Thoughts on the Monastic Life; Papa Stronsay 2011 - Muscovy 1650.

                                St Alphonsus de Liguori C.SS.R


We live on Stronsay in Orkney, and our small but growing congregation,  centred on ‘Our Lady’s Chapel’,  is served by the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer (F.SS.R) from Golgotha Monastery, Papa Stronsay. We are blessed with daily Mass in the ‘extraordinary form’, with weekly Benediction, Confessions, etc.  On certain major feast-days and special  occasions,  eg. Holy Week, Christmas, clothing of novices, vows, centenary celebrations, etc. we are invited to Papa Stronsay, being conveyed by the monks in their sturdy little boat to and from the  island, and always treated with great hospitality, essentially  as part of the family. These joint experiences, the physical crossing of the sea, short though it may be, followed by participation in the most devout traditional liturgical ceremonies of the Church, sometimes lasting  two or three hours and often into the night, frequently followed by hospitable fare, combine over time, to  create a rather special  spiritual and experiential  bond between the monastic community  and  parishioners. We do not lose sight of the fact that everything  done is for the glory of God, and the salvation of souls, and this is  why we thank God for the presence of our monks here, and pray that their faith and holy perseverance will soon be rewarded by their full canonical erection in the Diocese.


I confess to having a considerable interest  in the history of monastic life. I emphasise that this is purely an aesthetic interest, as in the event of waking up one morning to find that mysteriously I had become a monk overnight, I fear that I wouldn’t even last the day!  We all recognise the admirable qualities that it takes to become a religious, and of course the final invitation is from God. I console myself by remembering that in God’s house there are many kingdoms, and that I would be more than happy to be the least of all the royal servants in the most insignificant of those kingdoms.


I am currently reading, for the second or third time, a book entitled ‘Borderland’ by Anna Reid, described by the author as ‘A journey through the history of Ukraine’; a paperback published in 1998 by Phoenix. I have no intention of reviewing this book except to say that it is a fascinating read, beautifully written, and I thoroughly recommend it. However whilst in monastic mind, I would like to quote a short passage from the book, relating to the year 1650 or thereabouts, in which the author recounts the experiences of an Orthodox cleric, who with his Superior, visited certain monasteries in Moscow and the Ukraine.  The author is writing about Kiev in the Ukraine:-


‘Seven hundred years of provincialism had its advantages. Third city of the empire, Kiev never felt the grip of government in quite the same way as Moscow and St Petersburg.  An early traveller to say so was Paul of Aleppo, an Orthodox cleric who accompanied his father Macarius, Patriarch of Antioch, on a fund-raising mission to the Tsar in the 1650s.  Landing at the mouth of the Dnieper,  this smooth  Mediterranean  pair were initially not much taken with Ukraine.  The mosquitoes  bit, the food was dreadful, and the services went on for ever. ‘We never left church,’ Paul confided to his diary, ‘but tottering on our legs after so much standing’.
Moscow, though, was far worse.  ‘Anyone wishing to shorten his life by five or ten years,’ Paul  wrote, ‘should go to Muscovy.’   In the monasteries ‘mirth and laughter and jokes’ were forbidden, and spies watched through cracks in the doors to see ‘whether the inmates practise devotional humility, fasting and prayer; or whether they get drunk and amuse themselves’.  Drinkers, he was told, were sent to Siberia; smokers were liable for execution – news which put him ‘in great fear’ on his own account.  After all this, as he wrote on his journey home, Ukraine seemed like paradise:
               ‘For during those two years spent in Muscovy ,  a padlock had been set on our hearts, and we were in the extremity of narrowness and compressure of our minds;  for in that country no person can feel anything of freedom or cheerfulness.......... The country of the Kosacks (Ukrainian Cossacks), on the contrary, was like our own country to us, and its inhabitants were to us boon companions and fellows like ourselves’.
           The battered pair were even happier to reach Moldova, where they ‘entered the bath, after twenty-seven months, during the whole of which time we had neither entered a bath nor washed ourselves with water’.

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Having read this, I imagine that vocations to the religious life in the Russian Orthodox Church in the 17th century, must have been few and far between! Probably even worse than today in our Church, with some notable exceptions - ‘Deo Gratias’!    By the way I haven’t heard of any of the F.SS.R community being banished to Siberia, and I haven’t heard of any executions – yet!   Only joking, of course, says he nervously, watching three formidable  figures in black walking slowly and deliberately  towards him, each carrying a black, rectangular object in their hand.  Phew, it’s Saturday morning and time for choir practice for sung Mass tomorrow!   It’s Brothers  Magdala,  Martin, and Peter, each carrying their ‘Liber Usualis’ ! Now where did I put my copy?
   
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Some really good and encouraging news for nurses (and the unborn)
Neil Addison, a Liverpool barrister, reports on his Religion Law Blog that he has 'recently successfully represented two Roman Catholic Nurses who were told that they could not refuse to work at a weekly Abortion Clinic run by their Hospital.'


  http://ccfather.blogspot.com           H/T Ben Travato   ‘Countercultural Father’ blog
  http://religionlaw.blogspot.com     H/T Neil Addison   ‘Religion Law Blog’


This is truly good news for all pro-life nurses and ultimately for the unborn.  Congratulations to Neil Addison for his dedicated and professional services. It is refreshing and encouraging to find the law on the side of individual conscience in moral matters of such importance.  Spread the good news, especially to all those in the nursing profession.


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‘Holy Mary, Queen Assumed into Heaven – pray for our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, and for our Country'

'Take up your Cross and Follow Me' - thoughts from Archbishop Charles Caput

With grateful acknowledgements to 'Les Femmes- the Truth' - Mary Ann Kreitzer.       http://lesfemmes-thetruth.blogspot.com/

 From  Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Head of the Archdiocese of Denver, Colorado:-       

"Take up your cross and follow me."

