Annual Retreat 2013

Mass in St. Abban's Doonane, February 2012

On 24th February, 2012, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated in the Gregorian Rite by Fr. Edmund Waldstein, O.Cist., in St. Abban's Parish Church, Doonane, Co. Laois. It was the first time in 50 years that Mass had been celebrated in the Gregorian Rite in that Parish. After Mass Fr. Edmund gave the first blessing of a newly Ordained Priest.

More pictures of the Church are available here.

St. Abban of Doonane, pray for us!

Father Gregory Winterton RIP

Please pray for the repose of the soul of Father Gregory Winterton, Cong. Orat., of the Birmingham Oratory, who died on Wednesday 18th January 2012 and whose funeral took place today, 24th January. An account of the reception of his body into the Oratory can be found here. The funeral itself was very well attended, not a single seat remained in the church and in excess of a hundred people were also gathered around its edges during the Mass. There were also in excess of 50 priests including representatives from other Oratories.

Father Gregory was the Provost of the Birmingham Oratory from 1971 until 1992 except for six months in 1977. He is well remembered for the work he did in the pursuit of the Canonisation of Blessed Cardinal John Henry Newman, being the Actor for the cause for some years.

The Oratory website has a lovely tribute to Father Gregory which provides many further details of his life and it is not my plan to reproduce those here. From it though most poignant for me is the following quote:

"The moment when Fr Gregory was presented to Pope Benedict XVI and, later that same day, when they met at the Oratory House, provided unforgettable pictures: two men in their eighties—one (the Pope) a devoted student of Newman, the other (Fr Gregory) the tireless advocate of Newman’s holiness. It was the culmination of half a life-time’s hard work for Fr Gregory."

I vividly remember that moment at Cofton Park, pictured above. In the months that followed I heard so many others who knew Father Gregory comment on it, recalling it with pleasure. At the time I knew relatively little of Father Gregory's role in the work that lead to us all being there that day for the beatification. When he later visited Ireland and we spent some time talking together I began to understand a little more of the efforts that he personally made but his modesty obscured just how much he had done. Friday when I opened The Times I must admit I was surprised to discover that they had run a full page obituary for Father Gregory instead of the usual few short paragraphs that I had expected. It was only on reading this piece, much of the content of which is also covered in the Oratory's own piece, that I learnt just how significant a role he had played

Father Gregory's trip to Ireland in May 2011 was to deliver a series of conferences during the Sodality of Our Lady Retreat in Mount Melleray Abbey, O.C.S.O., Cappoquin, Co. Waterford. The theme of these was Newman and Our Lady, a subject close to the hearts of the Sodality, a group not only dedicated to Our Lady but one which meets regularly in Newman's University Church in Dublin. Those who attended found much interest in and benefit from his talks and we all felt privileged at Father Gregory's presence, appreciating the tremendous effort he, then 88 and frail, had made to be with us. Subsequently his talks were published in the Sodality Journal and a copy has been placed here for free download so that others have the opportunity to benefit from his wisdom.

There are so many people who knew Father Gregory far better than I did but I hope readers will understand that it seems strange to me to write a piece like this without sharing some of my own personal recollections. In particular I remember sitting with him at breakfast in the dining room at Mount Melleray whilst we ate porridge, a favourite of his, and he told me about how he came to join the Oratory and how he used to cycle from there right across the city to attend lectures at Oscott College. However, most of all I think I will remember his joy, how at the simplest things a smile would come across his face and it would light up, as he would start to chuckle at some piece of humour which caught his fancy.

Father Gregory, rest in peace, you will be missed by so many.

The Lords Abbot of Mount Melleray

Our recent retreat to Mount Melleray Abbey was the first to take place since the election of the new Lord Abbot. Dom Augustine McGregor, elected Abbot on 3rd November last, is the thirteenth Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray.

