SCHOOL OF LOVE - RTE - Would You Believe

nestled on the banks of the Blackwater lisent Mary's Abbey Glen Kern County Waterford here a diverse community of women have left their lives as banker nurse or social worker to create a powerhouse of Prayer a radical life of being rather than doing a Cistercian monastery as a school of mutual love devoted to the search for God the austere life of silence work and prayer may seem a retreat from modern life to some but the nuns believe that their greatest contribution to the world is through praying in community seven times a day and living a monastic life that has changed little in over a thousand years we're actually on the lands which were originally part of the monastic lands of the sixth up to the 12th century so we're on sacred ground we do live in a very mobile culture people are constantly moving from here to there and so this would be countercultural to stay in the one place all of one's life it's more monotonous maybe but I think you do need a certain monotony for prayer because you have to go deeper so the life itself brings you deeper a reading from the rule of our Holy Father st. Benedict to put God's commandments into practice every day to love chastity to hate no one not to be jealous not to act from Envy not to love quarreling st. Benedict knows that if we are to practice any skill or craft we need tools and this is so with a spiritual craft we need tools and these tools are interior I was working in IT I'd start to become kinda disillusioned with the consumerism and with that type of work where you're not really doing anything for anybody apart from making money so that they remember standing in the busy streets particularly at Christmas and thinking we're all insane like this is insanity or this chill working really hard to earn loads of money so we can buy lots of things that we don't need and it's just like a vicious cycle and it doesn't really make you happy I began to do a lot of meditation I had this urge to stay in the one place to have a very simple life and to pray all the time and I didn't really know why I just knew that that's what I wanted to push I just I didn't know why we love the place we have a natural enclosure here the Avenue is a kilometer in length and the river borders the other side and so there's a natural quietness about the place the foundation sisters came here on the 10th of March 1932 they were wonderful women because the life then was dreadfully hard I was really strict and their poverty was extreme there was very little furniture and and failed to the food very little anything you know when I came here first there was a very strict enclosure and we had chicken wire all around the place with barbed wire on top i nobody could go down to the river and we couldn't go down to the stream behind the place and i used to look through the chicken wire and I could see the remains of a path I could hear the sound of water and it was tough you know you couldn't go it happened we can go down to the river now and it going down to the stream so the woods are open to us which is a great blessing it brings us in contact with God you know that the nature is wonderful silence is the thing that our society is so afraid of if you ever notice even in a group if conversation stops even for 30 seconds somebody has to rush in there and finish we can't bear there's this frenetic thing going on all the time with noise and it's like we're just not comfortable in ourselves and the tragedy of that is that it blocks out that so small voice of God and what a great deal of our life here about in the silence is trying to listen for that voice and you can't do that with it all going on we have prayer sessions throughout the day seven times beginning at 10 past 4:00 in the morning and the last one is at 8 o'clock in the evening and then lords and Vespers kind of begin and end the work day the whole idea is to sanctify the day to be brought back again and again to worship in to God and to to prayer there's a rhythm to the day it's pretty much the same every day and yet every day is new in between the prayer we have work we share the cleaning and the housework we have four industries we started the Achra spread as a way of involving the elderly sisters and distribute these two parishes monasteries retreat houses throughout the country we also manufacture Christmas cards and greeting cards and memorial cards that's another industry we run a farm and a we have a very small guest house where people can come and have some quiet and share with the community and prayer I didn't experience God's call until I was in my forties I lived a very comfortable life I had a wide circle of friends and families and sort of good social life I worked in the central bank in Dublin I had a good salary and good financial security I suppose you could say I had everything that I wanted but still there was this restlessness that needed to be filled you know I wanted a more meaningful way of life I'm just too certified with the secularism and the individualism in our society and God was excluded from everything I felt you know I took career break and I went to Africa with the lay missionary Viator's Christie I worked in South Africa in a children's home and I think that really changed my my life for a few more cos I'm running out of them there was a poster up about I think monastic experience weekend or something I followed it from there and I wrote to