The Three Founders: Our Lady of Silence Abbey, 2025
“By faith they desired a better country, that is, a heavenly one. . . “
Those words from the letter to the Hebrews, in a striking way, characterize well the profound conviction that motivated the founding fathers of our Order, Saints Robert, Alberic and Stephen. A longing for the heavenly city caused them to risk all and to go forth in poverty, to a place of poverty in order to begin life anew, at the New Monastery, as Citeaux was known in her beginnings.
The new monastery! Those familiar words, that description of early Citeaux, take on an entirely new, entirely personal depth of meaning for each one of us today, as for the first time we gather as the new community of Our Lady of Silence to celebrate this Eucharist together, this pledge of new life, “the source and summit of the whole Christian life” and upon which, alone, can be the foundation of our “communion in Christ.”
The desire of our founding fathers, is our own desire – that which drew us to the monastery in the first place and that which has now called us forth in fidelity to our first commitment, to leave behind the familiar, so much that has been and is well-loved, and set out, not without pain and an inevitable sense of bereavement, in a certain poverty of spirit, but in, above all, hope and joy, and a heartfelt longing for the promise of something better, a heavenly city of God of which we are given a foretaste here on earth.
In a letter to us, for this day, our Abbot General, Dom Bernardus, has written the following:
“Dear Brothers of Our Lady of Silence, with this little note, I would like to show my commitment to you on this important day. The 26th January, the Solemnity of our Holy Founders, marks the official coming together of all of you in a New Community. I understand well, that many of you have had to leave your familiar places, which will be challenging and will take time to come to terms with.
“Your coming together shows great confidence and courage, similar to [that of] our Founders who left everything behind for something new. Their strength came from their unity. I hope you too can embark on this adventure together.”
When Saint Benedict wrote his Rule, his aim was to establish an ordered way of life that would provide a community with the security and the leisure, sufficient to allow its members to give the best part of their days to the praise of God. He wanted his monks to be able to live in such a way as would allow them to support themselves, while keeping their minds and hearts, their attention free for the Lord.
In his chapter on the Tools of Good Works he encourages us to remember death and to long for heaven in order that we might cultivate this same desire for life in that City whose light is God Himself. And in this way, he seeks to instill that ardent desire and love of God and of heavenly things which casts out fear.
Ardent desire, longing for that city where God is all in all is what led our Fathers to imitate Abraham who, in faith, left the security of his family and country behind, as they set out to put into practice their desire for a new and, for them, more authentic, way of living out their monastic vows. They realized that only the pure of heart can behold the [face/glory] of God.
People of long experience – rich in self knowledge – they had come to understand that in order to arrive at such transparency, such integrity, they needed community, and a way of life that, in many ways, distanced itself from those of the world, with its allurements and distractions.
At heart, they thought of their life as an anticipation of the heavenly city, as a return to Paradise. They sought to make visible by a lived communion in charity, the reign and the kingdom of God, that others might be attracted and drawn, might discover within themselves that same deep desire for God – and follow their lead.
As we honour these saints today, may we draw strength and inspiration from their faith, their constancy, their self-giving, and the sufferings that are inseparable from the following of Christ, that we might imitate their joyful zeal and dedication.
And may this Eucharist we celebrate obtain for us all something of that same desire and longing that motivated them – a desire for union with God in that heavenly city, and union with one another here in this life, in the hope that this place, this new community, this new work and creation of the Holy Spirit, will be a genuine reflection of the heavenly city, where God will be all in all – and is the light and the joy, and the fullness of life and communion, without end.
And may Our Lady of Silence, Star of the sea, guide and protect us, inspire and sustain us, shape and recreate us, in the image of her Son, as we and our newborn community look to the future with joy and with hope, towards a flourishing of the Charism of our Founding Fathers, Robert, Alberic and Stephen, here in Ireland and in the houses of our region, for many years to come.
