Rebuilding The Catholic Church in Cambodia

More than 450 years ago, a Portuguese Dominican missionary first brought the Catholic faith to the Kingdom of Cambodia which later became part of the colony of French Indo-China.

The church never developed in Cambodia as dramatically as it did in Vietnam — also part of French Indo-China — mainly because Christianity was seen as a European, a “foreign” religion in a country where 94% of the people are Buddhist.

But there were small Catholic communities spread through large parts of the kingdom and they worshipped in substantial Gothic church buildings that would not have been out of place in Paris.

Cambodia gained independence from France in 1954, but eventually the kingdom was drawn into the Vietnam War (called the “American War” here) and was heavily bombed.

Then at the end of that conflict, the Khmer Rouge arose, an ultra-nationalist, ultra-communist group that wanted to rebuild Cambodia to its glory days of the 1100s when the Khmer people built Angkor Wat.

The Khmer Rouge wanted no “old ideas” such as religion to interfere with their plans for utopia, and both Buddhism and Christianity were targeted.

As the faithful were driven underground and the clergy killed or otherwise eliminated, the French Bishop Ramousse, about to be expelled from the country, hurriedly ordained Fr. Chhmar Salas, a Cambodian priest, as the first local bishop, but he soon died as one of the victims of the Khmer Rouge.

The Khmer Rouge attacked not only the church people but also the church buildings. There were 121 churches in Cambodia before the Pol Pot era. Of those, only two remain today, one because it was used as a barracks for Khmer Rouge troops.

Today the Cambodian Catholic Church is rebuilding, but it is very different from the church one would experience in Louisville. One big difference is the size. There are only 5,000 Cambodian Catholics in the whole country (the size of Missouri), out of a population of 16,000,000 people. There are also 15,000 Vietnamese Catholics who live along the Mekong River and about 1,000 foreign Catholics.

The new church is also developing according to a very different model, one that more closely aligns with Cambodian culture. The new church buildings are in a Khmer style, often similar to Buddhist temples, so that they are more welcoming to Khmer people who usually know almost nothing about Christianity.

Surprisingly for such a small country, Cambodia has three dioceses for just 20,000 Catholics — due to the difficulty of travel — but the dioceses here are called apostolic vicariates and prefectures because Cambodia is still considered a mission territory by the Vatican. Serving the church are seventy-two priests from about fifteen countries. Only eight of the priests are from Cambodia.

The restored Catholic Church in Cambodia lacks numbers and experience and even ordinary church structures such as a chancery office and a marriage tribunal, but it has young and enthusiastic people, a youthful and very active bishop, a good reputation among the general populace, and there is great promise for the future of the Catholic People of God here in Cambodia.

Credits : Maryknoll Missionaries 

Chant Brings Vietnamese Catholics Deeper Into Christ's Passion

While the Stations of the Cross are a worldwide Lenten devotion for Catholics, the faithful in Vietnam have an additional practice that blends ancient traditional chants with Catholic prayer and meditation on the Crucifixion.

“The ‘Ngam Nguyen’ are … a unique Vietnamese Catholic practice of intoning a series of meditations recounting the Passion of Christ,” said Fr. Anthony Le Duc, national chaplain for the Vietnamese community in Thailand.

Fr. Duc said that the intoned meditative chants, called “Ngam,” describe the suffering of Jesus.

Designed to help people enter more deeply into the experience and emotions lived out by Christ during his Passion, they have been adapted from folk traditions integrated with prayers prepared by missionaries who came to Vietnam in the early 16 -17th century.

There are a total of 15 Ngam meditations recounting the excruciating pain and suffering that Jesus underwent as he was arrested, put on trial, and crucified at Golgotha.

These meditations differ from the traditional Stations of the Cross because they focus mainly on what occurs at the trial of Jesus before Pontius Pilate and on the Cross at Calvary, while the stations focus largely on what happens in between these two events.

Ngam Meditations:

Beginning with Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, and concluding with Jesus’ side being pierced by a spear, the Ngam meditations seek to immerse participants into Christ’s passion.

