COVID-19
UPDATE OCTOBER 2020
Our lodges are open with restrictions. For bookings, please contact Sr Laurentia at crieflodges@stanbrookabbey.org.uk
Tel: 01347 868931 In view of our vulnerable elderly sisters, the abbey church, parlours and bookshop
remain closed until further notice. The bookshop is still operating a
mail order service and Sr Benedicta would be delighted to hear from you:
bookshop@stanbrookabbey.org.uk
Tel: 01347 868927.
Please be assured of our prayers at this testing time and please do
continue to send prayer requests via secretary@stanbrookabbey.org.uk or the
Prayer Page of the website.
The telephone is checked frequently so do leave a message if you wish to get in
touch or need to speak with someone.
Reflection for the Feast of St
Michael and All Angels
We are currently reading in the refectory Erik Larson's 'The Splendid and the
Vile: a Saga of Churchill, Family and Defiance During the Blitz' in WW2. It is
an excellent book which we hope to review in the Advent 'Stanbrook Benedictines'
so I won't say more here except that one of its notable features is the space given
to the German side of the story and the allied bombings on German cities as
well as those inflicted on London and other British locations eighty years ago.
The church where I was baptised in 1959, St Michael's and All Angels (Church in
Wales), Swansea, did not escape bomb damage during the war and had suffered
particularly the loss of several windows. But phoenix-like, a stunning new East
window, installed c. 1950 commemorates the spiritual graces of the years
1939-46. The main theme of the window is 'The Triumph of Light over Darkness -
The Victory of Spiritual Forces over the Power of Evil'.
The window portrays Christ in majesty surrounded by the heavenly host as St
Michael lays low the dark depths of evil and oppression. With an apocalyptic
design of strongly contrasting shades where red and gold stand out, it is said
to be the first leaded stained-glass window made in Wales since the Reformation
and was executed by Celtic Studios.
You can view St Michael's and the East Window here:
https://parish.churchinwales.org.uk/s462/links-en/
On this great feast of Saints
Michael, Raphael and Gabriel, let us call on their aid and protection in the
struggle against all that threatens the human family in our own day, including
the current pandemic.
Sr Laurentia
News & Photo Archive
Summer News
27 June 2019, Feast of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Sr Marian Sweeting-Hempsall made her Solemn Profession of Vows and thus became a full member of the Stanbrook community.
17 July, on the completion of Dame Andrea Savage's 12-year term of office, Dame Anna Brennan was elected the new abbess of our monastery.
19 July, we celebrated the Requiem Mass of Dame Agatha Backhouse (1937-2019) who had died peacefully at Apley Grange, Harrogate, on 12 July. R. I. P.
News of a collaborative venture between our own Sr Philippa and Mirfield's Fr Nicolas Stebbing.
These two veteran monastics share their vast experience of monastic life in a way that should be helpful to all Christians. 'Making space for God: an invitation', published by Mirfield. ISBN 978-0-902834-48-9. �6.50. Available via Stanbrook Abbey bookshop: bookshop@stanbrookabbey.org.uk A poem of D. Laurentia's, 'Mary Reflects', formed part of the programme of 'Carols from King's' on BBC 2 on Christmas Eve 2018.
Links below:
http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/events/chapel-services/carols-kings.html
The video download (just as an fyi): https://www.kingscollegerecordings.com/product/carols-from-kings-2018-video-download/
The pdf of the booklet: http://www.kings.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/chapel/cfk_2018.pdf
Photographs of Stanbrook.
Aerial footage of Stanbrook Abbey
Made by students of the Kent School of Architecture
The monastery won a national RIBA award in June 2016.
In November 2016 we were awarded the Presidents' Award for new church buildings.
The abbey church has also won an award from the Wood Trust for 'excellence in architecture and product design in the world's only sustainable material.'
For an article about Stanbrook in the Yorkshire Post April 2016, please click on the link below:
ABBEY CHURCH DEDICATION: 6 September 2015
Deo Gratias! The abbey church was duly and solemnly dedicated by the Right Revd Terence Patrick Drainey, Bishop of Middlesbrough, to much rejoicing.
For a full photographic record, please click here
Archive:
The inaugural Mass in the new Abbey Church took place on Sunday 26 April 2015, thanks be to God and thanks to all our kind benefactors.
Read more by clicking here
Right: Choir of the new Abbey Church (still incomplete)
Below: Inaugural Mass: the Gospel is proclaimed at the ambo
Archive: The project since the start of the build:
Click here for Blessing of the East Wing site 6 February 2014
Deo gratias, building work began February 2014
Click here for March 2014 update
Work in progress, Spring 2015
Inside the Blessed Sacrament Chapel
March 2015
Much activity inside the church which it is
hoped will be finished by the end of April.
So one more Easter in the Chapter House...
August 2015, the new chairs for guests arrive! Many of these have been sponsored by kind benefactors.
West-facing view of the church
East-facing view of the church