The first Lord Abbot, Dom Vincent Ryan (b. 1788, e. 1835, d. 1845), was both founder and, in a sense, the embodiment of the Community. As Prior of the Abbey of Melleray in France, he was the senior Irish monk of the Community, and a native of Waterford. He entered the Cistercian noviciate in 1810 while the Community was in exile at Lulworth, England, having been driven out of France by the revolutionaries in 1794. He was ordained in 1815. In 1817, Melleray was restored but only temporarily. In 1831, the monks were once again expelled. In anticipation, Fr. Vincent had been to Ireland in a search for a home in exile. This bore fruit when the English and Irish exiles arrived at Cobh on 1st December, 1831, and made their way to Rathmore, Co. Kerry. The following year land as Scrahan came to Fr. Vincent's attention. On 30th May, 1831, the lease was signed with Sir Richard Keane and on the next morning, Ascension Thursday, Fr. Vincent celebrated Mass at the single cottage, christened 'Bethlehem', and at the place now christened Mount Melleray. That same day a cheque for £100 was received from the Duke of Devonshire of Lismore Castle.

The foundation stone of the new monastery was laid on 20th August, 1833. The stone read: Gregorio XVI. Pont. Max; Guilielmo Abraham, S.T.D., R.C.E W. et L.; R.P. Vincento; S.R. Keane, E.S.S.; Die 20 Augusti 1833." The monastery was raised to the status of an Abbey in February, 1935, and Dom Vincent Ryan was given that abbatial blessing by Bishop Abraham on 17th May, feast of St. Carthage of Lismore. He was the first Abbot to be blessed in Ireland since the despoilation of the monasteries. On 22nd October, 1838, the first Abbey Church was opened for public worship.

The bell, a familiar sound to all visitors to Mount Melleray, the work of Murphy's Irish Bell Foundry of James' Street, Dublin, was hung in the tower in 1844. Dom Vincent wrote to Mr. Murphy that: "for beauty of form, solidity of construction, power and sweetness of tone, continues to give universal satisfaction and is an object of admiration to our numerous visitors who declare it cannot be excelled by any bell of its size or weight in the country." It was transferred to the tower of the present Abbey Church on 21st March, 1938.

Dom Vincent died on 9th December, 1845, at the age of only 57 years, a religious for 34 years and Abbot of Mount Melleray for 10 years. He was described in an obituary: "Dr. Ryan was a religious of no ordinary mold. He was cast by God for the noble purpose of restoring the monastic life to Ireland in a time and under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty. Great was his faith and confidence in God, even to the removing of mountains! Pure and burning his charity towards God and man! First in every duty, vigilant in prayer, constant as his frequent sickness would permit him in labour, singular in humility, he was a faithful illustration of the religious, painted in his own excellent work on the duties of the monastic state."

On 15th January, 1846, the Community elected the Sub-Prior, a Clonmel man, Dom Joseph Mary Ryan (b. 1801, e. 1846, r. 1847 d. 1856), as the second Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray. He had entered the noviciate at Mount Melleray in 1839. His was the first public consecration of an Abbot in Ireland since the reformation. He retired as Lord Abbot on 28th October, 1847, and lived another nine years as a monk of Mount Melleray.

Before the election on 4th April, 1848, of Dom Bruno Fitzpatrick (b. 1812, e. 1848, d. 1893), as third Lord Abbot, the approval of the Holy See to exempt the Abbey from the jurisdiction of the Local Ordinary and to place it under the Abbot General and the Chapter General of La Trappe, was received. Dom Bruno was educated at St. Suplice and the Irish College, Paris. And while a professor of philosophy in Carlow College in 1836, was ordained for the Archdiocese of Dublin. He entered Mount Melleray in May, 1843. Once elected, he proposed a foundation in America and on 25th July, 1848, Fr. Bernard McCaffrey set out on the mision that would eventually bear fruit in New Melleray Abbey the following year. His consacration was took place on 14th September, 1848. Dom Bruno attended the consacration of the Cathedral of St. Louis on 3rd May, 1857. The foundation of the second daughter house, Mount Saint Joseph, at Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, and of the Ecclesiastical Seminary were other monuments to his time. He also made an attempt to reintroduce Cistercian nuns to Ireland in 1861. The Lodge, so familiar to the hungry guest and the subject of the 66th Chapter of the Rule of St. Benedict, was built in 1862. In 1868, Dom Bruno also saw the restoration of solemn vows by the Holy See. There had been within the Cistercian Order, as with the Benedictines, a multiplicity of 'Congregations' or groups of houses but in 1892, as part of a wider attempt by Pope Leo XIII to 'streamline' Orders, three Congregations of stricter observance of the Holy Rule formed a distinct Order, the 'Ordo Cisterciensium Strictioris Observantiae.' On 4th December, 1893, after a prolonged period of ill-health, Dom Bruno fell asleep in the Lord during an influenza epidemic at the age of 81 years, 52 years in religion and 45 as Lord Abbot. He is remembered as the second founder of Mount Melleray.