The intoning is melodic, in accordance with the tonal nature of the Vietnamese language. Since the meditations recount the pain and suffering of Christ, the tone is extremely melancholy, which can well up emotions and often bring the listener to tears.

When intoning the meditations, the reader must follow strict rules, depending on whether there is a comma, semicolon, period, or other punctuation. If the reader comes upon the name of Jesus in the text, he must bow his head.

The recitation of the Ngam meditations—either in whole or as part of a series—takes place in many Vietnamese churches every day throughout the Lenten season, either as part of a post-Mass liturgy, or as a liturgical service on its own. The devotion starts with common prayers of the Church, followed by the meditations.

Between meditations, an Our Father and 10 Hail Marys are recited. On Good Friday, the liturgy concludes with a Lamentation and other prayers. The entire liturgy can take over two hours to complete.

The Vietnamese take this tradition very seriously, viewing it as both liturgy and art form. During the Lenten season, many parishes organize competitions, which only the most skilled readers dare to enter.

The reciter chants without any instrumental accompaniment. The person who goes up to intone, often stands or kneels in front of the altar with the book placed before him. On both sides, there are people to follow his reading. If the intoner makes a mistake, the judge strikes a wooden instrument. If he makes three mistakes, he must leave the competition and someone else will go up to reread the meditation.

“The meditation also represents a creative adaptation of the spirituality and the liturgy of the Church to a local context,” Fr. Duc said. “And it speaks to the great collaboration between foreign missionaries in Vietnam and the local faithful in inventing this Lenten tradition that has been going on for centuries.”

European missionaries accompanying merchants on newly discovered sea routes brought the Catholic faith to Vietnam in 1533. Later in the 16th century, the arrival of many members of the Society of Jesus (SJ), Order of Preachers (OP), Order of Friars Minor (OFM) and the Society of Foreign Missions of Paris (MEP) boosted evangelization efforts in the east.

These missionaries taught the truths of the Catholic faith to converted native Vietnamese catechists, who came from various religious background and cultural traditions. The natives then taught the locals Christian prayers using the local educational method of intonation of religious texts, which was used in temples and during devotional folklore chants.

In previous centuries, these meditations were written in the Vietnamese “Nôm” script, a derivation of the Chinese script. However, in the 20th century, the meditations were printed in the Vietnamese Latin script “(quoc ngu)” which made them easier to read.

Different dioceses have their own versions that may have minor differences in the wording, matching their local dialect. Apart from these differences, the texts have undergone few revisions in recent decades.

Fr. Duc explained that “Ngam Nguyen” texts employ mostly ordinary speech, even colloquial in places, done “perhaps in order to make it easy for the average faithful to understand.”

The Ngam tradition is present throughout Vietnam, as well as in migrant communities in the United States, Australia, and Thailand, among other countries.

There are more than 5.5 million Catholics in Vietnam today. In past centuries, Christians in the country have faced persecution. In 1988, Pope John Paul II canonized 117 Blessed Martyrs of Vietnam, including both clergy and laity.

The Mongolian Catholic Church ---- The Youngest Catholic Church In The World

What trigged the growth and expansion of the Catholic mission, however, was its involvement with society. The Soviet Union dominated Mongolia during most of the 20th century, so the Soviet collapse in the late 1980s left Mongolia's economy in turmoil, resulting in much poverty nationwide.

The missionaries soon found themselves involved with homeless people, in particular those who sought warmth and shelter in the underground drainage systems where heating pipes pass and rats and cockroaches proliferate.

The missionaries would make their way into every manhole of the city in search of its "residents," offering them food, medicine and love. As their ministry expanded, they recruited their neighbors to assist in the distribution of food. The new volunteers then began asking questions about these noble missionaries — and what motivated them to care for the least, the last and the lost — and some eventually made their way to the church.

Today, 28 years later, several dozen missionaries have come from Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. They follow basically the same missiological principles that the first missionaries employed, founding technical schools, orphanages, homes for the aged, clinics, domestic violence shelters and kindergartens.