them and then I came here to the guesthouse and I just liked what I saw no they were very normal community and I took it from there then all together the farm is 220 acres 40 of dots in woodland there's a bit idiot Allegiant Yeti acres and grassland the crops is all done by contractors I don't know how far back but there was dairy hurt in the fire man there was a dairy herd up on the farm until six years ago and went into dry stock beef cattle the neighbors onto the farm about four and a half years ago so I continued that and would buy and sell cattle I enjoy it you know working with animals and nature sort of thing over the last number of years there's been an effort I think in a lot of monasteries to move away from oil and use natural products to help the environment so we planted the Miscanthus the purpose is to produce heat and we have a large monastery and our oils colossal so the idea would hope that we would save money by using it to heat the monastery now we're ready to install Miscanthus burning a boiler somebody has to put in a bale of Miscanthus every day with the tractor and that'll be our leasing we hope with this that we'll be more comfortable since I made my solemn profession just last year I have been appointed the head of the Eucharist bread department we only have two ingredients which is a specialist altar bread flour and our own spring water we humidify the bread we cut it and we make it in all sorts of sizes so then we have sorting and packing and distribution because we make brown horse it's unique in Ireland so we get good sales for this and this good demand so we're happy with that in the last year two women have joined so we're very delighted to have them and there are a few people who are still having a look and coming for weekend's and discerning and so we're hoping that more will come one or two every second year is just fine we'd like to keep the numbers up because you need a certain number to to work well as a community I'm doing vocation promotion work and vocation direction we have a website and that would be my main way of promoting vocations there is a tension between our internet presence and our our commitment to monastic enclosure and monastic solitude but I think it's important that we try to resolve that because when a young person is exploring and searching for a religious way of life the first thing that they do is to go to the internet so it's really important that we have an internet presence and that it's updated that it's fresh that it's alive that they know we're awake there and that they know we're human so during Buddhist books and Christian books and then I saw an article in The Irish Times faced with Len Karen but even then I didn't want I didn't think that I would enter I had an interest in entering or been and on I just wanted to see what monastic life was like in Ireland so I came on the monastic experience weekend someone coming on a monastic experience weekend would be staying in our guest house so it's a an interesting experience of liturgical prayer as it's lived out in the Cistercian monastery it does take time to get used to the office I remember my first time and I was bowing and at the office and I was thinking how many times have I been in this church today it's quite overwhelming at first I mean I'm amused at one girl who came on the weekend who described it afterwards and fondly as spiritual boot camp because she couldn't get over how many times we were we were in prayer and and I was a prayer and back in people find it hard to relate to entering an enclosure why would you why on earth would you in this day and age with so many other choices available to you but when you've discovered god I mean a married couple would do the same if if to be together they would move to another continent I came again for Easter and that Easter is very beautiful here and very meaningful to knows that was a big experience for me I remember thinking at that time that I would enter but then once I left that kind of urge went to off me thanks to go back to life as a normal and she think I wanted to have a little talk about community life you know it's very important for us so you've been living it and you've both done so well I came at stage in the monastery there was supposed to be for a month originally but then I stayed for two months after but he talked about this I still was very much sitting on the fence though but there is a lot of fear comes with Joe entering here and feeling that you're leaving your family behind you that you know so you have to kind of face those fears so I was afraid I suppose you really need to have a good library it's my pride and joy I've been building it up for just over 30 years now when I started there were very few books really but I was fortunate enough for a few years to be able to gather books together and every space of wall now is covered with books lectio divina is really essentially the study of scriptures a slow meditative reading and reflection and study that leads to contemplation we believe that the Scriptures are inspired and through reading the Word of God we come to know who God is and we come to know ourselves and we come to know how to live you're actually changed simply by reading and listening to the word you know you kind of get insight into yourself and insight into life and how God acts so it's transformative actually doing lectio Divina and it's also very nourishing as regards love