As you read this short message, and it is short, I will be driving up to Ampleforth Abbey from Belmont for a meeting of monastic superiors. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to the long journey by car, and even less to the return journey on Friday. I ask for your prayers for a safe trip and that I manage to keep to the various speed limits on the way. I also ask your prayers for a good, fruitful meeting for all the Benedictine communities tasking part. Today is the feast of the great Celtic saint Dyfrig, abbot and bishop, who was born at Madley, a few miles from Belmont, and led large monastic settlements at Moccas and at Henland, both in Herefordshire, before becoming Bishop of Llandaff in South Wales. May he pray for Belmont and for the faith of the people of our county.

 

Today’s Gospel passage from Luke (Lk 17: 7-10) begins with a parable in the form of a question on the subject of doing our duty, bearing in mind that it is Jesus himself who is the exemplar of obedience to the Father’s will. You will remember that he said on one occasion, “I have not come to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” This is what Jesus says to his disciples: “Which of you, with a servant ploughing or minding sheep, would say to him when he returned from the fields, ‘Come and have your meal immediately’? Would he not be more likely to say, ‘Get my supper laid; make yourself tidy and wait on me while I eat and drink. You can eat and drink yourself afterwards’? Must he be grateful to the servant for doing what he was told? So with you: when you have done all you have been told to do, say, ‘We are merely servants: we have done no more than our duty.’” We might have difficulty with the word servant (the Greek word δουλος appears 27 times in Luke and can mean slave or servant), but it reflects the society in which Jesus lived. The parables always refer to Christ in the first place: they explain who he is, what he does and why. By extension they also apply to us, his disciples. That is why St Paul wrote, “It is not I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Father, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.