These centers most often are set up in shanty towns and suburbs where basic services are lacking. The beneficiaries are people who are poor, and for every child the center enrolls, the Catholic mission is also able to reach out to the child's siblings, parents and extended family. They thus are in the service of the larger community, mainly in the diakonia ("service") ministry of providing care, healing and education.

Only after several years of this evangelistic outreach is a church built.

As the Federation of Asian Bishops' Conferences have often taught, mission in Asia begins with being with the people, responding to their needs, and witnessing to the values of the reign of God here on Earth. This before-death salvation brought about by the disciples of Christ serves as foretaste and sign of God's kingdom that is to come in heaven. It may be years before a local community emerges and a church established.

The Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul was built in 2003 and is modeled after the traditional nomadic tent used in Mongolia. 

The establishment of the church, therefore, is a slow process and its growth gradual. The parish priest begins everything anew, literally from ground zero. Baptism certificates are printed with serial numbers beginning with 001. A parish priest mentioned that his first two certificates were issued to a native couple who had been enquiring about the Catholic faith while working abroad. They were the first in his community to be baptized and, shortly after, married in the church as well and so were issued with a marriage certificate also bearing the serial number 001. It might take a while for the parish to reach certificate number 999!

Like much of Asia, the church in Mongolia will probably always remain a small minority in the land where Tibetan Buddhism thrives and the locals are innately oriented towards the shamanic spirituality of their nomadic ancestors. Discipleship in Christ is certainly not a numbers game, but the church's minority status is a reminder that it serves as salt of the Earth. Salt has to be used in small in quantities, Bunluen Mansap, the late bishop of Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, was fond of saying. Too much salt in the soup renders it awful!

In the context of Mongolia, the church, as a pusillus grex ("little flock"), has to engage in its mission through what the Asian bishops call the triple dialogue: dialogue with the cultures, the religions and the people who are poor. In other words, it has to be sensitive to and respectful of the local cultures and in partnership with the other religions as it goes about ministering to the many disenfranchised people in society.

As it celebrates its 28th anniversary, the Catholic Church in Mongolia can only be proud of the inroads it has made in gaining the trust of the people. It is slowly but surely developing into a local church, having inculturated significant aspects of the Catholic tradition.

The Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul was built in 2003. It is modeled after the traditional ger (nomadic tent), with its circular shape and walls of thick felt. A Mongolian version of the Bible was printed in 2004 and includes common Catholic prayers, all written in the traditional Mongolian script.

The six parishes in the country and the 1,300 baptized natives rejoiced at the ordination of the first native-born priest 4 years ago, a young man baptized as a child  many years ago.

Saint Joseph -- The Blessed Patriarch and His Spiritual Role In Saint Josemaria Escriva's Life

Devotion to Saint Joseph was deeply rooted in Saint Josemaría's soul from a very early age. Recalling how in 1934 he had entrusted to the Holy Patriarch his efforts to obtain permission for the tabernacle in the first center of Opus Dei in Madrid, he remarked in 1971: "I already had deep in my soul the devotion to Saint Joseph that I have passed on to you."

And he strove to keep this devotion alive and ardent right to the end of his life, seeing it undergo an impetuous growth in his final years.

In the three points dedicated to Saint Joseph in his early work, The Way, we already see some of the theological reasons for his strong devotion. In no. 559, he writes: "Saint Joseph, father of Christ, is also your father and lord. Ask him to help you."

The strength with which he calls Saint Joseph the father of Christ here is significant.

In a later text, a homily given on March 19, 1963, dedicated completely to Saint Joseph,

He explains the sense in which he speaks of this fatherhood, following the well-known words of Saint Augustine in his Sermon 51, 20: "Our Lord was not born of the seed of Joseph. Yet of the piety and charity of Joseph a son was born to him, of the Virgin Mary, and this was the Son of God."

Saint Joseph's fatherhood towards Jesus is not a fatherhood according to the flesh, but a real and unique fatherhood that arose from his true marriage to the Virgin Mary and from his unique mission.
In the homily just cited, Saint Josemaría said: "for many years now, I have liked to address him affectionately as 'our father and lord.'"

