COMMUNITY NEWS
The Covid-19 pandemic has continued to change the way we live in society and monastic life has been no exception to this. Whilst we monks are used to working from home, since our main work is the celebration of the Divine Office and Mass, nonetheless Downside monks are used to working with other people and to seeing people around. The last report noted that a large stretch of time had been spent celebrating Mass without a congregation of people from the locality. We are glad that people have continued to come to Mass and it has been good to see our small congregation of masked parishioners in attendance each day. The summer of 2020 was a significant landmark in our history. Following some months of intensive discussions, we made the decision to leave Stratton-on-the-Fosse and to seek a new home. Benedictines take a vow of stability, which means that we (normally) remain members of the same community until death and this usually means that we live in the same place, but throughout history monks have often moved, and our own community moved from France in 1793 (admittedly owing to the French Revolution) and from Acton Burnell in 1814 in order to live out our monastic life. This was inevitably not an easy decision, but our forefathers thought big, and these buildings are no longer fit for purpose for our community in a society where the number of men coming forward with a religious vocation has shrunk, and yet the number of monasteries has remained the same. We have not yet decided where to move to (despite many rumours to the contrary), but are visiting various places in order to consider the options. In order to lead and guide the community through this process, we elected Dom Nicholas Wetz, monk of Belmont Abbey and hitherto Prior Administrator, as Abbot at the end of July 2020. Normally the Abbatial Blessing takes place within about two months, but the different lockdowns meant that it had to be postponed three times, eventually taking place in March 2021, when
38 The Raven 2021
