Continue reading »]]> At 7 pm on first Saturday of each month there is a series of seminars to be hosted at Bishop’s House. These seminars will offer opportunities for deeper formation in the faith for those aged 18 to 35. Seminars will run from Advent to Pentecost (December 2011 to June 2012). The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth and the liturgical year will act as guides to a deeper knowledge of the mystery of Christ and the human questions about the meaning of life, friendship, marriage, personal vocation and the call to holiness. There will be time for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament accompanied by music, a presentation by Bishop Hugh, workshops and discussion. Any clergy are also welcome.

Please come!

Bishop Hugh

Plan of seminars

1. Adoration
2. 1^st Talk with questions / discussion
3. Workshop
4. 2^nd Talk with questions / discussion
5. Final prayer

Meetings & themes

• 3 Mar 2012 - 19:00
  Faith Formation Seminar
  Aberdeen
• 31 Mar 2012 - 19:00
  Faith Formation Seminar
  Aberdeen
• 5 May 2012 - 19:00
  Faith Formation Seminar
  Aberdeen

Continue reading »]]> In May 2011 a letter was circulated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome to Bishops’ Conferences worldwide. Its purpose was “to assist Episcopal Conferences in developing Guidelines for dealing with cases of sexual abuse of minors perpetrated by clerics” and its aim was that the application of Guidelines will “lead to a common orientation within each Episcopal Conference helping to harmonise the resources of single Bishops in safeguarding minors” and are in place to protect minors and help victims in finding assistance and reconciliation.

The letter emphasises the task the Diocesan Bishop has in assuring the common good of all his faithful, including the protection of children and young people, and his duty to respond appropriately to cases of sexual abuse of minors by clerics in his Diocese.

His response must include the development of procedures designed to assist the victim(s) of such abuse; he has a duty to reinforce the education of the ecclesiastical community in the protection of minors, and his response must make provision for the implementation of both Canon Law and Civil Law.

The Circular Letter presents the following considerations:

• The victims of sexual abuse

The Church must be prepared to listen to victims and their families and be committed to their “spiritual and psychological assistance”.

 In his Apostolic trips Pope Benedict XVI has modelled this with his words of compassion and support offered to the victims of sexual abuse; in his Pastoral Letter to Catholics in Ireland we read:

“You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated”

• The protection of minors

Programmes of education and prevention must be introduced, where they have not already been, to ensure “safe environments” for minors; the programmes should demonstrate a commitment to the elimination of the sexual abuse of minors

• The formation of future priests and religious

In 2002 Pope John Paul II stated: “There is no room in the priesthood and religious life for those who would harm the young”.

These words emphasise the specific responsibility of those responsible for the formation of future priests and religious. Consequently, those responsible should lay even greater emphasis on “assuring a proper discernment of vocations” as well as “ensuring their healthy human and spiritual formation”.

Candidates should be formed in “an appreciation of chastity and celibacy”, in their responsibility for “spiritual fatherhood” and they should be aware of the Church’s discipline in these matters

• The support of Priests

Priests should be fully supported by their Bishop, who should care for their continuing formation, promoting the importance of prayer and the mutual support of fellow priests;

Priests must be made aware of the damage done to victims of clerical sexual abuse, and of their own responsibilities in both Canon and Civil law; they should be helped to recognise the signs of abuse in minors;

Any accused cleric is presumed innocent until the contrary is proven; if a cleric is wrongly accused, measures should be taken to rehabilitate his good name;

• Cooperation with Civil Authority

 Bishops must cooperate fully with civil authorities, since any abuse of minors is both a crime under Civil law and a Canonical matter.

They should follow appropriate procedures for reporting any such abuse to the authorities, whether the case involves a priest/religious or a lay person who functions under the auspices of the Church

Continue reading »]]>  I know an American gentleman who calls his house, ‘Love-in-the-ruins’. I’ve never asked him why. But certainly it’s not the kind of name you forget.

 If you look at Renaissance paintings of the Nativity, often the stable is shown as dilapidated, ruined. It’s a symbol of course of the world, of us. And there in the middle of the ruins is love there is the Child.

 And the readings we’ve just heard begin in the ruins. ‘Break into shouts of joy, you ruins of Jerusalem’ (Is 52:9), said the 1^st reading. Those words come from the 6^th c. B. C. Behind them lies the most shattering experience ancient Israel endured, and over which the Jews still grieve and fast today. This was the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B. C., when its walls, houses, palaces, and most of all its Temple were all left in ruins. ‘The City where the most High dwells’, the pride and joy of every Israelite’s heart, the goal of his pilgrimages – in ruins.

