Fr Leo celebrates jubilee
FR LEO Arkwright celebrated the golden jubilee of his ordination on July 12. He had been ordained in Salzburg Cathedral on the Solemnity of St Benedict 1954. Fr Leo had studied theology at the University of Salzburg and first celebrated Mass in the Benedictine church of St Peter, Salzburg. On returning to Douai he taught Maths in Douai School. He was the monastic printer and infirmarian for many years and also was Economous. For a few years he was parish priest of Scarisbrick, Lancs, until ill health forced his return to the monastery. †
Development to start
IN May we learned that the Secretary of State, had given approval for the plan to use the former school buildings and site for housing development, rejecting the objections which had been lodged by certain local people. So, we are hoping to exchange contracts with Bewley Homes, the developer, before the end of August. Once this has been done we can proceed with our own building project, which was described in The Douai Magazine for 2002. Thus an anxious period of uncertainty comes to an end.A lot of activity has now started. Members of Bewley are around most days, and soil investigation has taken place preparing for the road widening which is necessary at the junction by the park entrance and the school tower. The cellars beneath the Conference Centre have been cleared of the bathroom equipment which had been stored there over the years and the boiler from the Ditcham building has been installed there as an emergency back up. A new telephone exchange has been installed, as the site of the former one is to be demolished.
The first stage of our building will include new kitchen, monastic and guest refectories to replace the existing ones which we shall lose to the housing development. There will also be four new guest rooms suitable for disabled people, a facility we do not have at present, and a lift. In addition the monastery electrical wiring must be replaced and the fire safety measures upgraded. A description of the proposed development was published inThe Douai Magazine no 165, 2002.†
Centenary Year ends
The English Benedictine Monastic & Liturgical Theology Commission met on the Tuesday and Wednesday of Easter week. Papers were given on Ikons, Poetry, Buildings shaping Community, Singing and Gregorian Chant. The History Commission met on the following day and had papers on Twentieth Century France and the Church, Should the monasteries return to France after the Napoleonic Wars, Dame Laurentia McLachlan of Stanbrook and Dom Philip Langdon of Douai. The texts of these papers will appear eventually on the EBC site on the Internet.
On the evening of Easter Tuesday, John Trigg, a local historian, gave an illustrated lecture on Woolhampton in 1903, which was full of interesting information, much of which he has published in his series of booklets on the history of Woolhampton. On Easter Friday Fr Edmund Power flew from Rome to give a lecture entitled Monks in a state of Flux. As the final event The Douai Society held its AGM and annual luncheon at Douai on Sunday June 20.†
Exhibition in the Abbey
Paul Forsey’s approach is inspired by illuminated manuscripts. The story-telling is direct, the picture plane flat, the colours strong with a good deal of gold. The initial drawings were worked up in a traditional manner with charcters developed independently, and the final compositions evolved using these. The only difference being that whereas 15th century artists used cartoons, paste ups and blue chalk, Paul uses an Apple Macintosh computer. †
Oblate News
Marie-Louise Bland and Renata Clayton made their oblation on May 13 and Anna Charles and Pam Young did so on July 10. In May we started having oblations at Conventual Mass, rather than semi-privately in the evening.†
Community Notes
has been appointed Prior Administrator of the monastery of St Pauls-without-the-Walls in Rome for a period of ten years. A prior-administrator is appointed when a monastery for some reason is unable to elect an abbot of its own. Since 1997 Fr Edmund had been prior of the Abbey of St-Anselmo in Rome, the monastery where monks from many parts of the world go to study. Before that he was Headmaster of Douai School for four years.
Abbot’s diary
At the beginning of May Abbot Geoffrey preached on Fisher Day in the University Church of Great St Mary in Cambridge. At the end of that month he attended the annual meeting of the Catholic Archivists Assocation. On Corpus Christi Day he took the novices to take part in the procession at Mapledurham House and on June 19 he attended the priestly ordination of Michael Dunne, a former English teacher in Douai School, in Westminster Cathedral. Fr Abbot was delegated by the Archbishop of Birmingham to administer Confirmation in our parish at Studley, Warks. During July he attended the Summer Conference of the Ecclesiastical History Society at the University of Liverpool, at which he gave a paper The Poor Man’s Catechism.
Two more visits to Douai
There have been two more visits to Douai (France). In May Abbot Geoffrey took Br Hugh for the AGM of the William Allen Association at which Fr Abbot gave a talk, and in June he went with Frs Oliver and Alban to celebrate the anniversary of the ‘miracle of the host’ at which Br Christopher joined them.
Fr Peter Bowe
attended an international conference on St Anselm organized by the Anselm Studies group and a graduate seminar of Tübingen University, held at the Katholische Akademie in Stuttgart, Germany in June.There were about 40 participants, almost all academic philosophers, theologians and historians, from all over the world attending twenty eight presentations. Fr Peter was there to honour the memory of a close friend, Walter Fröhlich, who had translated Anselm’s letters into English, and who died two years ago. He found it a challenging and inspiring three days, coming into contact with one of the Europe's formost thinkers who had been abbot of Bec in Normandy and archbishop of Canterbury just after the Norman conquest of England, and who had had such an influence on the course of medieval thought and practice.
Fr Dermot Tredget
gave a talk at a Conference, Virtues of Business, at Ridley Hall, Cambridge at the end of March. This was followed immediately with a week teaching a Business Ethics module at Catholic University, Piacenza, Italy. In May he gave a talk on Spirituality in the Workplace to the British Assocation of Communciators in Warwick and another at the Implicit Religion Conference at Ilkley in Yorkshire. He led Spirituality in the Workplace workshops for the Anglican Church in Wales in Cardiff and at Exeter Cathedral School. In June he gave talks on Business Ethics for the sixth form at Rye St Antony School, Oxford, at Plater College for the Knights of St Columba Young Citizen’s Conference, and he gave a day for the RAF Chaplains Support Group. During July he facilitated a workshop at the International Conference on Organisitional Spirituality at the University of Surrey, Roehampton.