On 15th January, 1894, Dom Carthage Delaney (b. 1836, e. 1894, r. 1908, d. 1909) was elected as the fourth Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray. A Longford man and student of the College at Mount Melleray, he entered the Abbey in 1859 and had been claustral Prior for 30 years at the time of his election. At the age of 58, he was the oldest Abbot elected by the community at the time by some years. His was the first abbatial consacration (29th April) presided over by the representative of the Abbot General. An interesting notion - giving some insight into the interior and prayer life of a Trappist - is that the Rosary Confraternity was established in the monastery at the beginning of Dom Carthage's term, the October devotions being practiced each evening of the month after Compline. Dom Carthage purchased the stained glass window from Meyer of Munich that was then installed behind the High Altar of the Abbey Church and is now in the Sanctuary of St. Philomena's, the Public Church, the central panel of which is a facsimile of Murillo's Immaculate Conception, the lower ones, Ss. Brigid, Malachy, Bernard and Patrick. Dom Carthage resigned in 1908 in his 78th year.

Dom Carthage's headstone in the Community Cemetary reads: "Hic Requiescat JOANNES CARTHAGUS DELANY natus in comitatu Longfordiensi adhuc juvenis nomen religioni dedit in coenobio Beatae Mariae de Monte Melleario et in eodem coenobio munere praepositi sex lustra et abbatis tria pie functus virtute clarus obdormavit in domino xviii kal feb. mcmix aetatis suae lxxiii. Orate pro eo."

The grave of Dom Carthage Delaney, O.C.S.O., in the foreground

On 8th May, 1908, the community elected the man who had succeeded Dom Carthage as claustral Prior, Dom Maurus Phelan of Kilrossanty, Co. Waterford as fifth Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray (b. 1853, e. 1908, d.1931). Dom Maurus entered Mount Melleray at the age of 19 years in 1872. Dom Maurus was a native speaker of Irish and was instrumental in the promotion of the Irish language by the monks and schools of Mount Melleray. He preached a sermon in Irish every Sunday and published the Leabhar Urnaighthe, a prayerbook in the Irish language. He was consacrated Abbot on 15th August, 1908. In 1912, electricity was introduced to the monastery. In July, 1913, Bl. Dom Columba Marmion preached the annual retreat to the community. In 1914, the Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray became the father immediate of the Trappistine Nuns of Holy Cross Abbey, Stapehill, Dorset, Dom Maurus succeeded where Dom Bruno had failed in reintroducing Cistercian nuns to Ireland at St. Mary's Abbey, Glencairn, although they arrived just after his death on 10th July, 1931. On 20th August, 1932, the Barracks Chapel from Fermoy that he had purchased was re-erected and opened as the College Chapel.

On 16th August, 1931, Dom Stanislaus Hickey (b. 1865, e. 1931, d. 1933) was elected sixth Lord Abbot. Dom Stanislaus, a native of Co. Tipperary, entered the community in 1884. He had been claustral Prior and Definitor of the Order in Romesince 1925. He published Summula Philosophae Scholasticae in 1902. He was Lord Abbot for only eighteen months. He died of pneumonia on 25th February, 1933, at only 66 years.

The seventh Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray, Dom Celsus O'Connell (e. 1933, r. 1957, d. 1958), a native of Mourne Abbey, Co. Cork, was elected on 5th April, 1933. He was a monk of Mount Melleray but had been Definitor of the Order in Rome from 1920 and Abbot of Mount St. Bernard in England from 1929. His term began with the celebration of the centenary of the Abbey on 20th August, 1833. The celebrations took place from 15th to 17th August, 1933. On the third day, Cardinal McRory, Archbishop of Armagh, laid the foundation stone of the present Church. By 1935, the sacristy and chapter house had been built. In 1937, the spire of the old Church had been replaced by the lantern of the present tower. The monastic Church and the public Church were both roofed and externally complete by the end of 1939. The 200 choir stalls of the monastic Church commenced to be used from 15th December, 1940.