 It was all very real. But it’s a symbol too, of the world, of us – like the tumble-down stable. We’re in the stable; we’re in the ruins. We can think of lives ruined by addiction to alcohol and drugs and other things. We can think that if a society can seriously contemplate same-sex marriage, then its idea of man and woman and marriage is surely in ruins. We can think of our broken families. We can think of our economic system. We can even wonder about the Church. And then about our own lives, and the dying that awaits us.

 Beneath it all is the real ruin, the real gaping hole: our broken relationship with God.

 A 5^th c. Christian monk (John of Apamea) put it like this:

 ‘By growing away from the true God, our Father and Lord, humankind has become estranged from him. We have lost our sense of real life, squandered the treasures hidden within us, deprived ourselves of the knowledge of God, and have fallen into the deep darkness of ignorance…incapable of [even] knowing ourselves’.

 Yet, what Christmas says is that Love is in the ruins.

 What the prophet Isaiah says is, ‘Break into shouts of joy together, you ruins of Jerusalem, for the Lord is consoling his people, redeeming Jerusalem’ (Is 52:9).

 What the Letter to the Hebrews is saying is that the word, through which God first made the house of the world we pull down around our ears, has now been spoken to it. Christmas is – to quote Karl Rahner – ‘God speaking his last, his deepest, his most beautiful word to the world: ‘I love you, man; I love you, world.’’.

 Christmas is the apostle John solemnly proclaiming: ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth’ (Jn 1:14).

 Love is in the ruins.

 Yes, ‘the Word was made flesh – our poor, ruined, smelly, mortal flesh – and dwelt among us.’ ‘And to all who did accept him he has given power to become children of God’ (Jn 1:12). He has restored that broken relationship, he has made us friends of God.

 ‘He has humbled himself, come down to us, put on our clothes of flesh, made himself visible. He comes and goes among us. He looks for us and finds us, while we are still in chains, miserable, corruptible, flat on the ground, sunk in deep darkness… He has stretched out his hand to guide us, taken hold of us and stood us on our feet again, restored our courage, given us back joy. He has saved and redeemed us, gathered us together and healed us. He has brought us peace, unity, purity, justification…He has drawn us to himself, united us with himself, reconciled us, made us share his grandeur, elevated us to his world of truth and his kingdom of peace…He is our hope, our expectation, our resurrection. He is beauty, clothing, glory, splendour, day, light, life, wealth and treasure’ (John of Apamea).

 No wonder that today Pope St Leo the Great could utter his memorable words: ‘O Christian, be aware of your dignity – it is God’s own nature that you share. Don’t then by an unworthy way of life fall back into your former baseness. Think of the Head, think of the Body of which you are a member. Recall that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and have been transferred to the light and the kingdom of God.’

 So, my American is on to something: Love is in the ruins. God is with us. The Word has become flesh and lives among us. In every Eucharist, he is present, present in his flesh and blood, building up the ruins, turning our stables into temples of the Holy Spirit.

 May we feel that this Christmas! May our friendship with God become closer, move to a new level! May we allow God’s word and the grace of the sacraments to shape us and re-build us and convince us of his love!

 ‘A society begins to be decadent, it has been said, when everyone says to themselves, “What’s going to happen next?”, instead of asking, “What can I do?”’ (Denis de Rougemont).

 If Love is in the ruins, if God is with us, then there is something we can do. We can work with God – by purity of life, by everything we do at home, at work, anywhere, by our whole living and dying, by our prayer. We can rebuild the ruins in the power of his love. Amen.

Bishop Hugh, O. S. B.

Continue reading »]]>

This night is so full

• of light and colour and warmth,
• of poetry, story and song,
• of memories and comfort and hope.

Our hearts overflow!

Even if there were only a few of us, we would feel this, I think. But all the more when there are so many, when the world in miniature seems to be gathered together in a church like this.

‘When the fulness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive the adoption of sons’ (Gal 4:4-5).

Yes, it’s the fulness of time that comes upon us tonight.

We have heard Isaiah the prophet, David the Psalmist, Paul the Apostle, Luke the Evangelist. And as their words echo in us, it is this fulness, a sense of fulfilment, the fulness of time, we feel.

Mary’s time has come and she gives birth to a son, her first-born (cf. Lk 2:6-7).

Israel’s time has come, all those long years of expectation, and in Mary, the daughter of Sion, the whole of Israel brings the Messiah into the world, fulfilling her mission.

Our time has come, for ‘God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race’ (Tit 2:11).