you know you once you know who God is you you want to love him because he's so good there will be no consolation there will be echoes of the cry of Jesus my God my God why hast thou forsaken me well to be honest I'm here because I felt in my late teens that God was calling me to religious life and I didn't want to I couldn't think of anything I wanted less and I wanted freedom I wanted to travel I had a very good job for a while but I just felt as their call was getting stronger and stronger so I just came in there was something in my life he was away and you're lying and my mother had to tell him so and anyway that's the way things happen sometimes I thought that you see if I told him and said too much about it that was afraid that I would be persuaded to continue to resist coming in and I knew that would be the wrong thing I really would have been the wrong thing it hasn't been a bed of roses everybody has difficulty in their lives we all could go through bad patches but I have no regrets whatever the processes that you do six months as a postulant and then ever month away so the month is really just it is to reflect and contemplate but I suppose you've already really made the decision that you will come back so I was at home for a month and saw our family and did different things yeah and then I was ready to come back then yeah I never really wanted to go for the whole month I only wanted a thought was a few days away big rant I was have a cup of coffee somewhere nice cappuccino or something and then I come back okay so angela has spent six months as a postulant and tomorrow is really a monastic initiation where she begins her two-year novitiate and she receives the novices habit you know she's moving out of one way of life and into a new way of life so it's big to write a big change just take a bit of getting used to the change of clothes and the veil and to not feel self-conscious in this show until it feels like urine you've always wanted when I looked at myself in the mirror so it's strange to see yourself in robes so something I ever thought I'd wear so I talked to my parents and we could go and my dad was seems a little bit emotional I think but no they're very supportive tonight is Angela's last time walking outside the abbey walls tomorrow she will ask to take the veil and go from postulant to novice entering an enclosed order and committing to the discipline of Cistercian life this all sorts of challenges ahead exposed letting go to let go the person that I was before but the life that I had before and you know the things that I probably won't do now and worries that I got very emotional and I'll cry a lot of us I think actually it'll be okay I think I actually I'll just be very happy yeah you you it's 4:00 a.m. while the world sleeps the nuns in Glencairn prepare to start their working day vigils is a Liturgy of waiting for the coming of the Lord and the hope of a new day a reading from Saint Paul's letter to the Romans you know what our it is how it is full-time now for you to wake from sleep the night is far gone the day is at hand let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day at the seven hours we call them the hours of the liturgy the first one vigils so that's the waiting and keeping watch there is a sense of God watching watching over us protecting us mostly I think it is to be there in prayer for people the thing that is really playing on your mind is the thing that wakes you up usually about four o'clock in the morning that's the time you can sleep that's when your worries have reached a point where you really can hardly face the next day so that's why I'm on my feet in choir praying for all the people that are suffering whatever it is that they will feel God's presence in that trauma Windsong then we see the dog come in you know and you're reminded that people are waiting for the dawn to come as well people that are suffering and we just pray that they'll experience God's loving care and protection you know during those hours Angela Finnegan has traveled many roads through Buddhism mindfulness and meditation to find a path to God it has led her here to st. Mary's Abbey Glen Kearn today she will ask the others to join Ireland's only Cistercian monastery for women Angela what do you ask the mercy of God and of the order rise in the name of the Lord my dear Angela today you take off the nice bright colors of pink and green that we have become accustomed to and you were clothed in the wise novices habit it seems to me Angela that you have always been a seeker of truth going from your BA in science to an MA then further studies in IT and Social Work traveling moving looking seeking for what might bring you fulfillment and satisfy your yearning heart my prayer for you today Angela is that you will experience the tender embrace of God's love that you will find peace and happiness in this community and that the affection of all the sisters for you will soften the separation from your family and friends so Angela I ask you are you ready to follow Christ along the path traced out by the gospel and by the holy rule yes Reverend Roy by the grace of God and the assistance of your prayers may the Lord bring to perfection the work he has begun in you we for our part welcome you into our community as a novice research fear craft for those who don't know is the patron saint of gardeners and I was fortunate enough to make a career of my hobby which was