Cardinal McRory approved the foundation of New Mellifont Abbey in his Archdiocese in 1938. 10 years later, another foundation was made at Our Lady of Bethlehem Abbey, Portglenone, Co. Antrim.

On 20th August, 1952, came the most momentous event of Dom Celsus' term, the consacration of the new Abbey Church. In 1954, a foundation was made in New Zealand, Our Lady of the Southern Star Abbey.

By 1954, changes were already starting to be made within the Order with the ending of the obligation of the daily recitation of the Office for the Dead, except one day a week, and the obligation to recite the Little Office of Our Lady daily abolished for feast days of Our Lady, and abolished entirely in 1956. Dom Celsus retired as Abbot on 3rd February, 1957 (the website of the General House says 2nd but the monastic community wasn't informed until the following day). Dom Celsus fell asleep in the Lord on 13th November, 1958.

The graves of Dom Stanislaus Hickey, Dom Maurus Phelan and Dom Celsus O'Connell, respectively.

Dom Finbar Cashman was elected to succeed his fellow Cork man on 26th April, 1957, and he was consacrated on 16th July of the same year. A new Abbot General elected in January, 1964, oversaw the Chapter General that abolished the distinctive habit of laybrothers, as well as the cowl and monastic tonsure. In 1968, the Office began to be recited in the vernacular. In 1969, the election of Abbots for life was ended. On 2nd July, 1971, Dom Finbar was succeeded by Dom Pól Ó hAonghusa, the ninth and first temporary Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray, who was installed on 21st September, 1971. In 1974, Mount Melleray College closed after 140 years. Dom Edward Ducey, a founder monk of New Mellifont Abbey and Abbot there since 1974, became Superior ad nutum and was elected tenth Lord Abbot on 26th August, 1976 and was installed on 29th September. Dom Justin MacCarthy was elected on 26th June, 1980. Dom Eamon Fitzgerald was elected on 19th July, 1989. He was elected Abbot General in September, 2008, and was replaced by Fr. Michael Ahern as Superior ad nutum until he was replaced Dom Augustine McGregor, formerly Abbot of New Mellifont, in June, 2010. Dom Augustine McGregor was elected as thirteenth Lord Abbot on 3rd November, 2010.

Mount Melleray Retreat

Members of St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association made a retreat in Mount Melleray Abbey again this year. The theme chosen for the retreat was Lectio Divina, to take account of the fact that the Cistercian Abbey where the retreat was being held follows the Rule of St. Benedict (Chapter 48), which gives Lectio Divina an important place in its rule of life, along with Liturgical Prayer and manual labour. Mount Melleray Abbey is situated in the lea of the Knockmealdown Mountains, just to the north of Cappoquin, Co. Waterford. It has been the home of monks of the Strict Observance of the Cistercian Order, known as Trappists, since 1832. The foundation stone of the Monastery was laid on St. Bernard's Day, 20th August, 1833.

"First the tower, austere and massive, gleaming white against the sun,
With its crown of brazen crosses all aflame,
Rose above the circling pine-woods; then the gables, one by one,
To the field of my delighted vision came."

"Now the whole monastic city lay unshrouded to my view,
As a picture on a screen in spendour thrown,
Every snowy arch and angle pointing upward to the blue,
An ecstatic Benedicite in stone."

"Earth's cocoon of light and air,
Wondering Angels peering through,
Find reflections here and there,
Of their home beyond the Blue."