The angels’ time has come, and they burst into song, ‘Glory to God in the highest’ (cf. Lk 2:13-14).

The earth’s time has come: ‘let the land and all it bears rejoice, all the trees of the wood shout for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he comes, he comes to rule the earth’ (Ps 96:12-13).

And most of all God’s time has come: ‘You are my Son, says God, it is I who have begotten you this day’ (cf. Entrance Antiphon). The one begotten before time, God from God, Light from light, is now born as a man from a woman, born in time: Son of God and son of Mary.

He it is who fills this night and shines in the dark and makes it all so bright.

Christianity isn’t a theory or an ideology; it’s the glory of God shining in a person, in this child.

‘For there is a child born for us, a son given to us… Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty-God, Eternal-Father, Prince of Peace’ (Is 9:6). ‘And here’, says the angel, ‘is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger’ (Lk 2:12).

            How amazing this is! Everything is turned upside down.

            ‘There is fallen on earth for a token

            A god too great for the sky.

            He has burst out of all things and broken

            The bounds of eternity.

            Into time and the terminal land

            He has strayed like a thief or a lover.

            ‘…unmeasured of plummet and rod,

            Too deep for [our] sight to scan,

            Outrushing the fall of man

            Is the height of the fall of God’         (G.K. Chesterton).

We can think of Christmas as sabotage or ambush. God has taken us by surprise. He has found the secret way into the Fort Knox of humanity, under the Iron Curtain of our hearts. He has undermined our pride. He has confounded all our pre-conceived ideas. He has turned himself inside out, as it were. He has taken the way of the child. He has become a baby. He has made himself helpless. He has made himself needy. How often we say the world needs God, we need God. How often we repeat St Augustine’s immortal words, ‘Our hearts are restless until they rest in You.’ And it’s true. But there’s something truer, something that now comes first. God has thrown himself on our mercy. He has chosen to need us. His heart is restless until it rests in ours. He has taken the way of the child. He asks for our love. He has put himself into our hands – hands that can even crucify him if we want them to (not in himself any more since he has risen from the dead, but in ourselves and in others). But we needn’t take that way. Not from tonight. The Creator of the universe has become a helpless child. The Redeemer has become one of us. He has become our companion on life’s path. He stretches out a child’s hand to us. It’s not a hand that hurts or takes away. It’s a hand that gives. (Cf. Benedict XVI). And if we take it, we too, like God, can be turned inside out. From tonight a whole new way of living opens up – the way of the children of God. God’s own restless love for poor, wonderful humanity can start to lay hold of us. From tonight we can begin to look at one another with the heart of God. We can stretch out our hands to one another, not to hurt or to grab, but to receive and to give. Now our pride and independence can fall away, our sins be put behind us and the way of humble love open before us. From tonight we can make our lives a gift to others after the pattern of Christ. We can become a people ‘with no other ambition but that of doing good’ (Tit 2:14). We can enter the fulness of time.

‘And here’, says the angel, ‘is a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.’

So let’s listen to the angel, let’s go with the shepherds, go to the child in the manger, and ask him to fill us and change us and give his gentle fulness to our lives. Amen.

Bishop Hugh, O. S. B.

Continue reading »]]> Dear Brothers and Sisters,

We live in a noisy world. Our towns and cities are full of noise. There is noise in the skies and on the roads. There is noise in our homes, and even in our churches. And most of all there is noise in our minds and hearts.

The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard once wrote: ‘The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and I were asked for my advice, I should reply: “Create silence! Bring people to silence!” The Word of God cannot be heard in the noisy world of today. And even if it were trumpeted forth with all the panoply of noise so that it could be heard in the midst of all the other noise, then it would no longer be the Word of God. Therefore, create silence!’

‘Create silence!’  There’s a challenge here. Surely speaking is a good and healthy thing? Yes indeed. Surely there are bad kinds of silence? Yes again. But still Kierkegaard is on to something.

There is a simple truth at stake. There can be no real relationship with God, there can be no real meeting with God, without silence. Silence prepares for that meeting and silence follows it. An early Christian wrote, ‘To someone who has experienced Christ himself, silence is more precious than anything else.’ For us God has the first word, and our silence opens our hearts to hear him. Only then will our own words really be words, echoes of God’s, and not just more litter on the rubbish dump of noise.

