COVID-19
UPDATE MARCH 2021
Our lodges are closed. For provisional bookings from 12 April, 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 watch this space which will be updated whenever there is a change in Government advice, and keep in touch.
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 LENT
Perhaps you've heard of the
recent spectacular discovery made by a four-year-old when walking with her
father on the beach at Barry in S. Wales: a dinosaur footprint estimated to be
220 million years old! It looked so pristine it might have been imprinted in
the sand yesterday. Reflecting on this
can help put our current situation in perspective - will there even be history
books in which COVID-19 features in 220 million years' time? At the same time this
find reassures us that nothing is lost in God's creation. For us, dinosaurs are
extinct creatures whose remains are only to be found in natural history museums,
but to God everything that he has created remains as fresh as that beautifully preserved
footprint. And if this is true for dinosaurs, how much more for his dear
children who bear the imprint of his beloved Son?
We may not be able to receive ashes this Ash Wednesday, but we can take time to
think of ourselves as mortal: fragile as a footprint in sand and yet, bearing
the image of Christ, infinitely precious to God. Maybe we can handle some earth
or sand to remind ourselves of this double reality of being a human being on
the journey to God.
Our Lenten observances of prayer, fasting and almsgiving are meant to help
renew this image in us. In prayer, spending time with God, it's as if the image
becomes more deeply etched in our being. Fasting from things which perhaps silt
up or obscure the image needs some thought. This will be different for each of
us and I suggest that this year we should be gentle on ourselves as we have
already had rather a Lenten year. Maybe we can try to fast from undue anxieties,
cares and pre-occupations which can betray a lack of trust in God.
Almsgiving - I mean giving of oneself rather than financial giving - can prove
a challenge in lockdown but I know so many of you are already doing great
things and little things with great love. Ask the Lord what he wants you to do.
Then there is our lectio which is a most effective way of washing away what
'gums up' the image of Christ in us and helps us to reflect that Word more
fully.
And whatever we do, let's keep our sights on Easter as St Benedict wishes us to
do. The spring flowers and lengthening days ('Lent' comes from 'lengthening')
will help us in the Northern hemisphere while for those who live south of the
equator the autumn season perhaps indicates the fullness of God's mercy in
Christ.
Sr Laurentia
'The Way of Benedict: Eight Blessings for Lent' by Laurentia Johns OSB, pub. SPCK, is available from the Stanbrook Bookshop, £9.99 plus p.& p.
Contact Sr Benedicta:
bookshop@stanbrookabbey.org.uk
Tel: 01347 868927
'Seeking Byland: Poems through the Seasons from Stanbrook Abbey' also by Laurentia Johns OSB, pub. Gracewing 2020 is available from the abbey bookshop, priced £10.00 plus p.& p.
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