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Thursday 3 July 2025 marked the Silver Jubilee of Profession of our Br. Daniel Morphy.
Our Bishop Hugh was with us for the occasion, and preached at Mass. 25 years ago, in the year 2000, Bishop Hugh was of course Abbot of Pluscarden: so it was he who received Br. Daniel's first Profession.
To describe this year’s annual Diocesan Pilgrimage to Pluscarden, much of what was said in these pages about the 2024 event could almost be repeated. The format remained the same; the Feast was the same (SS. Peter and Paul, 29 June), the place, the Mass time (3.00 p.m.) and many of the people were the same: Bishop, clergy, monks, people! We had two large marquees as before, and Choirs as before, and Exposition before the Mass as before, and a Marian procession after it, as before, and (as before) many volunteers involved in the organisation, which all went extremely well. Nevertheless, this 2025 event certainly merits its own description, for it was marvellous
Isaiah 49:1-6 Acts 13:22-26 Luke 1:57-66,80
Even though John the Baptist grew to be the most formidable ascetic in the Bible, we have every right to celebrate his birthday by throwing a big monastic party, with a full liturgy followed by plenty of rich food and wine in the refectory.
Sr. Tamsin Geach O.P. is a Dominican Sister and long standing friend of our community.
She is offering a preached retreat here at the Abbey over the first weekend in August.
Proverbs 8:22-31; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15
Lent, then Palm Sunday; Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Day. Then Alleluia “without ceasing” - then the Ascension, then Pentecost. And now, as if to sum it all up, the Feast of the Holy Trinity.
Acts 2:1-11 Romans 8:8-17 John 14:15-16,23-26
The Polish poet Czesław Miłosz composed his personal version of the Veni Creator:
"Come, Holy Spirit, / Bending or not bending the grasses, / Appearing or not above our heads in a tongue of flame, / At hay harvest or when they plough in the orchards or when snow / Covers crippled firs in the Sierra Nevada. /
The Pluscarden Community has been delighted to host Dom Columba Jennesson for a month this early summer.
Dom Columba is a monk of En Calcat, a famous and beautiful monastery in South West France.
According to St Leo the Great, and many other commentators, Jesus kept appearing to his disciples for forty days so that they would recognize as truly risen One whom they knew as truly born, as him who truly suffered, and truly died. “The result was that not only were they not afflicted with sadness, but were filled with great joy when the Lord went into the heights of heaven” (Sermon 73:4).
Recently during lunch times the Pluscarden community has listened to a book about Ultra-Processed Food.
The conclusions of this book are rather alarming.
It seems that a lot of what we eat contains ultra-processed ingredients which are, or may be, by and large, harmful. That is: these ingredients are (or may be) harmful to health, to the environment, to the global economy, to the poor.
The war in Ukraine was brought somehow more immediately close to the Pluscarden community recently through the moving testimony of a Ukranian guest.
Anastasia Rozdolska is a 28 year old medical doctor who was with us in late May this year: enjoying a Scottish and Pilgrim break from her work on the front line of the war.