Dear Friends,
For nigh the entire duration of the month of September I was in Italy, attending the General Chapter of our
Congregation at the Abbey of Praglia, some twelve kilometres from Padua, and then the Congress of Abbots
and Conventual Priors at the international Benedictine house of Sant’ Anselmo in Rome.
Visiting Rome invariably leaves one with a great sense of the Church. Being at the Congress sharpens one’s
awareness of the international dimension and diversity of the whole Benedictine Confederation. I shall have
more to say about these two events in the November edition of Laudetur.
What of news? Well, in the summer the community decided to increase the quality and quantity of the Divine
Office. We now sing the offices from Lauds to Compline every day in the Abbey Church, adding almost another
hour to the liturgy thereby. This we find stretching, being such a small community, but we find great
reward in the fact that every member of the community here plays his part in the life of the community,
both in work and in prayer. Visitors are often surprised at the number of works we have, particularly in
the realm of the farm and press, and amazed to learn how few we are.
We welcomed in the course of the summer a number of men who are considering our way of life. It is my
conviction that when monks live by the work of their hands as St Benedict urged, and are true to prayer and
the liturgy, then God will bless them. We have much for which we should be grateful. In addition to the
seminarians we welcomed this summer other young foreigners. Erwan le Bec, a young Frenchman, visited us on
the way back to France after the Youth 2000 retreat for young people at Walsingham. Erwan will enter the
novitiate of the comunauté Saint Jean at St Jodard next month. This is a recently founded order with
monastic and pastoral aspects and many vocations. Erwan visited with a friend, Geoffroy de Sauveboeuf.
The Prinknash newsletter ‘Pax’ has a new editor and a new look. Since we typeset and print this quarterly a
lot of time and energy has been invested in working with the monks of Prinknash to satisfy the stringent
requirements of their editor and his bursar.
Our latest publication, The Monastic Diurnal, has sold more than five hundred copies prior to its
publication. This, of course, means five hundred labels to be addressed and boxes to be posted when this
book is ready.
Yours sincerely in the Lord,
rchived 
ews
