Message of Abbot Paul - Tuesday 21st November 2023

Today is the feast of the Presentation of Our Lady. It recalls the day when, as a young girl, Mary was taken to the Temple in Jerusalem by her parents Saints Joachim and Anne to receive a special blessing as the firstborn of her parents. This prepared her, as did her Immaculate Conception, to become the Mother of God, when she conceived in her womb the Word made flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s a lovely feast that helps us look forward to the light and joy of Christmas.

 

​Today is also an important anniversary in the life of the English Benedictine Congregation to which Belmont Abbey belongs. We call it our Dies Memorabilis. On this day in the year 1556, Abbot John Feckenham, together with fourteen other Benedictine monks (although one was a Cistercian and had been Abbot of Abbey Dore, just down the road from Belmont), took up residence at Westminster Abbey, restored by Queen Mary Tudor. On the same date in 1607, Dom Sigebert Buckley, the last surviving monk of Westminster, who had spent 40 years in prison, clothed and professed two novices, Robert Sadler and Edward Maihew, in the habit of the Congregation and affiliated them to Westminster, thus making them the direct successors of the old English Congregation, formed in 1216. It’s a day to give thanks to God that we are still here and to ask his blessing for the future under the protection of Our Lady and St Benedict.

 

​The Gospel of the feast is taken from Matthew (Mt 12: 46-50) and recounts the visit made by Our Lady to Capernaum together with other members of the family to meet with Jesus. “Jesus was speaking to the crowds when his mother and his brothers appeared; they were standing outside and were anxious to have a word with him. But to the man who told him this Jesus replied, ‘Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?’” On the one hand, his family is anxious to speak with him; on the other, Jesus delays in order to teach an important truth to his followers. You could think that his response was impolite, even offensive to his mother and other family members. Their reaction isn’t recorded, but we soon learn the mind of Jesus. “And stretching out his hand towards his disciples he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven, he is my brother and sister and mother.’” In the community that Jesus is forming, it is not blood relationships that count. Rather, in his Church, true relationships are established in faith and through fidelity to the word of God, the Gospel. We know that the very model for this new family, founded on obedience to the will of God, is Mary, his mother, she who said Yes to God and so conceived in her womb Jesus, the Word made flesh, the Saviour of the world. Let us pray today for the grace to follow her example in doing the will of God, the Father of Jesus. Amen.