Br Christopher Greener
has completed his studies in Moral Theology at the Catholic University of Leuven and has gained his MA magna cum laude achieving the top marks of his class.
Fr Boniface Moran
went as chaplain to 44 pupils and 4 staff from St Benedict’s High School, Alcester, Warks., on a pilgrimage to the shrine at Lourdes in the south of France, during Pentecost weekend.
Fr Nicholas & Fr Benjamin
attended the celebrations for the closure of Campion House, Osterley. A final Mass of thanksgiving in Westminster Cathedral followed by celebrations at Osterley took place on May 12 & 13. Frs Nicholas and Benjamin, both alumni of Campion, attended. Fr Leo is also an alumnus as were several of the community now deceased, including Frs Kevin McCann, Damian Smith and Mark Ackers. In recent years the pre-seminarians had come to Douai for their Lent retreat, and several of the community had given lectures, talks and retreats at Osterly. Its closure is a sad loss.†
Buddhist-Christian Conference -
Transforming the Heart
"FOLLOWING an inspiring Faith in Awakening conference organised by the Buddhists of Amarvati Monastery, Hemel Hempstead in 1993, a further meeting took place for four days in June this year. About 25 Catholic and Anglican and Buddhist (Theravadin & Zen) monks & nuns met at Mirfield Anglican Community of the Resurrection in Yorkshire. The theme was Transforming the Heart, and reflections and sessions of sharing took place, assisted by a most sensitive and skilful facilitator, on such areas as: our journey of life, living in community, silence and the place of the visual, meditation and contemplation, service and activity, living together with the challenges of different age, gender, and mental attitudes.
Times of chanting and meditation were shared; there was also Office and Mass with the Mirfield community and in the Catholic rite. An excellent mix of participants of different traditions, a well-considered programme, and a fine balance of listening, space and time to be alone allowed a deep meeting of minds and hearts to take place, so that it was more like days of shared retreat, enabling us to delve to the heart of our common monastic way of life with all its struggles and joys. I was glad not to have missed it.Ӡ
Bridie Canning, consoror of Douai
While Bridie's main work was looking after the health of the pupils, a task which she carried out with love, care and devotion, she made herself very much part of the overall community at Douai. A ready listener to the boys, she was a highly regarded member of the staff and she was very much in tune with the monastic community. Indeed, she was fiercely loyal to the community and stood by them in times good and bad, sometimes at very great cost to herself. She was one of those people who knew the difference between right and wrong and she would not budge on a matter of principle.
Bridie came from staunch Republican Northern Ireland stock and one of her proudest relics was a rubber bullet by which she was hit in Londonderry during 'the troubles'. She was, however, a natural reconciler and was able to establish excellent relations with members of the Protestant Unionist Community. She was well able to see and judge whence the causes of division were coming. Because of her capacity to reconcile and her willingness to provide an ambience wherein the exploration of reconciliation could occur, she walked a perilous line, but some of the greatest tributes to her charm and capacity for peace came from both sides of the divide. A few more Bridies and there would be fewer troubles in Northern Ireland.
It is, however, as a carer that she will most be remembered. Myriads of boys can think of her gentleness and her care as Matron, a care which extended to the Community. When Fr. Gregory had pneumonia, he started as a most reluctant patient, and had to be frogmarched down to the Infirmary by Frs Augustine and Wulstan. Once there, in a private room, Bridie nursed him with whole-hearted devotion and care. The services of Holy Communion held in his room, to which sick boys were invited and welcomed, were occasions of great prayer and care. The whole experience, and especially the love and care shown in his nursing, had a lasting effect on him and he never forgot it when he was Abbot, for Abbot Gregory was to show a supremely sensitive care for the sick.
In addition to being a good listener, Bridie was a good story-teller and writer, and under the direction of Dr. Bob Cooper, himself a writer and broadcaster of no mean ability, she honed and developed the skill of short-story writing with the result that some of her compositions were published in the press, although a narrative she wrote of experiences at Douai never did get published.
She was a good companion and a sound bridge player and her presence, common sense and capacity for reconciliation enhanced the school staff at a time when things were not always easy.
Bridie returned to Northern Ireland in 1979 to care for a dying parent. She was delighted to have been made a consoror before her departure at a final Mass and festive breakfast with the community. She will always be remembered at Douai as a key member of staff, a loyal and trusty colleague and an effective and caring Matron.
She died on March 18, at the time of writing the cause of her death is still unknown as the postmortem results are awaited. A week previous to her death she had been diagnosed with shingles and had then developed breathing problems. A relative who lived across the street found her dead, kneeling beside her bed. Her brother, Paul, with whom she lived for twenty years wrote: “She often spoke of her time at Douai and it was always with great fondness. It is a place which helped her grow as a person. It helped her grow spiritually and strengthened her beliefs. She said that the old Abbot (Sylvester Mooney OSB) had told her that there was a lifetime’s meditation in what it was to be ‘truly human’. I think she had reached it by the time of her death”.
May she rest in peace. †
Young People
On July 3 sixty advanced Mathematical students from all over Berkshire came for a study day. Then in close succession we had leavers services in the Abbey Church for pupils from the Primary Schools in Thatcham, Catholic Schools in the neighbourhood and from Elstree School, Woolhampton.†
Go to the previous issue Douai Newsletter Spring 2004
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