FOOD FOR THOUGHT	- A Joyful Purgatory -	Fr Francis Marsden
		For 1 Nov. ‘87

It is 3.30 a.m. at Mount St Bernard’s Abbey, Leicestershire. A couple of lights illuminate the large church. The tabernacle hangs by a cable from the crossing tower, suspended above the High Altar. All is dark outside. The Lord of Creation is within.

“O Lord, open our lips”

“And. our mouths shall declare your praise.” Repeated three times in the stillness. Forty Cistercian monks begin their daily praise, singing the psalms in alternation across the choir stalls. From the transept where I sit they are invisible, but their voices echo round the vaults and rise to heaven.

At this hour of night, the psalms seem more vivid. Their words sink deeper into the heart. They tell the ancient story, that God will one day deliver his servants and cast down the wicked. All will be well for those who love His law.

But not yet. For now, the Cistercians call down God’s blessings upon a broken world. In an unseen and mysterious way, they prompt sinners to repentance, bestow peace and healing upon the afflicted, and make reparation for our sins. In an age which behaves like Martha, rushing and fretting over so many things, the monks take Mary’s part, sitting in adoration at the feet of Jesus.

Your author jumps straight back into bed after the Night Office to snatch another two hours’ sleep. Not so the Cistercians. They take their “mixt” of strong black coffee and bread, and pray or read until Lauds at 7 am. Dawn is advancing. Daylight filters through the tall narrow lancet windows and over the bare stone walls and arcades. “Awake my soul, awake lyre and harp. I will awake the dawn.”

After Lauds, the monks prepare for the concelebrated sung Mass at 8 am. Priests gather round one side of the altar, brothers on the other, and behind them the guesthouse visitors. The liturgy proceeds in a simple, matter-of-fact way, but slowly and devoutly. The priests go up in single file and make a deep bow before receiving from the paten. “the Bread come down from heaven.” 

After Holy Communion all sit to sing Terce in thanksgiving, and Mass ends. The monks go to breakfast and work - in the printing press, the laundry, the pottery, the bookshop, and the vegetable garden or around the farm. Plumber and carpenter, painter and decorator to their maintenance jobs on the abbey buildings, the bursar to his accounts, the novice-master to his classes, others to give spiritual guidance to retreatants.

They have four more monastic hours to sing: Sext (12.15 pm), None (2.l5) Vespers (5.30 pm) and Compline (7.30 pm). For is it not written that “Seven times a day will I praise the Lord”? Then the candles are extinguished and the monks retire to bed at 8 pm.

The value of this way of life is felt in the peace which permeates the monastery and its surroundings. It is so obviously God’s gift, the presence of the Holy Spirit. It flows through the monks’ self-giving in praise and prayer. Besides their 3 hours in choir singing God’s praises, they are expected to pray privately for one and a half hours each day.

Our prayer groups and congregations do well if they follow in part the Cistercians’ example, offering time and praise generously to God. We should not be mean with the time we give back to our Maker.

In the guesthouse, one surprise for me was the number of non-Catholic guests - an Anglican RAF chaplain, a Methodist minister, a Christian evangelist, a vicar’s wife and several others. It is heartening to find that other denominations are coming to understand and appreciate the Catholic monastic tradition. I had thought only hard-boiled Catholics would venture near a Cistercian abbey.

Mount St Bernard’s was founded in 1837 with money and land given by Ambrose de Lisle Phillipps, a recent convert of Grace Dieu manor nearby. Wiseman, Newman, Manning, Ullathorne, Faber and other Catholic heroes of the 19th century visited it, not to mention Wordsworth, Florence Nightingale and Gladstone. During the Irish potato famine, the monks fed and sometimes lodged thousands of the poor, starving immigrants.

The only other British monasteries following the strict Cistercian rule are Caldey Island (near Tenby) and Nunraw in Scotland. The present Abbot General of the entire Trappist order is a Mount St Bernard’s man.

The abbey sits 600 ft up on the edge of Charnwood Forest, looking down over farmland, a reservoir and the vale of Trent. Towards Derby and Nottingham. In the distance, a power station manufactures clouds. Outcrops of ancient volcanic rock poke through the sheep and cattle pastures every so often.

Some distance behind the abbey farm is the biggest roadstone quarry I have ever seen, an immense crater, plunging 400 feet down cliffs and terraces. JCBs and trucks roar around this moonscape. Right at the bottom is a green-blue lake. The occasional heavy lorry thundering down these inclines half a mile away does not disturb the abbey’s peace.

Sitting in church during the services, I wondered if this was a joy like purgatory. It certainly seemed a good way to make reparation for sins. Ecclesiastical delinquents are sometimes sentenced to a term in a monastery. One is present, full of peace, praising God yet not seeing Him, waiting for Him with no other distractions.

How content are we to have God alone? How would you or I react if confined to such a monastery for a few months? For some of us it would be a wonderful time of peace and prayer, drawing closer to God. Some elements would be like purgatory, with the penances of broken sleep, work, wind and rain and a chilly austere church, but made joyful by God’s peace.

Others might hate it intensely. No TV. No secular newspapers. They would not want to attend the daily prayers. They would grow resentful, sulky or angry. They might try to escape - to find beer at the Belfry Inn up the road, to the  fleshpots of Coalville (if such exist) and Leicester, or to the discos and fashion-shops of Nottingham.

The same monastery would be near-heaven for some, nigh on hell for others. Is that what purgatory will be, as we learn the lessons we have refused to face during this life? God forbid that any of us rebel in eternal obstinacy against His Truth and His healing.

Each November we pray that All Souls in purgatory may soon be promoted to being All Saints in heaven. May those we have loved pray for our growth in holiness too. For where they have gone, we must surely follow.