‘How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.’ So the carol goes. For all the noise, rush and rowdiness of contemporary Christmasses, we all know there is a link between Advent and silence, Christmas and silence. Our cribs are silent places. Who can imagine Mary as a noisy person? In the Gospels, St Joseph never says a word; he simply obeys the words brought him by angels. And when John the Baptist later comes out with words of fire, it is after years of silence in the desert. Add to this the silence of our long northern nights, and the silence that follows the snow. Isn’t all this asking us to still ourselves?

A passage from the Old Testament Book of Wisdom describes the night of Israel’s Exodus from Egypt as a night full of silence. It is used by the liturgy of the night of Jesus’ birth:

‘When a deep silence covered all things and night was in the middle of its course, your all-powerful Word, O Lord, leapt from heaven’s royal throne’ (Wis 18:14-15).

‘Holy night, silent night!’ So we sing. The outward silence of Christmas night invites us to make silence within us. Then the Word can leap into us as well, as a wise man wrote: ‘If deep silence has a hold on what is inside us, then into us too the all-powerful Word will slip quietly from the Father’s throne.’

This is the Word who proceeds from the silence of the Father. He became an infant, and ‘infant’ means literally ‘one who doesn’t speak.’ The child Jesus would have cried – for air and drink and food – but he didn’t speak. ‘Let him who has ears to hear, hear what this loving and mysterious silence of the eternal Word says to us.’ We need to listen to this quietness of Jesus, and allow it to make its home in our minds and hearts.

‘Create silence!’ How much we need this! The world needs places, oases, sanctuaries, of silence.

And here comes a difficult question: what has happened to silence in our churches? Many people ask this. When the late Canon Duncan Stone, as a young priest in the 1940s, visited a parish in the Highlands, he was struck to often find thirty or forty people kneeling there in silent prayer. Now often there is talking up to the very beginning of Mass, and it starts again immediately afterwards. But what is a church for, and why do we go there? We go to meet the Lord and the Lord comes to meet us. ‘The Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before him!’ said the prophet Habakkuk. Surely the silent sacramental presence of the Lord in the tabernacle should lead us to silence? We need to focus ourselves and put aside distractions before the Mass begins. We want to prepare to hear the word of the Lord in the readings and homily. Surely we need a quiet mind to connect to the great Eucharistic Prayer? And when we receive Holy Communion, surely we want to listen to what the Lord God has to say, ‘the voice that speaks of peace’? Being together in this way can make us one – the Body of Christ – quite as effectively as words.

A wise elderly priest of the diocese said recently, ‘Two people talking stop forty people praying.’

‘Create silence!’ I don’t want to be misunderstood. We all understand about babies. Nor are we meant to come and go from church as cold isolated individuals, uninterested in one another. We want our parishes to be warm and welcoming places. We want to meet and greet and speak with one another. There are arrangements to be made, items of news to be shared, messages to be passed. A good word is above the best gift, says the Bible. But it is a question of where and when. Better in the porch than at the back of the church. Better after the Mass in a hall or a room. There is a time and place for speaking and a time and place for silence. In the church itself, so far as possible, silence should prevail. It should be the norm before and after Mass, and at other times as well. When there is a real need to say something, let it be done as quietly as can be. At the very least, such silence is a courtesy towards those who want to pray. It signals our reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. It respects the longing of the Holy Spirit to prepare us to celebrate the sacred mysteries. And then the Mass, with its words and music and movement and its own moments of silence, will become more real. It will unite us at a deeper level, and those who visit our churches will sense the Holy One amongst us.

‘Create silence!’ It is an imperative. May the Word coming forth from silence find our silence waiting for him like a crib! ‘The devil’, said St Ambrose, ‘loves noise; Christ looks for silence.’

                                                            Yours sincerely in Him,
+ Hugh, O. S. B.
Bishop of Aberdeen

7 December 2011

Continue reading »]]> At 7 pm on Saturday 3rd December, there will be the first of a series of monthly seminars to be hosted at Bishop’s House.

These seminars will offer opportunities for deeper formation in the faith for those aged 18 to 35. They will generally take place on the 1st Saturday of each month, and will run from Advent to Pentecost (December 2011 to June 2012).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth and the liturgical year will act as guides to a deeper knowledge of the mystery of Christ and the human questions about the meaning of life, friendship, marriage, personal vocation and the call to holiness.

There will be time for adoration of the Blessed Sacrament accompanied by music, a presentation by Bishop Hugh, workshops and discussion. Any clergy are also welcome.

For more information, please use contact form below:

Comments or questions are welcome.

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Continue reading »]]> ‘Lord’, asks Peter, ‘do you mean this parable for us, or for everyone?’ And the Lord asks in return, ‘Who then is the faithful and wise steward…?’ (Lk 12:41-42).