growing themes quite early on I was put in charge of the garden I would have been a disaster as a Carmelite because their enclosure is so much smaller but here we have 200 acres and for me that was so important because I've lived the greater part of my life outdoors somehow when you're involved in a family business as I was because we were running a garden center that just wasn't time there wasn't time for God you know and it was only much later on when I quieten down started to really listen it was 2006 I came on a Tuesday I was here Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday I've never prayed so hard read so much I was so busy trying to make it happen that by Sunday I was all worn out and I remember going into the church and sitting down and gave an issuing God with an ultimatum okay you got me here and now I just feel it's all a complete waste of time so either you do something or I'm off it was the most glorious morning and as we walked along the path down by the river this salmon jumped in the most perfect arc and the sunlight reflected on his speckles and I was just rooted to the spot I mean God in his magnificence I'm 27 years here now in 27 years I don't think of it as chalking up one year after another once you come here that's the kind of is you know you lose another track of time years wise you know and you charge your maintenance just ordinary plumbing things and washers and taps clogs on fixed clogs or that on electrical equipment the general small maintenance things I try and unmanage myself push I know my limits so anything over and above we had to get in somebody to do it sometimes you can get carried away with the work push the office gives us reminders of you know this we are here as a precondition really you know I could be you know outside doing maybe more beneficial work other you know person it's not the actual work I do here it's my motivation for Jewish you know it's all in service of the community which in the end result really is in service of God really my relationship with God it is a busy life and people might not realize that our life is very conditioned with bears and times and being punctual and that kind of change The Hermitage would be a way of getting in touch with your own interior spiritual journey each sister every month can take a day off normally to either go apart and spend the time alone it's an opportunity to deepen your own prayer life as well Benedict even himself lived as a hermit for sometime or the early Irish saints - at some stage we've determined like it was always there and even in more recent times Judge Thomas Merton lived as a hermit I just like to get away myself and be alone in spite of great efforts to attend to maintenance over the years the building has deteriorated quite quite or not and we need to put a lot of work into it mostly it's really updating we need to look at our safety damp we have rising damp everywhere we probably have wet wash and dry rot we need a completely new water system we need a new electricity system some of the stairs are shaking the house needs repairing parts of it a 300 years old so and we need enough lot of work done in that but there are different viewers about how to go about it naturally what are those two - the squares they wind your windows skylights all from above and your skylights on the top of dishes lengths oh no they can't be traveling on the floor above that no way of having em glass no leather in the floor very nifty well since 2008 we've been working with an architect and a design team we did get planning permission but then we didn't have the funds sufficient funds to start or the other option then would be to try and reduce the size of the bedrooms and put in another one doctor not be feasible at the moment we're concentrating and fundraising people have been most generous and were so appreciative we're a big community we have lots of contacts everybody's making an effort and it's coming on we have a very good relationship with the local community it's good Mary and so many people who come to the front door and ask for prayers for particular intention so many people email and phone and as well as that sister I would like you to push on the prayer list somebody who is very ill there is a power that comes and there is a healing and there is a grace that comes through intercessory prayer Thank You YouTube bye-bye now we have a very small guesthouse where people can come and have some quiet and share with the community entire the receiving of guests is a very big thing in the Cistercian life and the rule always say that the porter or portrait should always be near ready to open the door and welcome a person you know so the whole thing of hospitality is terribly important you get all kinds of different visitors really yeah it's amazing I mean we would know a lot and mostly if they've just come therefore knock knock and they come and spend away then there are regular people to come back every year to make the retreat some like a private retreat themselves and they'd come here for us and they join us and the liturgy and then go there walk suspend your walks with them and they enjoy that you know we're lucky with the surroundings we have you'll see it's very thing junior here Oh we had three deaths this year as the community ages yes we can expect one a year but three is quite a lot and it does impact on the community we have to go through our period of bereavement you