The Abbey Church is in Gothic style and cruciform in plan. Although extended, it follows mainly the lines of the original chapel built by the first community of Cistercian monks. The foundation stone for the new Church was laid by his Eminence John Cardinal McRory on the occasion of the centenary celebration. The Public Church and Monastic Church are the main elements of the magnificent Church-building project undertaken under Dom Celsus O'Connell, O.C.S.O., seventh Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray. The foundation stones were laid on 17th April, 1933, only twelve days after Dom Celsus was elected at Lord Abbot and a few months before the Abbey celebrated its centenary. The Monastic Church, the Church where the monks of Mount Melleray Abbey celebrate the Divine Office every day, was completed and solemnly blessed in November, 1940, but it wasn't until August of 1952, the 120th Anniversary of Mount Melleray, that the Church was solemnly consecrated. Prominent in the monastic Church, as is the custom in all Cistercian churches, was a massive crucifix suspended over the nave and containing relics of St. Bernard and many Irish saints, now, unhappily, removed. The smaller suspended crucifix in the Public Church remains.

The east window seen below is the work of the Harry Clarke studio. The central panel represents Christ the King crowning Our Lady Assumed into Heaven. Each evening at the Office of Compline the lights of the Church are extinguished and, according to Cistercian tradition, the figure of Our Lady is illuminated for the singing of the Salve Regina. To the right of the central panel are St. Catherine of Alexandria and St. Carthage of Lismore, patron of the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, where Mount Melleray is found, and to the far right are St. Robert, one of the three founders of the Cistercian Order, and St. Patrick of Ireland. To the left of the central panel are St. Brigid of Kildare and St. Columba and to the far left are St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Doctor of the Church and the father of Cistercian monasticism, and St. Malachy of Armagh, who invited St. Bernard to send Cistercian monks to make their first foundation in Ireland.


"...that marvellous melody in whose haunting cadence all the immortal aspirations and emotions of humanity seem to struggle for expression..."

The Consecration of the Monastic Church was carried out by the Ordinary of the Diocese, Bishop Coholan of Waterford and Lismore beginning at 8 a.m. on 20th. The Public Church was consecrated contemporaneously, with Dom Benignus Hickey, O.C.S.O., Abbot of New Mellifont, consecrating the High Altar. During the consecration festival from 20th August to 29th August, 1952, well over 100,000 people visited Mount Melleray, an echo, surely, of the great occasion that was the consecration of the first Cistercian Church in Ireland, at Mellifont in Co. Louth. Mellifont Abbey was founded in 1142, with St. Christian Ó Connarchy as first Abbot. The consecration of the Church, the largest in Ireland at the time, was attended in state by the High King, Murtach Ó Loughlin, together with the flower of the nobility, including MacMurrough, as yet "guiltless of his country's blood." St. Christian, by this time Bishop of Lismore and Papal Legate, presided at the consecration, another direct link, through the Diocese of Waterford and Lismore, to the Abbey at Mount Melleray. Gelasius, Archbishop of Armagh, was principal consecrator, assisted by 17 Bishops.


At Mount Melleray in 1952, the Abbot General of the Cistercians of the Strict Observance, Dom Gabriel Sortais, was liturgically received on the morning of 20th August and His Excellency, the President of Ireland, Séan T. Ó Ceallaigh and Mrs. Ó Ceallaigh were given a liturgical reception that evening. From noon on Thursday, 21st, until Friday, 29th, the law of enclosure was suspended to permit ladies to enter the precincts of the Monastery. On 21st August, the Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland, Archbishop O'Hara, sang Pontifical Mass. On Sunday, 24th, Dom Celsus O'Connell, Lord Abbot of Mount Melleray celebrated Pontifical High Mass in the open air next to the Public Church. On the final day of the festival, Pontifical Vespers in the open air were followed by Benediction and a procession of the Blessed Sacrament through the grounds of the Monastery and was brought back to the High Altar of the Monastic Church for the Office of Compline. The conclusion of the festival was the turning of the key in the lock of the enclosure by the Lord Abbot.


During the course of the retreat conferences, Father McCarthy said that all Catholics should take the words of Pope Benedict XVI seriously when he said: "I would like in particular to recall and recommend the ancient tradition of Lectio divina: the diligent reading of Sacred Scripture accompanied by prayer brings about that intimate dialogue in which the person reading hears God who is speaking, and in praying, responds to him with trusting openness of heart. If it is effectively promoted, this practice will bring to the Church - I am convinced of it - a new spiritual springtime." He said that the starting point for any Lectio divina was the Divinity of Christ. He added that the aim was not to obtain some kind of personal magisterium on the meaning of S. Scripture but rather to converse with God.