‘Who then..?’

Once about 33 years ago two young monks were walking along a Highland track, not far from Loch Ness. One of them was he who is the centre of today’s liturgy, the one to be blessed, the other was today’s celebrant. And they were talking about the future. And they concluded that neither of them was cut out for or would ever be considered for serious responsibility in the monastery. Neither of them, putting it bluntly, would ever be abbot.

Nonetheless, here we are come to this day and this liturgy.

‘Lord, do you mean this parable for us or for everyone?’ – Peter as usual baffled.‘Who then is the faithful and wise steward..?’ – the Lord as usual refusing straight answers.

Fr. Anselm has in fact been bearing serious responsibility in and for monasteries for a long time. He has been a local superior at St Mary’s, Petersham, for some 20 years. He has been Visitor of the English Province of the Subiaco Congregation for 8 years, with oversight of more than a dozen communities on three continents, and was recently chosen again for this position. And now he has been elected as Abbot of his monastery of Pluscarden by the brethren. He has been confirmed in office by the Abbot President of our Congregation. And today, when the Benedictine liturgy remembers Bl. Abbot Columba Marmion, he is blessed as successor to the medieval Priors of Pluscarden and as third Abbot of the community which first reoccupied these buildings in 1948.

‘Who, then, is the faithful and wise steward whom his master will set over his household?’

An abbot, when he is blessed, does not receive the sacrament of ordination. He is, in any case, already a priest. But the blessing of an abbot (or abbess) is what the Church calls a sacramental. Since his election in August Fr. Anselm has been abbot-elect, now he fully becomes abbot – father, shepherd, teacher – of this community. Henceforth, ‘he is believed to be the representative of Christ in the monastery’, as St. Benedict says (RB 2:2). The powerful love of the Church’s blessing overshadows him, his own heart opens to receive it, and he is graced for his mission. It is the grace of pastoral charity proper to an abbot which he receives, the gift of spiritual fatherhood, the grace of a new likeness to Christ. And so the master sets him over the monastic household.  ‘Lord, do you mean this parable for us, or for everyone?’ For everyone, surely. All of us, every one of us, surely, rejoices. Every one of us shares in the Church’s ‘sincere and humble love’ (72:10) for our new abbot. And we will pray with the saints for the coming of the Holy Spirit on his chosen one.

‘Taking the texts of the biblical readings as the starting-point’, says the Ceremonial, ‘the bishop briefly addresses the people, the monks and the abbot-elect on the office and duties of an abbot.’

So, it’s time for the brief address

‘Who, then, is the faithful and wise steward..?’ Steward, oikonómos in Greek, dispensator in Latin. This is the image the liturgy offers of the abbot. And what is this steward, this dispenser, meant to do? ‘Give them their allowance of food at the proper time’. So the role of an abbot is to feed. He’s at the service of stomachs. This might set our imaginations alight. Suddenly we see the abbot surrounded by the clamour of the hungry. ‘The young lions roar for their prey,’ says a Psalm, ‘and ask their food from God’ (Ps 103:21). The baby birds open their beaks and croak, ‘young ravens that call upon him’ (Ps 146:9). ‘All of these look to you to give them their food in due season’ (Ps 103: 27). The poor stretch out their empty hands. Great caverns, deep black holes, bottomless pits open up around him. What is this hole, this stomach the abbot is appointed to fill? It’s longing. It’s desire. In the Prologue of St Benedict’s Rule, the Lord puts a question to the would-be monk: ‘Who is the man who wants life, and yearns to see good days?’ A monk is a man of desire. Desires, of course, can be for many things: for piece and quiet, for a whole new universe, and so on. But by vowing chastity, poverty, obedience, the monk disowns the desire for sex and wealth and doing his own thing, the ‘lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life’ (1 Jn 2:16), those desires that so easily take control of our lives. He doesn’t disown them because he despises them, but because he wants more. He wants what lies behind and beyond them, what they evoke. ‘Who is the man who wants life and yearns to see good days?’ This man wants what all of us most deeply want: ‘true and everlasting life’. He wants ultimate pleasure, possession and power. He wants to be loved and possessed and overpowered by the Lord and his Spirit. He wants to desire what the Our Father teaches us to desire: the hallowing of the name, the coming of the kingdom, the doing of the will, the bread of life, forgiveness, deliverance from evil. He wants the deepest possible communion with God’s creation, with his fellow human beings and with the Lord. He’s a loneliness in search of fellowship. He’s a young lion roaring for his prey, a young raven crying out. He wants to live at the level of his deepest desires. That’s why he sings the Psalms of David, because they’re replete with these human desires and cries. It’s why he prays, ‘The eyes of all creatures look to you and you give them their food in due time’ (Ps 144:13). He wants to be those eyes. ‘You open wide your hand, grant the desires of all who live’ (Ps 144:15-16). He wants to see that hand. He wants to be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters swell the sea. And so he’s like a great empty stomach. He carries the hungers of us all. Such is the call of the monk.