"The world urgently needs a re-awakening of the Church in our actions and in our public and private witness...We need really to believe what we say we believe. Then we need to prove it by the witness of our lives. We need to be so convinced of the truths of the Creed that we are on fire to live by these truths, to love by these truths, and to defend these truths, even to the point of our own discomforts and suffering. We are ambassadors of the living God to a world that is on the verge of forgetting him. Our work is to make God real; to be the face of his love; to propose once more to the men and women of our day, the dialogue of salvation...The form of the Church, and the form of every Christian life, is the form of the cross. Our lives must become a liturgy, a self offering that embodies the love of God and the renewal of the world... Let us preach Jesus Christ with all the energy of our lives. And let us support each other -whatever the cost- so that when we make our accounting to the Lord, we will be numbered among the faithful and courageous, and not the cowardly or the evasive, or those who compromised until there was nothing left of their convictions; or those who were silent when they should have spoken the right word at the right time."

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, Head of the Archdiocese of Denver, Colorado

                            

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Yesterday was the diocesan feast day of Our Lady of Aberdeen, in which diocese Stronsay is situated.

'Our Lady of Aberdeen, please  pray for our Holy Father, our Bishop, the Transalpine Redemptorist community, all priests and religious, and the laity of our diocese'.

'Song of the Wooden-Legged Fiddler' by Alfred Noyes

  A little light relief does us all good, so grab your fiddles, have a swig of your favourite grog, and away we go:-

   Song of the Wooden-Legged Fiddler

         (Portsmouth 1805)

I lived in a cottage adown in the West

          When I was a boy, a boy;

But I knew no peace and I took no rest

Though the roses nigh smothered my snug little nest;

          For the smell of the sea

          Was much rarer to me,

And the life of a sailor was all my joy

  

    CHORUS:-  The life of a sailor was all my joy!  

My mother she wept, and she begged me to stay

      Anchored for life to her apron-string,

And soon she would want me to help wi' the hay;

So I bided her time, then I flitted away

     On a night of delight in the following spring,

                With a pair of stout shoon

                And a seafaring tune

     And a bundle and stick in the light of the moon,

                Down the long road

                To Portsmouth I strode,

To fight like a sailor for country and king.

CHORUS:- To fight like a sailor for country and king.

And now that my feet are turned homeward again

      My heart is still crying Ahoy! Ahoy!

And my thoughts are still out on the Spanish main

A-chasing the frigates of France and Spain,

     For at heart an old sailor is always a boy;

              And his nose will still itch

              For the powder and pitch

Till the days when he can't tell t'other from which,

     Nor a grin o' the guns from a glint o' the sea,

     Nor a skipper like Nelson from lubbers like me.

CHORUS:- Nor a skipper like Nelson from lubbers like me.

Ay!   Now that I'm old I'm as bold as the best,

     And the life of a sailor is all my joy;

              Though I've swapped my leg

              For a wooden peg

And my head is as bald as a new laid egg,

              The smell of the sea

              Is like victuals to me,

And I think in the grave I'll be crying Ahoy!

      For, though my old carcass is ready to rest,

      At heart an old sailor is always a boy.

CHORUS:- At heart an old sailor is always a boy.

This poem is among the 'Collected Poems' of Alfred Noyes, volume 1, published by William Blackwood and Sons, Edinburgh and London, 1913.  It reminds me of the work of William S Gilbert, of Gilbert and Sullivan fame, and perhaps was performed in the Music Hall of the day. If anybody can enlighten me, it would be much appreciated.

         Alfred Noyes (1880-1958)

Alfred Noyes was an English poet born in Wolverhampton in 1880, died Isle of Wight 1958. He taught English Literature at Princeton University, USA, from 1914 to 1923. His first wife died in 1926 and he subsequently married a widow, Mary Angela Mayne Weld-Blundell, originally married into the recusant Catholic Weld-Blundell family, settling at Lisle Combe, near Ventnor, Isle of Wight.

Noyes was a prolific poet and writer, publishing his first collection of poems, 'The Loom Years', at aged 21. From 1903 to 1908 he published five additional volumes of poetry, including 'The Forest of Wild Thyme' and 'The Flower of Old Japan and Other Poems'.

In 1918 he followed with a short story collection 'Walking Shadows, SeaTales and Others' which included  'The Lusitania Waits', a ghost revenge tale based on the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine in 1915 – although the story hinges on a misconception that the submarine crew had been awarded the Goetz medal for sinking the ship.

In 1924 Noyes published another collection, 'The Hidden Player', and at the British Empire Exhibition, the same year, he wrote a series of poems set to music by Edward Elgar and known as 'Pageant of Empire'.

Alfred Noyes converted to Roman Catholicism in/about the late 1920s, and wrote about his conversion in 'The Unknown God' (1934). In his later years he suffered from increasing blindness, and in 1953 he published his autobiography 'Two Worlds for Memory'. In all he wrote about sixty books including poetry, novels, and short story collections. He died aged 77 years and is buried at Freshwater, Isle of Wight. (Wikipedia)

This is a further post on Alfred Noyes, the first one can be seen here,

http://whitesmokeahoy.blogspot.com/2009/11/alfred-noyes-english-catholic-poet-1880.html

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A Pentecost Prayer:-

 

'Come O Holy Ghost, fill the hearts of Thy faithful and enkindle within them the fire of Thy love, send forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created, and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth'          Let us pray,

'O God Who has taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant we beseech Thee, that by the gift of the same Holy Spirit, that we may be always truly wise, and ever rejoice in Thy consolation, through Christ Our Lord. Amen'

 

'May the Holy Spirit guide and protect our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, and the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.'