And he explains: "Saint Joseph really is a father and lord. He protects those who revere him and accompanies them on their journey through this life—just as he protected and accompanied Jesus when he was growing up."

In the critical-historical edition of The Way, Pedro Rodriquez suggests that Saint Josemaría may have taken the expression "father and lord" from Saint Teresa of Avila, who had such a great influence on devotion to Saint Joseph, not only among the Carmelites but also throughout the whole Church.

In The Way, the consequences of this fatherhood are shown especially in Saint Joseph's influence on the "interior life." We read in no. 560: "Saint Joseph, our father and lord, is a teacher of the interior life. Place yourself under his patronage and you'll feel the effectiveness of his power." And in no. 561: "Speaking of Saint Joseph in the book of her life, Saint Teresa says: 'Whoever fails to find a Master to teach him how to pray, should choose this glorious Saint, and he will not go astray.' This advice comes from an experienced soul. Follow it." The reason Saint Josemaría gives for these two counsels is Saint Joseph's close and continuous contact with Jesus and Mary throughout his years at their side.

The three points cited from The Way place Saint Josemaría's approach to Saint Joseph within two essential coordinates: the truth of his fatherhood towards Jesus and the Holy Patriarch's influence on the history of salvation. These points testify to a mature theological conviction of the importance of Saint Joseph right from the earliest texts, reflected in the clear and firm way he calls Saint Joseph the father of Jesus with no vacillation whatsoever.

2. A solid prior tradition

With the sober and precise language that characterized him, Saint Josemaría forms part of a solid ecclesial tradition of theological reflection and devotion to the Holy Patriarch. His rich and solid reflections on Saint Joseph go hand in hand with a refined piety inspired by the Holy Spirit, and the awareness of treading on solid theological ground.

In 1870 Pope Pius IX, in the Decree Quemadmodum Deus (December 8, 1870), declared Saint Joseph Patron of the Universal Church, and on August 15, 1889, Leo XIII published his Encyclical Quamquam pluries dedicated to the Holy Patriarch. In this Encyclical, Leo XIII clarifies with great theological force the reasons why Saint Joseph can be considered the Patron of the Universal Church.
The first reason the Pope mentions is that Saint Joseph is the spouse of our Lady, and therefore the father of Jesus, the good—bonum prolis—of this marriage. For the Pontiff, the truth of the marriage between our Lady and Saint Joseph is accepted without any doubt and leads directly to the truth of Saint Joseph's fatherhood over Jesus. Both realities—marriage and fatherhood—form two essential features of Saint Joseph's divine vocation. He was called to carry out these two tasks desired in themselves by God, in their proper value. In this vocation we find the reason for the other graces received by Saint Joseph, the ultimate reason for "his dignity, his holiness, his glory."

For Leo XIII, Saint Joseph's marriage to our Lady is the key to understanding his exalted gifts, since the truth and perfection of this marriage "demands" the participation in its goods and, specifically, in the good of the offspring, although engendered virginally. The Pope calls this marriage "the most intimate of all unions, which from its essence imparts a community of gifts between those that by it are joined together," and says that Saint Joseph had been given to our Lady not only as "her life's companion, the witness of her maidenhood, the protector of her honor," but also as participant in her "sublime dignity." He is, then, "the legitimate and natural guardian of the Holy Family."

Leo XIII continues here a line of thought already expressed by Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, which found one of its clearest formulations in Saint Thomas Aquinas: between the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph there was a true and perfect marriage. Given our Lady's perpetual virginity, some ancient writers found a certain difficulty in considering this union as a true marriage.

These vacillations dissipated in favor of the authenticity of the marriage, among other reasons, because of the clear position taken by Saint Ambrose and by Saint Augustine.

However, authors as important as Saint Bernard (+1153) still showed great caution in affirming the marriage between Saint Joseph and the Blessed Virgin, or failed to view it as a key element in the theology of Saint Joseph.