‘Lord, do you mean this parable – this parable of monastic life – for us, or for everyone?’ And the Lord looks round and asks in turn, ‘Who, then, is the faithful and wise steward, the dispenser, who will give them their food in due season?’

In his classic, Christ the Ideal of the Monk, Bl. Columba Marmion treats in ch. 1 of the human search for God, in ch. 2 of the following of Christ, and then in ch. 3 of the abbot, ‘Christ’s representative’. The sequence suggests the same thought. The abbot is the servant of his brethren’s seeking and following and longing. There’s paradox upon paradox here. All ‘the measure of food’ the abbot must give: his own love of Christ, his presence to his brethren, his affection and concern for them, his adapting to their many temperaments, his corrections, his blessing, his patience and silence, his learning in the divine law and his drawing forth of things new and old, the teaching he gives and asks others to give, the bread of God’s word  – all of this is food of a special kind. It is God’s food. In the end, it’s simply Christ. And the more we know Christ, the more we feel the need to know him, the more we desire him. The more we’re filled, the emptier in a sense we become. This food widens the stomach. It enlarges the heart. It makes the cry of the lion and the raven ever louder, the psalmody in the heart ever more resonant. We become hungrier and hungrier, poorer and poorer, ravenous for holiness, hungry for the bread which is Christ. And the monastery becomes more and more a place where all of us recognise and relearn what it is, who it is, we most desire. ‘It is your face, O Lord, that I seek. Hide not your face’ (Ps 26:8-9). Open wide your hand! Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy. The “success” of an abbot’s feeding can be gauged by the depth of his brethren’s longing for true and everlasting life, by the truth of their cry for the mercy of God.

 At the end of his chapter 3, Blessed Marmion pictures the abbot presiding at Conventual Mass surrounded by his brethren. It’s the apogee, he proposes, of his ministry. In a moment, Fr. Anselm will be blessed, and his first act as blessed abbot will be to concelebrate the Eucharist. And perhaps in an abbot’s life there’s no more eloquent and touching moment than when he gives holy Communion. Each of the brethren comes before him, each young or old lion or raven in turn. He lifts the host before him, says Corpus Christi, and places in the open mouth or outstretched hand the bread of life, the food of love. ‘Who, then, is the faithful and wise steward…who will give them their portion of food at the proper time?’May each of the brethren welcome the bread their new abbot brings as they welcome the Body of Christ. May all of us – friends, oblates, the local church, our fellow monastic communities – welcome the bread this abbot, this steward will bring. This ‘parable’ is for everyone.

Strange mission, then, that of the abbot: it’s being indispensable and irrelevant all at once, it brings a new solitude and a deeper communion, a death and a resurrection, an emptiness and fullness, a new entry into the Paschal mystery. But, dear Fr Anselm, rest assured: you have been chosen by your brethren, recognised by your Congregation and blessed by the Church. Today you are in Marmion’s words, ‘missus, that is, established by the Church over a portion of Christ’s flock.’ The Lord is with you. And as you feed, you will be fed, and your own charity, your own desire be enlarged.

+Hugh Gilbert, O. S. B., Bishop of Aberdeen
Pluscarden Abbey, 3 October 2011

Continue reading »]]> Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Peace be with you. It is a great grace to have become your Bishop. Thank you for the warm welcome I have received from so many and please pray that the Holy Spirit, given me in Ordination, may fill and guide me, so that together in Christ we can worship the Father in spirit and truth.

By a happy providence, the beginning of my ministry as bishop coincides with the introduction of the new English translation of the Missal. It is possible to introduce this in part from this very Sunday. From the 1^st Sunday of Advent, the new translation will be in full use at all Masses. The time between now and the beginning of Advent is a time for gradual familiarisation with the new texts. Different parishes will have different rhythms.

At the same time, with the new texts will go some new music, as many of you already know. This too will become familiar in time and also enrich our liturgies. At the same time again, the Bishops of Scotland have issued new guidelines for our posture at Mass: when we stand, sit, or kneel. These will also be made known between now and the beginning of Advent.

The Second Vatican Council called the Liturgy the source and summit of our Christian lives. All these changes are at the service of this.

