Dear Friends,
The month of May provided me with opportunity to consolidate a number of friendships that we enjoy with
other communities and families.
At the beginning of the month I left for Paris to concelebrate Mass at Les Invalides for the 5th May, the
anniversary of the death of Napoleon I. It is always a rather strange thing - to be an Englishman at a
celebration of our great enemy, but this year the day coincided, mercifully, with the Solemnity of the
Ascension of the Lord, and so I did not feel quite so compromised as usual! I concelebrated the Mass with
Monseigneur Le Gall, the bishop of the French Armed Forces, and with his Vicar General. The Church of St
Louis is, in fact, his cathedral. The church was full, the music splendid and the soldiers gave a warm
welcome to the eighteen-year-old Prince Jean-Christophe Napoleon, who was appearing for the first time as
the head of the family.
After the formalities I returned, as has become my custom, to the Parisian apartments of the Princess
Napoleon (Jean-Christophe’s grandmother) and lunched with the family and caught up with their various bits
of news. The furnishings and paintings there were at Farnborough Hill during the Empress Eugénie’s time and
there is a particularly poignant portrait of the Prince Imperial in the salon. I managed to have a few
days’ rest with some friends in Brittany, and a visit to the Abbey of Sainte-Anne de Kergonan before my
eventual return to the mother-country.
The head master of the London Oratory School is a friend of our monastery and occasionally attends our
Conventual Mass. On their patronal feast of St Philip Neri, I celebrated Mass for them in the London
Oratory Church and distributed their annual prizes. Again, a splendid luncheon followed.
A coach full of pilgrims from Westminster Cathedral joined us for a very successful ‘Day with Mary’. The
weather was good enough for us to have outdoor processions of Our Lady and of the Blessed Sacrament, and we
were pleased to welcome the Franciscans of the Immaculate, friars and sisters to the Abbey.
Another group of Franciscans has started to come to us. These are the Franciscans of the Renewal, or ‘of
the Bronx’ as they are sometimes called. They are a new and dynamic community, some twenty years old. They
live what is in effect the Capuchin Franciscan charism in full vigour, with a particular emphasis on
poverty. Mostly American, they have established a little friary in Canning Town in London and live a life
of prayer and service to the poor in that area. Benedictines and Franciscans have long been friends, indeed
St Francis himself was given his first friaries by monks of our Order. We are delighted to welcome their
brothers to our house for their retreat days, and to have such strong fraternal links with them
Our Father Aidan will, in the course of June make his first profession of vows as a monk. This commits him
to three years of our vows of Obedience, Conversion of Life, and Stability to our monastery. I am very
pleased to say that, as he leaves the novitiate and becomes a junior, we have several men who will be
taking his place and commencing their monastic lives with us. Slowly, but surely, we are growing and we
stand in need of your prayers. Some years ago, when our community was particularly fragile, we made firm
decisions to step back slowly from the precipice by consolidating what is proper to our monastic vocation
and by withdrawing from what is not. These decisions were not always well-understood nor were they
well-received, but they are beginning to bear fruit. Please pray for Fr Aidan and for us all, that God who
has begun this work in us might bring it to completion.
Sincerely in the Lord,
rchived 
ews