Fr. McCarthy introduced the retreatants to the words of Guigo II, the twelfth-century prior of Grande Chartreuse, and spoke about the four elements of Lectio divina: Lectio, to read the Scriptures; Meditatio, to meditate upon them and to settle upon some element that strikes one particularly; Oratio, to pray, the intimate dialogue of which the Pope speaks; and Contemplatio, to contemplate upon all the elements.

Each day was begun with Mass in the Gregorian Rite and concluded with devotions and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament in the traditional manner. The retreat began on the feast of the Annunciation, carried on through the feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, and concluded on the Saturday of Passion Week.



The Abbey Guest House accommodated the retreatants throughout and gave direct access to the Public Church, dedicated to the Assumption of Our Lady and Saint Philomena. It was once the National Shrine to Saint Philomena, although her statue was removed when her name was removed from the Roman Calendar. The Guest House formed part of the older monastery complex.



The interior of the Public Church has five bays consisting of aisles on either side and double lancets above. The Sanctuary is decorated in mosaic, both in nave and aisles. The walls surrounding the side aisles being decorated with adoring Angels. The walls of the Sanctuary having the instruments of the Passion in quatrefoils on the lateral walls, the east wall having the Sacred Heart represented to the Gospel side of the east window and St. Joseph to the Epistle side, each having the appropriate monogram in the quatrefoil beneath.



Perhaps one of the most interesting of all sights in Mount Melleray is the Miraculous Bin which is kept in the farm-yard near the Monastery garden. A long wooden structure about 3 metres long by 1 1/2 metres wide by 1 metre deep, it is regarded the greatest wonder of Mount Melleray. On the cover of the bin is a small notice which tells the story as follows: "DURING THE FAMINE OF 1840, THE COMMUNITY AND MORE THAN SEVENTY POOR PEOPLE WERE FED DAILY WITH MEAL STORED IN THE BIN. AFTER THREE MONTHS THE SUPPLY WAS FOUND UNDIMINISHED." The story is one well known to visitors to Mount Melleray. The then Lord Abbot, Dom Vincent Ryan, left instructions that nobody was to be turned away from the monastery hungry during his absence, which was to last three months, beginning just after Easter. The stock of Indian meal in the bin was found to be undiminished upon his return, although the daily measure required for 100 monks and the more than 70 poor people was taken from it each day. Dom Vincent's written and signed statement attesting to the incident is still extant: "Who will not here admire and praise the wonderful dispensation of Divine Providence. A poor and numerous community of religious men, located on the side of a barren mountain, improvided with funds, resources, or human means necessary to support existence, labouring incessantly in the arduous and painful enterprise of reclaiming its stubborn and neglected soil, depending on the casual charity of humane friends, are thus enabled, I will presume to say miraculously, not only to maintain their own existence, but to feed and preserve the lives of nearly five thousand of their fellow creatures during a period of no ordinary calamity and distress!"


The east window of the Public Church is in two levels, above, in the central panel is Our Lady assumed into Heaven flanked by Angels, while below are, from left to right, St. Brigid, St. Malachy of Armagh (who introduced the Cistercian Order to Ireland), St. Bernard of Clairvaux, friend of St. Malachy, greeting him, and St. Patrick. This is a window of old associations. Mention of St. Malachy and St. Bernard draws the mind back to Mellifont and the first Irish foundation of the Cistercians. The seven main panels of this window were originally in the east window of the old Monastic Church.



To the East of the Monastic Church is 'God's Acre,' the monks' grave-yard, where generations of Cistercians lie. The three High Crosses in the foreground (and another two in the distance) mark the graves of the Lords Abbot of Mount Melleray.

"To my ears as thus I pondered came the sweet and soothing sounds,
Of the Abbey chime, from workshop and from cell,
From the field and from the forest, from the grange's distant bounds,
Calling all to choir, for that's the Office Bell."

If you would like to explore a monastic vocation in Mount Melleray Abbey, the Novice Master of Mount Melleray Abbey can be contacted by letter at:

Revd. Novice Master, O.C.S.O.,
Mount Melleray Abbey,
Cappoquin,
Co. Waterford,
Ireland.