Change can be hard, and nothing in this world is perfect. We will all struggle, especially at first, with one or other aspect of what we are being given here. But in her liturgy the Church never gives us anything bad. She gives us ‘wine to cheer our heart, oil to make our face shine and bread to strengthen our heart’ (Ps 103:15). This holds also for the words of prayer in the Missal. This new translation of the Mass, I believe, is something we can welcome warmly. Behind it lies a great deal of prayer, thought and work, competence and world-wide collaboration. And the result is something that can help us, even more than before, lift up our hearts and minds to God in the celebration of the holy Eucharist. All the more will this be so when these words are sung.

Now we have a version of the Mass of the Roman rite closer to the original Latin, and therefore also closer to the translations in other languages such as French, Polish, Italian, Spanish and so on. It allows us to hear better the echoes of the Bible in our prayers. It tries to do justice to the richness of our liturgical inheritance, and to make a fuller use of the English language. I think we shall discover this as the new texts gradually become as familiar to us as the old. At the same time, much that is familiar remains, or is only very slightly altered.

‘The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ In Christ, the Son of God takes on everything human, except sin, and transforms it. And in the Liturgy this mystery of the Incarnation – the Word becoming flesh – lives on among us. Everything speaks of it. When we gather to worship we come together in a building – not usually in any building, though, but in a church, a building dedicated for worship. The ministers who lead our prayer don’t wear just ordinary clothes, but vestments. We stand, sit or kneel, but each of these postures now has a special meaning. We come together to listen to readings – not any readings though, but words inspired by the Holy Spirit, words that are now the word of God. We gather round a table – but not any table, rather a holy table, an altar. We eat and drink – but not any food or drink, rather bread and wine which have become that holiest of things, the Body and Blood of the Lord, his very Self. In the Liturgy, ordinary things are taken up by Christ and the Church and become vehicles of something greater than themselves. And so it is too with the words, the language, we use in prayer. Christianity has always, to some extent, created its own language. It took the words of ancient Israel or the Greco-Roman world and filled them with a new meaning. And so, in the Liturgy, we use words that carry the resonances of a long tradition, words that express our faith, and are rich with many centuries of experience of the God who has spoken to us in Christ. The new translation of the Missal is very aware of this and tries to be loyal to it. And, once again, when these words are sung, they can lift our hearts even more.

And all of this ‘specialness’ is not to turn us into a sect or a ‘holy huddle’. In the Liturgy God comes to us and we approach him. In the Liturgy Christ with his Cross and Resurrection comes to meet us, to change us and to empower us to change the world. Thanks to this meeting with God in the flesh of Christ, the mystery of the Incarnation can continue in our own lives and through us in the whole world, so that in the end the whole of creation will be transformed.

So, let us welcome this new translation with what St Benedict calls a ‘good spirit’. It asks of us a small act of obedience to the Church, a little effort, and in return offers us a fuller understanding of the sacred mysteries. It would be good to read through the new prayers before and after Mass. May they be for all of us a door through which we go to meet the living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Yours in Christ,

Rt Rev Hugh Gilbert
Bishop of Aberdeen

Continue reading »]]> The first word can only be one of thanks. And in the first place, with Mary, to Almighty God. This is a day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

And then thanks to all the Lord’s co-workers who those who have made it possible. Thanks to all of you here, and to the many, the very many, who are with us in spirit in so many places. Personally I could not have received a warmer welcome than I have. Thank you to His Eminence the Cardinal, for presiding so warmly over the ordination, for preaching so appositely, and – which he did not mention – for delaying his flight to Madrid for World Youth Day to do so. Thank you to His Excellency Archbishop Antonio Mennini, for representing the Holy Father. Thank you in a special way to my two predecessors and co-consecrators: to Archbishop Mario who ordained me as a deacon in 1981 and a priest in 1982, who blessed me as an abbot in 1992, and now has co-consecrated me a bishop, and to Bishop Peter, who has been so patiently initiating me these last weeks into the ‘joy and hope’, the gaudium et spes, of our beautiful diocese, and, too, some of our ‘grief and anxiety’. Thank you to all the bishops, abbots, and religious who are here. Thank you especially to my dear friend, Bishop Corneliu Onila of the Romanian Orthodox Church, who has come further than anyone to be here. Thank you to the civic representatives and our ecumenical guests. Thank you to the Administrator of the Cathedral, to the Canons of the Chapter, to the Master of Ceremonies and his many accomplices inside and outside the sanctuary, to Joyce Webster and her team who’ve worked so hard keeping chaos at bay and making all this happen. Thank you to the Diocesan Choir, who have enriched this celebration so much, and to James MacMillan who composed especially for this event the fine Ecce Sacerdos with which we began Thank you to my family who have been so loyal to their strange family member! And thank you again to all of you.

