FR JULIAN'S WEEKLY BLOG
18/01/26
I’ve just returned from a few days’ break (my Christmas one!). Jane and I spent a few days with her sister in Dewsbury, and from there we went on to Hereford. As is usual for us, one of the highlights of Hereford was a visit to Belmont Abbey, a Benedictine community on the edge of the city.
It is not a place that people go just to visit, although that is how we found it. It offers accommodation for those on retreat, and the monastic liturgical offices are open for visitors to join. It is that that we particularly appreciate. We fell in love with monastic services on various holidays in France and wherever we go in this country, we look out for an abbey or convent.
I’m not trying to be pious, but rather reflecting with great gratitude the ministry that the Religious offer. It is a great weakness that there is no religious community in this diocese. Monks and nuns aren’t escaping the world, but bring the needs of the world into the Church. Through the routine of the liturgical day, with its formal services, and discipline in the monks’ (or nuns’) celebration of them, prayer and praise are offered throughout the day. Many monasteries have commercial sidelines – such as the ‘Buckie’ brewed in Buckfast – as well as spiritual support and enrichment for individuals and groups – that is their main mission. We need to pray for more vocations to religious life.​
11/01/26
Looking at what I said last week about hope that the world’s conflicts would end justly, in light of the news which has dominated this week, that hope may seem to be diminishing. But we must never under-estimate the power and significance of hope. Pope wrote: ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast/Man [sic] never is but to be blest.’ And St Paul, writing to the Church in Rome, says, ‘Hope is not deceptive’.
Too often we limit hope to that vague, unrealistic feeling that we experience when we buy a lottery ticket, or enter into an unknown situation, or face a future yet to be determined. It is something which can underpin courage; a supporting role, rather than the starring part. And so hope is diminished, especially when our misunderstanding of what it really is leads to disappointment.
It may seem to be back in the distant past now, but it was only a fortnight or so that we were singing ‘the hopes and fears of all the years/are met in thee tonight’. In Christ, born amongst us, God is giving us the gift beyond all imagining, the gift of hope. A hope which is based on something real, tangible, audible, visible: his eternal presence amongst us all. It is the reality of this hope which enables us to face disappointment, setbacks and fear, for this world and the next.​