Prologue: To find the Balance

In November 2007 I wrote: "I have been finding some of the programmes and stories on the Radio profoundly depressing. Even the articles in Catholic newspapers reflect the spirit of the age as they are full of tragic memories spanning the last century and before. Although it is undoubtedly good to be ‘well-informed’, we must also be allowed to see the light sparkling on the wet grass, and the surprising beauty of sunsets reflected in the polished surface of cars.... One of our Catholic papers has nature jottings on the last page, called ‘A glimpse of Eden’ describing tiny moments of beauty in the present day. I find that consoling. We are not alone in our simple delight in touches of beauty and of love.

Our liturgy and psalms provide an excellent balance of joy and sorrow, despair and hope, exultant praise and profound cries of distress. Life and death, and all that goes in between, is constantly before our spiritual eyes but concrete reality can concentrate our focus for a while - before we find the balance necessary for a sane life. As one Army Commander remarked at a time of grief: "Do not mourn that they have died but thank God that they lived." It is this sort of "balance" which the Christian monastic life can give us, and which we try to share with you as the year unfolds.

The Lord by his command sends the snow...In his great might he banks up the clouds, and shivers them into fragments of hail...Soft as roosting birds falls the snow...The eye marvels at the beauty of its whiteness.He pours frost on the earth like salt, and icicles form like pointed stakes ....                  Sirach 43:13 ff