know diminishing numbers and we lose lovely people and with great gifts and you'd love to keep them forever so we have to adjust to their absence and we missed them Oh missing player enormously she was such a beautiful person but it's the culmination of a life dedicated to God God is what it's all about and getting closer to him she didn't have to suffer like there she was 96 on her feet handsome before Naveed a night she had a lovely life I'm pilot was desperately sad as lnder so quick still she was saved a lot of suffering she saves a lot of suffering or not she just after she's gorgeous those gorgeous st. Benedict says be peacemakers be peaceable be patient and compassionate and if we do fail as we do each day that we never despair of God's mercy Benedict says that we are free to make known our point of view or our opinion but at the right time and in the right way in a humble way and to do that is very very difficult sometimes you might be bursting to make it known you know how you feel or what you want to do what your agenda is etc but our spiritual guide in st. Benedict is saying no you have to wait and and in that time when you're waiting for that right appropriate moment if you've managed to get that for maybe something like wisdom descends and your senses count down and you start to be more open to God's will in the situation and not your own as I have often such people if I was to pick 30 or 32 women to live I wouldn't pick the torchy or authority to that are here but this is where God has planted me I take it in faith that this is where he wants me to be molded and you know and then there's strength in the community as well like a given a community means you know everything can be shared out like every one person doesn't have to take all the responsibility of all of us going on maybe people tend to dismissing close life and say I couldn't possibly do like I couldn't imagine it but it's important to bear in mind that built into the structures there is a significant amount of silence and solitude so there there's a healthy balance where I can breathe I ran in the Dublin City Marathon and oh I think it's 1980 and I sometimes feel that this life is like a like a marathon you know and rather than a sprint you meet the wall and you have good days and bad days and it's a struggle you know and every day is a struggle but I say to myself when I get up in the morning today I begin again Oh Brady I'm in the honeymoon period now I mean there's been a lot of challenges here but I have a real sense of peace actually and contentedness and joy quite a lot of the time actually and I never would have thought that to know that I will be able to say that you've quite a lot of Solitude here so if time to to work things out internally and to kind of see the truth behind things now I feel I'm more myself who God intended me to be I suppose we had a lovely autumn and winter then January commendeth heavy rain the cattle haven't got to the grass yet in this week is really the only first dry weather we've had and then we had a non merciful Gilder storm if I recall it was a Darwin the cold and rain from the middle of February when I had the cattle fair that I'm just was gonna ruin the coroner the next thing that's on merciful roar it was like a volcano noise you know just failed right behind me and this lucky doesn't befall and taught me so it was frightening we'll go fifteen or sixteen trees down with the storm witches we've never had done like that before and then we had to death made sister / sister Francis so unexpected that was another shock she did know something then my lambs give us a better life to the place the first mother here with the transits hoping around oh they were born Sunday afternoon Oh such teamwork alumna was it all safer but one you developed complications the Abbess a former nurse came to help I'd love this not ready yet she don't know come on favorite bird Krasner come on old pace and push shows I'm expecting a man to come to give us a hand if he consent the yard stop them there and get man here I can't get the thief oh I can get the hair tied see if it's gonna be caught or it may ever push out girlie come on come on push shows go come on cool Lu obama-like enjoy now after all come on I have a voice on the job yellow Saint Benedict says that you know you live Lent in a joyful manner no I bought in the gallon in fact the meaning of Lent is springtime so it's a time of growth new life and always with the focus on Easter the joy of Easter the resurrection is wonderful event a monastic community is a school of love so we learn how to love God and how to love each other and how to love ourselves it's very beautiful really to the richness of community life and all the different gifts that there are and you really start to become kind of more of a a we rather than an i it's a warm caring tolerant community and I've lived it for 50 years and I can say that the truthfully as you know it's a happy place our primary focus I think myself is really seeking God coming to know who God is who we are how we are in relationship and that automatically brings an energy into the world it's the energy of good and the energy of grace and it does touch everyone you

Channel: GlencairnAbbey

Views: 235,918

Rating: 4.8608694 out of 5

Keywords: St Mary's Abbey, Glencairn, Waterford, Ireland

Id: jqizpNNDDz0

Length: 53min 26sec (3206 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 21 2016