Dear Friends,
On July 21st I attended one day of a symposium on the role of the Virgin Mary in the Redemption which was
hosted by Worth Abbey. This conference was organised by the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate and my
particular topic was about the close association of our Lady with the Redemption in the writings of St
Ephraem the Syrian and Jacob of Serugh.
I travelled home the same day and then departed early in the evening for Royal Leamington Spa, where I had
a meeting with Fr Aldo Tapparo, a priest and canon lawyer of the Birmingham Diocese who has asked to try
his monastic vocation with our community, and hopes to enter Farnbrough in the late Summer. At Leamington
preparations were at fever-pitch for the ordination of another friend of our community, Fr Paul Moss. Paul
was the deacon who sang the gospel so well at the funeral of Pope John Paul. We printed the order of
Service for Paul’s ordination.
I was sadly unable to attend the ordination because it clashed with my brother’s wedding for which I
hastened to Durham on the morning of July 22nd. Being the only Catholic in my family, I was able to enjoy
this as a guest rather than as the officiating minister. On the 23rd I hastened again to Edinburgh where I
officated at the wedding of David and Miriam Harden. David is a friend of our whole community and was in
the Abbey Choir as a little boy. Some years ago Laudetur readers generously helped him to finance a Raleigh
International project, of which he was part, in Mongolia. He is now a medical doctor and his wife a
musician. Fr Simon Gaine O.P. preached at the wedding. He is an old friend of mine, and, as a young friar,
was the acolyte at my ordination ten years ago. He is now the Vice Regent of Studies at Blackfriars,
Oxford.
On the way home from the wedding I was able to call at Lindisfarne, the island home of St Cuthbert, and to
visit my parents and grandparents on the way home to Farnborough.
In the month of July we welcomed two young Frenchmen to the monastery. Ghislain de Bayser worked with us in
the bookbindery and with the bees.
Mayeul Aymer de la Chevalerie came to spend some weeks of preparation for his marriage this summer.
Sincerely in the Lord,
rchived 
ews
