Something is wrong! We are not where we’re meant to be! We were designed and made by God to be perfectly happy. But we aren’t! We were made to be entirely free from sin and from death. But we’re not! We were made to enjoy perfect and unimpeded communion with God. But we don’t! The season of lent confronts us in a special way with the reality of our condition: our sinfulness, our mortality, our distance from God, our state of exile from our heavenly home. In lent also we fix our gaze on Jesus in his suffering and death.
FR. ABBOT ANSELM’S HOMILY FOR THE FUNERAL OF FR. MATTHEW TYLOR; 17 FEBRUARY 2023
Fr Matthew was a monk for over sixty years; a Priest for fifty years. Before he was a monk he was a soldier, being of the generation that did military service, and he fought in the jungle in Malaysia. He was a tall, strong man, whose long and interesting life was mostly behind him when he arrived at Pluscarden nearly twenty years ago.
Homily for 29 January 2023, Sunday 4A, Matthew 5:1-12
Recently I was asked to speak to a visiting group of sixth form teenagers. In the course of our exchange one of them asked: “What is the purpose of life?” I thought that a jolly good question. You can imagine lots of different answers coming from different people.
Well, I’m a Benedictine monk, so the first answer that came into my head, was: “to give God glory”. Then I thought of another: “to become the person God wants you to be - the person you alone can be - so that you give God glory in the way you alone can”.
Homily for the 8 o’clock Mass, Sunday 2A, 15 January 2023, John 1:29-34
We’ve just read of the first appearance of Jesus in St. John’s Gospel. I wonder if you’ve noticed how wonderfully crafted St. John’s narrative here is? The Fathers of the Church called St. John "The Theologian". We see why especially in his opening lines, where, beyond all other New Testament writers, he seems to gaze directly into the heart of God. John speaks there of the Logos, the Word who was with God, and who was God. Through this Word all things were made. Yet also: this Word became flesh.
Homily for Elgin Cathedral - John 2:1-11 - Lantern of the North Pilgrimage: 7 January 2023
"Lantern of the North" Pilgrimage to Elgin Cathedral 7 January 2023
A group of local Catholics has been organising a series of Pilgrimage Masses at sites of historic importance around Catholic Moray. There are plenty of such sites.
On Saturday 7 January the venue was Elgin Cathedral. Its ancient appellation was "The Lantern of the North": so that was the title of the Pilgrimage…
Fr. Abbot’s Homily for the Mass of Christmas Day, 25 December, 2022
The Martyrology places our Lord with great precision in historical time and place. Similarly when we profess our faith, we do not only say that Jesus suffered. We say ‘he suffered under Pontius Pilate’. What we profess with regard to Jesus is not timeless truth, but historical event, in this time, in this place.
Fr. Abbot’s Homily for Christmas Midnight Mass, 25 December 2022
“Mary gave birth to her first born, and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” In our Christmas crib scene, Jesus lies in a manger as a sign of poverty and exclusion. Tradition surrounds Jesus with beasts: the ox and the ass, the lambs carried in by the shepherds, and later the camels of the Magi.
Homily for the Second Sunday of Advent, 4 December 2022: Matthew 3:1-12
On this Second Sunday of Advent, the figure of St John the Baptist bursts onto the scene. As St Matthew gives no details of his origins, we must turn to St Luke, who tells us that he is the cousin of Jesus: six months his senior. John’s birth was foretold, and his name given to Zechariah his father by the angel Gabriel, who proclaimed that John would be filled with the Holy Spirit even in his mother’s womb. In Elizabeth’s womb John leaps at the presence of Jesus, who is in Mary’s womb. John becomes strong in the spirit, and then “was in the wilderness till the day of his manifestation to Israel”.