Do it as you can and as God will permit you to do it

Saturday, 20 October 2018

Jean de Bernières, a pious layman, was the most widely read spiritual author of the 17th century and an intimate friend of Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament. From his hermitage, a kind of hospital for souls in need of spiritual convalesecence, Jean de Bernière writes to Mother Mectilde on 14 February 1651:

With regard to your interior, do not be undone by the afflictions of the spirit and the sufferings that you bear amidst the troubles and business that your office gives you, because these are the troubles and business of obedience. By bearing them with a little fidelity, they will produce in your soul “a great prayer” (une grande oraison) that God will give you when it will please Him. Be the victim of His good pleasure, and let Him act. When He wishes to build great perfection in a soul, He demolishes it altogether; the state you are in is very difficult, I admit, but it is very pure. Do not torment yourself about your prayer (oraison). Do it as you can and as God will permit you to do it, and it is enough. You think about uplifting unions

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How the Work of God is to be done in the day-time (XVI)

Saturday, 20 October 2018

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CHAPTER XVI. How the Work of God is to be done in the day-time
19 Feb. 20 June. 20 Oct.
As the prophet saith: “Seven times in the day have I given praise to Thee.” And we shall observe this sacred number of seven if, at the times of Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline, we fulfil the duties of our service. For it was of these hours of the day that he said: “Seven times in the day have I given praise to Thee”; just as the same prophet saith of the night watches: “At midnight I arose to give Thee praise.” At these times, therefore, let us sing the praises of our Creator for the judgments of His justice: that is, at Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext, None, Vespers and Compline; and at night let us arise to praise Him.

Already, from the time of Tertullian (Letter on Prayer, Chapter 25) and of Saint Cyprian (On the Lord’s Prayer, Chapters 34–36), the Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers set forth the Church’s Hours of Prayer and

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Nisi efficiamini sicut parvuli

Friday, 19 October 2018

October 19th is a significant day in the history of Silverstream Priory; it also marks the 21st anniversary of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and of the Holy Face being proclaimed a Doctor of the Church in 1979, and the 10th anniversary of the beatification of her parents, Louis and Zélie Martin in 2008. We observed the day by erecting and blessing a statue of Saint Thérèse in the newly designed rose garden adjacent to the noviciate wing. The ceremony took place after None.

In 1942, the Hospitaller Brothers of Saint John of God purchased Silverstream from Lord Preston for £2,500, and placed the house and land (170 acres) under the heavenly protection of the Little Flower, Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. Saint Thérèse has watched over Silverstream for the past 76 years. Given that the “Little Way” of Saint Thérèse corresponds in many points with what Saint Benedict calls his “little Rule for beginners,” we thought it fitting to dedicate the new noviciate wing and the adjoining rose garden to Thérèse, the 24 year old Doctor of the Church.

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At What Times of the Year Alleluia Is to Be Said (XV)

Friday, 19 October 2018

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CHAPTER XV. At What Times of the Year Alleluia Is to Be Said
18 Feb. 19 June. 19 Oct.
From the holy Feast of Pascha until Pentecost, without interruption, let Alleluia be said both with the Psalms and the responsories. From Pentecost until the beginning of Lent it is to be said at the Night-Office with the six latter Psalms only. But on every Sunday out of Lent let the Canticles, Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sext and None be said with Alleluia: Vespers, however, with an antiphon. The responses are never to be said with Alleluia, except from Pascha to Pentecost

Readers discovering the Rule of Saint Benedict for the first time are often surprised by the Holy Patriarch’s careful attention to the minutest details of the Opus Dei (the Work of God or Divine Office). He goes so far as to devote a chapter of the Holy Rule to the times of the year during which Alleluia is said. Alleluia is the transliteration of two Hebrew words: hallel meaning praise, and Ya, the shortened two-letter version of the name of

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Go and repair My House

Thursday, 18 October 2018


Called to the Work of Reparation
Our Lord, in every age of the Church’s life, calls souls to the work of reparation, that is, to repair what is broken, to shore up what is falling down, to make solid again what is crumbling. One need only recall the promises of God made through the mouth of the prophet Isaias:

And the places that have been desolate for ages shall be built in thee: thou shalt raise up the foundations of generation and generation: and thou shalt be called the repairer of the fences, turning the paths into rest. (Isaias 58:12)

Saint Francis of Assisi
Saint Bonaventure, in his Life of Saint Francis, gives what is, I think, a compelling account of a vocation to reparation:

For on a certain day, when he had gone forth to meditate in the fields, he was walking nigh the church of Saint Damian, which from its exceeding great age was threatening to fall, and, at the prompting of the Spirit, went within to pray. Prostrating himself before an Image of the Crucified, he was filled with no small consolation of spirit as he

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Support the monks of Silverstream Priory:

Situated amidst pasture land and forest in the eastern reaches of County Meath, Silverstream Priory was founded in 2012 at the invitation of the Most Reverend Michael Smith, Bishop of Meath, and canonically erected as an autonomous monastery of diocesan right on 25 February 2017. The property belonged, from the early 15th century, to the Preston family, premier Viscounts of Ireland and Lords of Gormanston. In 1843 Thomas Preston (1817-1903), son of Jenico Preston, the 12th Viscount (1775-1860), built what today is Silverstream Priory.

Silverstream Priory is a providential realisation of the cherished project of Abbot Celestino Maria Colombo, O.S.B. (1874–1935), who, following the impetus given by Catherine–Mectilde de Bar in the 17th century, sought to establish a house of Benedictine monks committed to ceaseless prayer before the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar in a spirit of reparation. The community of Silverstream Priory holding to the use of Latin and Gregorian Chant, celebrate the Divine Office in its traditional Benedictine form and Holy Mass in the “Usus Antiquior” of the Roman Rite. Praying and working in the enclosure of the monastery, the monks of Silverstream keep at heart the sanctification of priests labouring in the vineyard of the Lord. They undertake various works compatible with their monastic vocation, notably the development of the land and gardens, hospitality to the clergy in need of a spiritual respite, scholarly work, and publishing.

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