IN CŒNACULO
a newsletter for friends of silverstream priory
Benedictine Monks of Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament
Stamullen • Co. Meath • Ireland
Paschaltide 2014
A Letter from Father Prior
The Monks, in front
of Silverstream House
(built 1843)
Dear Oblates, Friends, and Benefactors of Silverstream,
A
have passed since the first issue
of our newsletter. We are taking root at Silverstream, a lovely place hidden away in the Boyne
Valley of County Meath. I am grateful for another opportunity to reach out to you and to share with you
something of our growth here in Ireland, and of our current
urgent need.
lready two years
Saint Paul says to the Thessalonians: “We gave you a pattern of how you
ought to live so as to please God; live by that pattern, and make more of it than ever.”
(1 Thess. 4:1) We, Benedictine Monks of Perpetual Adoration, find
the pattern of how we are to live so as to please God in the Rule of
Saint Benedict and in the Sacred Host, for we are called to the imitation of what we discover in contemplating the utter humility of the
Son of God in the Sacrament of His Love.
The Sacred Host presents to our gaze all that Saint Benedict
would have us be. We are not just Benedictines; we are, by a wonderful and utterly gratuitous gift of God, Eucharistic Benedictines,
that is, men called not only to tarry in adoration and reparation before the Sacred Host, but also men called to become like the Sacred
Host, to become what we contemplate, to imitate what He shows
us of Himself, hidden beneath the sacramental veils. The Host is
fragile; so are we. The Host is disarmingly humble; so would we be.
The Host is the living icon of the poverty of God made man; so we
would become poor with Him. The Host is silent; so do we find
ourselves cherishing silence over words. The Host is the sacrament
of the Divine Hiddenness; so too must we choose hiddenness over
ostentation, and obscurity over acclaim. The Host is obedient,
remaining where it is placed, not moving of Itself or by Itself, but
waiting to be moved; and that is, I think, the very pattern of how we
ought to live so as to please God. “Live by that pattern,” says Saint Paul,
“and make more of it than ever” (1 Thess. 4:1).
My personal preference would be to retreat into an utterly hidden
existence, to imitate the life of the Sacred Host hidden away in the
tabernacle. Withdrawn from the tabernacle, the Sacred Host disappears into the mouth of the communicant and, being absorbed into
the communicant’s body, absorbs the communicant into the life of
the Three Divine Persons, where the Son ceaselessly offers Himself,
in love, to the Father. The Host, while disappearing, is divinely active, bringing about a transforming union with Christ the Head and
with the members of His Body, the Church. The monk too is called
Priory Belltower (1952),
with new cross erected by
the Benedictine monks
The Divine Office,
the “Work of God”
“We gave you a pattern of
how you ought to live so as
to please God; live by that
pattern, and make more of it
than ever.” — I Thessalonians 4:1