This year the annual Pluscarden Community outing took place on Thursday 26 September. Our destination was the Catholic Chapel at Stratherrick, in the hills above the East bank of Loch Ness. In penal times this area was part of the Lovat estates, and it remained Catholic, in spite of harsh laws forbidding Catholic worship. The Church of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception was built in 1859, by a local man called Alexander McDonell, who had gone off to Australia to make his fortune. During a severe storm at sea he promised to build the Church if his ship was saved, and when it was, he kept his word. Ever since then Mass has been celebrated regularly in Stratherrick. A fine Priest's house attached to the Church bears testimony to the times when a resident Priest was required for the sake of the many local Catholics. Now unfortunately the congregation has dwindled. Indeed the population has dwindled, as people move away from the remote countryside and into the towns and cities. Sunday Mass has up until now been served from Fort Augustus, but with increasing demands made on the clergy, that weekly Mass is now sadly under review.
The site is anyway dramatically beautiful, and the Church all that could be wished for. Back home at Pluscarden a guest Priest offered the Mass for our guests and regular visitors. Happily for us the sun defied gloomy forecasts, and smiled, if intermittently, on our expedition.
We found a warm welcome awaiting us in the person of Fr. Andrew Hardon, the Parish Priest of Fort Augustus. Stratherrick 's lovely Chapel is of a size to suit a relatively small community. It retains its old Eastward Altar, and is equipped with fine devotional statues and pictures. All of that somehow conveys a sense of homely intimacy, while leaving the visitor with no doubt that this is exclusively a house for prayer. As soon as all were gathered we sang our conventual Mass.
After Mass and Sext we repaired to the small but very adequate adjacent hall. There similarly adequate refreshments were unpacked. After that feast had been served, Fr. Andrew provided a feast of another sort, entertaining the company with clarinet music. Before entering the seminary he had been a professional musician, and had played his clarinet in various prestigious orchestras.
The next important port of call was the little shrine of Mary Immaculate, rather recently constructed up on the hill above the Chapel. Bishop Hugh has blessed a little Altar there also, for the occasional outdoor Pilgrimage Mass.
Some then went off to view the famous nearby waterfall at Foyers, over Loch Ness; others to Fort Augustus, for a tour around the now secularised former Abbey and Church. That was a melancholy experience indeed, for those bold enough to undertake it. The Nave of the Church has been divided up into accommodation units, for rent or sale. Where the Blessed Sacrament Altar once stood, there is now a heated swimming pool, with sauna cubicles to the side. The former monastic refectory with its fine stained glass windows is now a snooker room. The Chapter house has been converted into a flat. The Lodge though has been nicely transformed into what is now the Catholic parish Church, with the Priest's flat upstairs.
Our day at Stratherrick concluded with Vespers sung in Church. The two-hour drive home, through utterly wonderful countryside, was interrupted only by a stop off for a most pleasant supper en route. And so to Compline, and bed.