Listing of planned oblate events in years 2021-2023.
Official Permission for Development
Friends of the Abbey will be disappointed to read that, on July 13th, Moray Council published an official grant of Planning Permission for the proposed housing development at Barnhill. The site for the 9 new houses is almost immediately opposite the monastery, just on the other side of the Black Burn.
Pluscarden Benedictines No. 194 - Pentecost 2021
Homily for the Feast of SS. Peter & Paul, 29 June 2021
In Chapter 57 of the Holy Rule, St. Benedict briefly discusses the skilled craftsmen of the monastery. His concern is that they avoid falling into either pride or avarice because of their work. He rounds off this Chapter by quoting a line from St. Peter’s first Letter, Chapter 4: ...that in all things God may be glorified (1 Pt 4:11). This line has often been taken as summing up not just monastic work, but the whole of monastic life, indeed of the Christian life itself. Let us say today also, this could fittingly sum up the lives of SS. Peter and Paul.
Homily for Sunday 13B, 27 June 2021: Mark 5:21-43
The interwoven story of the daughter of Jairus, and the woman with a haemorrhage, is told by St. Matthew in 8 verses; by St. Luke in 16 verses; and by St. Mark in 22 verses. We’ve just heard St. Mark’s account. It’s marvellously well told: full of humanly interesting little details omitted by the others. Of the three versions we have, St. Mark’s is by far the fullest, most lively, most dramatic, most immediate.
Homily for the Feast of the Sacred Heart, 11 June 2021: John 19:31-37
In our recent Pentecost lectures, Fr. Thomas Joseph White explored how the life, death and resurrection of Jesus reveal the mystery of the Holy Trinity. White’s starting point of course was the mystery of the Incarnation. For we believe - and it’s true! - that the man Jesus is also God the Son; he is at once fully human, and also fully divine.