De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

I at last saw this remarkable film this evening. It is set in and around a real-life French-founded Catholic Cistercian monastery in the Algerian Atlas mountains. It tells the story of 8 monks who lived there and events that took place during the winter of 1996. This was while I was studying in Paris and I remember all too well the news breaking. MILD SPOILER ALERT (I don't give away much, to be honest) Having heard all about the film from French confrères over the past few months and having read reviews and French magazine articles interviewing the cast (who all said what a profound effect the making of the film had had on them), I braced for disappointment. And, to be fair, during the predominantly wordless opening 15 mins. which slowly built up a feel for the characters and for their way of life, I feared that it had all been much ado about nothing. Wordless... well, almost. We hear and see the monks in prayer singing the Divine Office, and it is the actors themselves who do the...

This promises to be very good. It's by the same team that produced "The Monastery" (Big Brother meets Benedictine monasticism), with former Abbot Christopher Jamison (Worth Abbey) again a prime mover behind the project. I had an e-mail from Fr. Luke at Worth the other day saying that the BBC have at last confirmed the dates of its airing. It will be broadcast in 3 parts (like The Monastery), starting on Fri. Oct. 22nd at 7pm, the other 2 parts airing on the subsequent Fridays. One to put in your diary! Here's the blurb from the BBC website: SILENCE IN THE CITY Father  Christopher Jamison , the Abbot of Worth, emerged as the key figure in the BBC Two series The Monastery broadcast six years ago. He believes that if people can learn to be silent they can communicate with God, and rediscover their souls. In a new three-part documentary series,  Silence In The City , five people attempt to put silence at the heart of their everyday, busy lives and learn what to...

In 2005 the 3-part BBC 2 tv documentary series "The Monastery" followed 5 contemporary men who volunteered to live 40 days at the Benedictine monastery of Worth Abbey. A friend of mine managed to do a decent transfer from vhs to dvd for me. After getting permission from the Abbott of Worth Abbey, Abbott Christopher Jamison, I made it known to friends that I could give them copies. I also advertised the fact on this very blog . It turned out that the BBC weren't interested in releasing it commercially. The only payment that I have ever asked for from those requesting copies is prayers for my family. The 5 volunteers... ... with the monastic community at Worth Abbey. I used part of the series in school. It's a wonderful resource to have: insights into religious life - its difficulties, its riches, insights into Christianity in general, a very positive image of the Church and of the Benedictines involved - the Abbot, Novice Master, etc... some of whom give individual g...

Some random thoughts jotted down during the retreat: There are moments, generally those quiet, late-night ones, or the stunned-by-the-beauty-of-creation ones, when I feel a kind of vertigo at the fact that I am there at all in that place and at that moment. This happened to me twice in particular during the retreat. Both times the feeling came over me like a wave crashing on the shore. What convoluted chain of events, what minor miracles have led me to be right here, right now? So many of these have depended on the intervention of other people... other minds, other hearts guided by God's hand to help me get here... but also moments of defeat and darkness, yet through which grace was born. A chain reaction of divine circumstance mixed with human weakness, making of each day a crazy, wonderful gamble... Destiny? Free will? Chance? Who knows exactly the balance that these achieve. All I can do is put my total trust in him who has got me this far despite me. I stand and look to the s...

Well, it's now been 5 days since I got back from my annual retreat (see previous blog posts); 5 days since, like Peter, James + John in the account of the Transfiguration, Jesus invited me (not that I had much choice! :-) to come back down the mountain into the "world" and share with others the graces received during our time in the "desert". The view from my room in the monastery one glorious morning. First of all, the monastic prayer. Benedictine monasteries follow a daily rhythm of prayer, manual work and study which actually creates a very full timetable. Our routine during the retreat certainly followed their prayer timetable (Laudes, Terce + Mass in the morning, Vespers + Compline late afternoon and evening, with optional None after lunch and Vigils in the early hours of the morning for the more courageous). These prayer times (with the exception of Mass) follow the same basic structure with an opening hymn, psalms and canticles mainly from the Old Testa...

Well, tomorrow I leave for Brittany to do my annual retreat with about 30 other Brothers (all French) at the Benedictine monastery of Landevennec, situated on an isolated peninsula on the west coast of Finistère (Brittany, France). I've been on retreat there before a couple of times and there are some glorious walks along the coast and through the forests. The abbey church. It is part of our congregation's Rule of Life that the Brother must go on an annual retreat, if possible with confrères, to recharge his batteries spiritually (and physically), to take stock of his life, to further discern the meaning of his vocation, etc... We will be having a few talks given by the Abbot of the monastery and by a member of our congregation's Provincial team. I always look forward to such times as privileged moments of grace for various reasons. One is that even though we do not talk (at least for the majority of the week) it is good to spend time with confrères, i.e. members of my reli...

Worth Abbey, the location for the enthralling and ultimately moving 2005 BBC 2 reality series "The Monastery" (see here and here ) is the subject of the following article on the BBC News website. It discusses their taster weekends that they initiated in the aftermath of the tv series and the thousands of communications received by the monastery from a wide range of people all seeking some form of "sanctuary" as the Abbot of Worth Christopher Jamison says in his book ("Finding Sanctuary"). These weekends have proved very popular. As have the series of Compass Points vocation discernment weekends that take place there each year. BBC NEWS | UK | A monk's life... but just until Monday By Yvonne Murray BBC News Brother Robert Verill A former weekender, Brother Robert Verill, has become a Dominican friar With Britain becoming an increasingly secular society, the number of people devoting themselves to the monastic life has been in freefall. But now several...

Worth Abbey community + the volunteers Originally uploaded by bro_james . "The Monastery": a highly successful BBC 2 3-part documentary following 5 contemporary men who volunteer to live 40 days at Worth Abbey. I know lots of people who've seen at least part of it, some of whom have a lukewarm attitude to organised religion at the best of times. They were all gobsmacked by it and many found it profoundly moving (as I did myself - especially the last part and Tony's religious experience). The reaction in the press has been amazing. One of the volunteers (Tony) has even been talking openly on TV chat shows about how he discovered faith in God during the experience. His story gives tremendous witness to what Christianity has to offer people in today's secularised societies, in part simply because of the type of person he was before doing the series and also through seeing how it has changed him. I know a lot of people are campaigning for the series to be realeased...