As part of a regular cycle of exchanges, George, Simon, Nicolas and Marc travelled to Trier, Germany in December, for a four-day visit to the monastery of St Matthias. Our communities have a very close relationship, and this visit was an especially good and happy one. We shared in their life, had discussions about the future of our relationship, and about Brexit and monastic life in the modern world. There was an outing to a former monastery which after Napoleon became the porcelain factory of the firm Villeroy & Boch. In the church nearby we saw an ancient altar going back to Roman times.
We always have simultaneous translation at our meetings, but the CR brothers thought afterwards that we need to make learning German a priority for all our new recruits, as it is the relating outside formal meetings that can be especially good for building friendships. In July, a group from Trier will be coming to the re-hallowing of our church on. The relationship with St Matthias began in 1968, so next year we will be marking 50 years of growing unity between us.
Post All Saints’ Day is an apposite time to reflect on this latest important event in the life of CR, and of our newest brother Fabian (né Shaun-Michael) Trevithick. It is not insignificant that his clothing into the novitiate should have taken place during the first evensong for St Luke’s day (17th October). Luke, as a physician, was acutely aware of humanity’s need for wellness and restoration – for newness. He evangelised a Christ whose coming would make all things new – a Christ, who would re-envision and reshape God’s world. Surely, this is what the Kingdom of heaven is like. We hear it throughout the Gospels. To be clothed with Christ as allegorised in the grey scapular, is equally to be made new; to offer up oneself to holiness, to a dedicated separation for the things of God according to his loving purposes embodied in Jesus.
Every year the College celebrates the anniversary of its foundation (going for over 100 years!) on the feast of SS Simon and Jude. Foundation day is one of those occasions which isn’t meant to interrupt a normal study day, consisting of an evening Mass presided over by the principal and followed by a formal dinner, but which ends up becoming one of those great mucking-in days of moving tables, creating weird and wonderful flower arrangements, and transforming the College into something completely magical.
to entertainment officers, to official after party DJ), marking the moment of really being settled in, and acting as a great equaliser between those who have been here two months and those who have been here two years.
Since 1991 we have invited Christians in West Yorkshire to join us in an Advent preparation for Christmas. The service, originally taken from ‘The Promise of His Glory’, is based on the ‘Great Os’. These are ancient antiphons sung at the beginning and end of the Magnificat from 17th until 23rd December and are best known to us from the hymn ‘O come, O come Emmanuel’.
Two designs of specially-produced Christmas Card are available from Mirfield Bookshop. The card on the left has an image reproduced from an early C17th bible in the Community’s special collection. The image on the right shows figures from the Baroque crib which has been placed on the mantlepiece in the House of the Resurrection each Chr
istmas since 1898.
