Many years ago, when I lived in London , I use to visit the Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Quarr on the Isle of Wight off the South Coast of England . It was my first introduction to enclosed monastic life and was indeed a salutary experience. The geographical location, on the Northern coast of the island facing Portsmouth, with its own stretch of beach and in some areas quicksand, the woods surrounding the abbey and the abbey itself, designed by a monk and built in brick by local craftsmen, was perfect. It was on the same site of a much earlier abbey, dating from the 12^th Century and destroyed during the Reformation.  When the monks from Solesmes were forced to leave their abbey in the early 20^th Century, they came to Quarr and began the re-building programme that has become the Abbey we know today.  

One monk I came to know was the guest master Dom Paul Zeigler. He was also the community organist. He would come and chat in the guest room after lunch and occasionally called in to speak with us in our rooms. On one such occasion, he told me a story of being a young boy in Austria and of going down to his village church one morning for mass. The church was locked and on the door was a note, “Sorry, no mass today, urgent sick call”. He told me that he then realised the great privilege of going to mass. As he told me the story, his eyes were closed, almost screwed up, and it was obvious that he was picturing again that morning years before in his home. It made a great impression on me then and I have never forgotten it.  

Who would have thought, that fifty or so years on, that closed door for a morning would be at risk of becoming closed for a much longer period as we face the current crisis in the priesthood. In my posting of July 3^rd, I reflected on Brendan Hoban’s recent book on the ever-growing shortage of priests in Ireland . That story is likely to be replicated across Western Europe in the very near future with the consequence that our Eucharistic celebration will become more and more restricted.  

Last year, considering the Irish Church , I wrote this short piece, recently published in Dublin in the Dominican journal Spirituality.  

Crop 

The crop failed, first one year

and then the next.

Driven from family fields by hunger

they moved to towns

and then took ships across the water.

The Great Migration of an Island people

who sought relief from poverty.

In their ravaged, weakened frames,

they journeyed to another place.

An overwhelming emptiness

was left languishing in a deserted land.

Now in our present time

a new hunger harrows the land.

O Eucharistic Christ remain

to ease the growing doubt

and endless pain.      

Although written with Ireland in mind, those last three lines are applicable to the Church in general. Just as we have experienced the tectonic plate movement of the abuse revelations in so many countries (amongst many other problems), so we have need even more of the Eucharist to help, nourish and support our Christian faith.  

Somehow, somewhere there must be a resolution of the crisis in priesthood that we presently face or that hunger will spread and we will have failed future generations. Let’s be realistic. More of the same is no answer for a pilgrim church.      

END