Dear Friends,
The month of October saw the last of the special organ recitals of this centenary year of the arrival of
the Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Abbey Church. We welcomed Martin Stacey, organist at St Dominic’s Haverstock
Hill, who played the Dupré Vespers of our Lady. Between the organ pieces, a little schola from the
community sang the antiphons for what proved to be an extremely popular afternoon. We monks tend to forget
that Gregorian Chant is something rarely heard ‘live’ these days. Both Catholics and non-Catholics alike
have commented extremely favourably this year on how much they have learned about organ music from hearing
the Chant and classical works based upon it in the juxtaposition for which it was intended. We have already
started to issue invitations to organists for next year’s recital series.
Two of our postulants graduated to the novitiate at the end of October. Brother Matthew Jackson, a nineteen
year-old from Wigan in Lancashire, received the habit of a novice on the eve of All Saints’ Day. He was
given the name of Alban, not after the proto-martyr of England, but after the Reformation Benedictine
martyr, Saint Alban Roe.
On the same day his confrere Fr Aldo Tapparo received the habit as a novice. Father Aldo’s Italian family
origins are reflected in his monastic name, Anselm. Saint Anselm originated from Aosta in Italy, eventually
becoming Archbishop of Canterbury.
These two brothers had five days of retreat before the ‘clothing’ ceremony. This gave them an opportunity
to reflect not only on the first steps of monastic commitment they made on that day, but also on the wider
significance in our history and tradition of the monastic habit. It is one of the great ironies of the
Second Vatican Council that its call to manifest to the world the presence and life of Christ should, at
the same time have heradled the near-demise of clerical dress and the public wearing of the religious
habit, two immediate and tangible signs of Catholic life. The result is that many of our young people have
grown u without ever seeing a sign or knowing of the existence of one of the most powerful signs of
religious commitment.
When I travel every few weeks to confess the nuns of Tyburn, I am often amazed at the warm and generous
reaction of the public to the habit. It is a great sign of hope and consolation to a world which stands in
such need of commitment and the tempering witness of the Evangelical Counsels.
Again I commend our little community to your prayers, and I especially commend our ‘young’ brothers in the
first years of their monastic life. They offer themselves not only to Farnborough but to all the Church.
Your prayers will be of great help in the rials and sacrifices that the Lord is asking of them.
Sincerely in the Lord,
rchived 
ews