 As you can guess, though, there is one thank you that prevails in my heart. And it’s to my own community. Here they are complete with their magnificent new abbot, Abbot-elect Anselm Atkinson, whom it’ll be my joy to bless. The decision of the Holy Father in my regard put the whole community, not just me, through the mill. And I’m sure their obedience will make them better bread than ever. Pluscarden has been my home, my spiritual mother and family, for 37 years. It’s thanks to Pluscarden that I am what I am. And so I thank each and all of the brethren, past and present. I thank all the people who support and carry us in so many ways. I thank God for St Benedict and his Rule. And I ask all of you to keep this precious community – the spiritual heart of the diocese – in your prayer. And pray for me too that in the beautiful words of our Holy Father the Pope, echoing the Rule, my own heart may be enlarged, roused by the Holy Spirit and moved only by love of my people.

 New-born Bishops often use this moment to articulate their pastoral priorities. But today I’d like to touch on something prior to any priorities. Many people have kindly said to me how strange it must be to leave the monastery – Pluscarden. Yes, perhaps it’s rather like being an apple, plucked from the tree, finding oneself in a fruit-bowl on a table, and wondering what happens to one next. But naturally I ask myself what those 37 years have done to me, brought me. There could be many answers, light-hearted or other. But there is one answer I think is true, I certainly hope is true. And it’s simply a realisation – a glimmer of realisation, a small beginning of a realisation – of Christ. Putting it liturgically, I could say it’s the discovery of Easter, of Christ’s Passover from death to life, his Resurrection. People often think, Christian people too, that monks and nuns are rather odd people, who go off into a corner to do some rather strange, if essentially harmless, things. Far be it from me to deny there are odd people in monasteries! In a monastery, just as in the Church, there’s a cross-section of humanity. Indeed, a monastery is simply a microcosm of the Church. And what a monastery gives a monk or a nun is only what the Church gives each of her children and offers the world. And what is that? What is it? It’s what the women found when they found the tomb empty that Sunday morning in Jerusalem. It’s what Peter and Paul and John found. It’s what the remarkable galaxy of people who wrote the New Testament were stammering to express. It’s what the Liturgy in its simple power and beauty keeps alive in the world. It’s not a ‘what’, it’s a ‘who’. It is the person of Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and the power of his Resurrection. The whole of Christianity: its faith, its worship, its ministry, its mission, everything life-giving in what Christians do, springs from that early Sunday morning, that empty tomb. It springs from the Resurrection of Christ, his victory over sin and death. What can the Church do –for us who belong to her, for those around us? What can she give? What can she bring? There’s only one answer: Easter. The person of Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and the power of his Cross and Resurrection, and the fullness, the everything that unfolds from that. The priority of priorities is Christ. He is God the Father’s priority: his beloved only-begotten Son. He’s ‘the first-born of all creation’. He’s ‘the first-born from the dead’. He’s the one the Holy Spirit is always working to bring alive in our hearts. And so what other priorities can we have – as lay believers, as religious, as clergy – than immersing ourselves ever more in and then proclaiming, celebrating, living the reality of Christ? May Christ be real to us! That is the thing.

And so lastly, there’s today’s feast – the Assumption of the mother of Jesus into heaven, into the fullness of resurrected life. She passes within the palace of the King. It’s a feast that lifts us heavenward. Can you really believe that? People ask. But as Catholics we do. Because in this fragile faith there’s hidden a huge hope. Mary in her Assumption is the great sign of the power that bursts from the risen Christ. She’s a sign his resurrection has given our poor, precious human life a new and happy horizon. She’s a sign of the life of the world to come. She’s a sign of hope for the whole Church, for all creation, for all of us. The risen Christ can raise us all, in our hearts and lives now, and in body and soul in eternity. So, as our Liturgy comes to its end, let’s turn to her. She’s the chief patron of this diocese, and in her Assumption she’s the patron of this Cathedral. To her, to her motherhood in the Spirit, I entrust myself and my ministry as bishop. I entrust our whole diocese, each and every member of it, to her. And I invite all the lay faithful, religious, clergy to commend yourselves to her again! May she help us know the hope to which we are called, the riches of our inheritance, the saving power of God revealed in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. Amen.

Bishop Hugh Gilbert, O. S. B.