Or by 'phone at:

+353 58 54404

Or by e-mail by clicking here.

Powerhouse of Prayer

A few members of St. Conleth's accepted the kind invitation to join the Sodality of Our Lady retreat party from Dublin this year. The Rules of the Sodality say: "There shall be a Retreat every year for some days... Certainly the most fruitful retreat is the kind called closed." The retreat was housed in the venerable Trappist Abbey of Mount Melleray in the Knockmealdown Mountains of Waterford.

The hexameter couplet certainly rings true there:

Bernardus colles, valles Benedictus amabat,
oppida Franciscus, magnas Ignatius urbes;

Bernard loved hills, Benedict the valleys,
Francis, towns; Ignatius, great cities;

The retreat was given by Fr. David Jones, D.D., who lives an eremitical life at The Hermitage, Duleek, County Meath, and is a published poet of note.

The Retreat House of Mount Melleray is open to anyone who wishes to make an organised or a private retreat there through the year. It offers the opportunity to pray and reflect in close proximity to the Trappist Community, whose balanced life is based upon Prayer, Study and Manual Labour, which is a spiritual privilege of great value. For us, the Retreat House provided not only sustainence and shelter but also a fine chapel to house the Liturgies and exercises of the retreat too.

Some of the retreatants made a visit to the sister house of Trappistine Nuns at St. Mary's Abbey, Glencairn, County Waterford, high above the River Blackwater. There, they were received by the Abbess with several of the sisters and several novices, following which, they joined the whole Community for the Office of None.

Back in Mount Melleray, one of the Monks spoke to some retreatants about the path that led from the original Abbey of Cistercium to Mount Melleray Abbey.

He also told us his own journey to Mount Melleray that took place more than 50 years before.

We heard about the privations that the Irish Trappist Monks faced when they were expelled from France in 1830, arriving in Mount Melleray in 1832. He spoke of the grain bin that had been provisioned by the first Abbot, Dom Vincent Ryan, before an extended absence, with orders to refuse nobody in need.

Upon his return, despite their having fed nearly a hundred local people during a severe famine, he found the quantity to have remained the same. Also, he spoke of the local people, delighted to see the return of the Monks to Ireland after an absence of three centuries, who marched, led by pipers, to help them reclaim the land. "We owe the people a great deal," he said, "and we should never forget it."

The challenges facing the Monks of Mount Melleray today are hardly new. We heard about a visiting Abbot who was concerned about the number of Monks at Mount Melleray. He is said to have commented that “This is an age of activity rather than penance and contemplation and there are few now contented with the blessed lot of Mary, sitting at the Lord’s feet in silence and detachment.” When he visited, there were 54 Monks at Mount Melleray. That was in 1855.

Over the course of the three days the atmosphere of prayer in this place was suffused with the melodies of traditional gregorian chant once again.

Every day, Mass was celebrated according to the Gregorian Rite. Within Mass, full propers of the Masses of the last feriae of Passion Week were accompanied by Mass IV Cunctipotens and a range of seasonal Latin hymnody - Ave Regina Coelorum, Vexilla Regis, and Crux Fidelis among them - as well as Prime and Vespers of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary chanted throughout the course of the retreat.

On the second evening we made a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament, concluding with Sung Vespers of the Little Office and Benediction.

On the third day, the Sodality of Our Lady had its monthly General Communion. It is a custom of that Sodality to have a different patron for each month. The patron for April is St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen, who was a member of their Sodality.

Throughout the retreat we had the opportunity to attend the Choral Office of the Monks, beginning each day with the Office of Vigils beginning at 4 a.m.

After the Office of Vigils, one of the Monks celebrates Mass (Ordinary Form) Versus Deum in the Retreat House Chapel.

Fr. Jones' Conferences were given in the Epistle-side Aisle of the Retreat House Chapel. He focussed throughout upon the practical impact that a retreat should have upon our lives - and upon our eternities. In particular, he stressed that the devil isn't worried about our general intentions made at a retreat but is very worried about a practical resolutions made on retreat that we begin to practice in our lives.