The position of Saint Thomas Aquinas (+1274) offers no room for doubt: the union between Joseph and Mary was a true and perfect marriage, because it entailed the spousal union between their spirits.[
Nor should we forget that viewing the union between Joseph and Mary as a true marriage accords with the language used in the New Testament, which does not hesitate to call Mary the wife of Joseph. The New Testament also allows no ambiguity regarding our Lady's virginity, even in places where she is called Joseph's wife (see, for example, Mt 1:16-25); nor does it hesitate to call Joseph the father of Jesus, or to show him acting as such (see, for example, Lk 2:21-49).


3. Saint Joseph in the teachings of Saint Josemaría

From his earliest writings, Saint Josemaría describes Saint Joseph as a young man, perhaps a bit older than our Lady, but imbued with vigor and strength: "The Holy Patriarch was not an old man, but a young, strong, upright man, a great lover of loyalty, a man with fortitude. Holy Scripture defines him with a single word: just (see Mt 1:20-21). Joseph was a just man, a man filled with all the virtues, as was fitting for the one who was to be God's protector on earth."

Underlying these words is the conviction that God, on giving a vocation, gives the graces suitable to the one who receives it, and therefore he adorned Saint Joseph with all the gifts of nature and grace that made him a suitable spouse of our Lady and head of the Holy Family.

Saint Josemaría's emphasis on the youthfulness of Joseph finds support in three fundamental reasons: in reading Sacred Scripture with common sense (which presents his espousal to our Lady as something normal, and the marriage of a young girl with an old man would not have been viewed as normal); in the communion of spirits proper to marriage (the love existing between them); and above all in the conviction that holy purity is not a question of age, but rather stems from love.

"I don't agree with the traditional picture of St Joseph as an old man, even though it may have been prompted by a desire to emphasis the perpetual virginity of Mary. I see him as a strong young man, perhaps a few years older than our Lady, but in the prime of his life and work. You don't have to wait to be old or lifeless to practice the virtue of chastity. Purity comes from love; and the strength and joy of youth are no obstacle for noble love. Joseph had a young heart and a young body when he married Mary, when he learned of the mystery of her divine motherhood, when he lived in her company, respecting the integrity God wished to give the world as one more sign that he had come to share the life of his creatures."

For Saint Josemaría it was "unacceptable" to present Joseph as an old man for the purpose of silencing the "evil thinkers."


And it was equally unacceptable to doubt the truth of his marriage to our Lady, as well as to fail to take into consideration the love that existed between them.

The love between Saint Joseph and Our Lady :

Bishop Javier Echevarría is a valuable witness to how Saint Josemaría contemplated the relationship between Mary and Joseph, passing on his words addressed to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico in 1970: "A family made up of an upright, hard-working young man; and a woman, hardly more than a girl: with a betrothal full of clean love, they find in their lives the fruit of God's love for mankind. In her humility she says nothing. What a lesson for all of us, so ready as we are to boast about our achievements! He reacts with the refinement of an upright man—what a hard moment it must have been when he discovered that his wife, so holy, was expecting a child. And as he did not wish to stain her reputation; he remained silent, while thinking how to resolve things, until God's light came to him, which he was no doubt asking for from the first moment. And without hesitation he accepts heaven's plans."

The authenticity of marriage brings with it the reality of conjugal love, the eagerness to spend life together and mutual self-giving; therefore it is only natural to view these features as very much a part of the marriage between Joseph and Mary. God added to that love the fruit of our Lady's womb: the Eternal Son made man, who chose to be born into a human family.

As we have seen, Saint Josemaría takes it for granted that the marriage between Joseph and Mary is a true marriage. This leads him to reflect on the love existing between the two spouses: "Saint Joseph must have been young when he married our Lady, a woman who had just emerged from adolescence. Being young, he was pure, clean, and very chaste. And he was so precisely because of his love. Only by filling our heart with love can we be sure that it will not rebel and go off the track, but will remain faithful to the most pure love of God."

For Saint Josemaría, love is the key to every person's life, as it was in the life of Joseph. There we find the reason for his fortitude, his fidelity, his chastity. "Can you imagine the reaction of Saint Joseph, who loved our Lady so much and knew her spotless integrity? How much he would have suffered on seeing that she was expecting a child! Only the revelation of God through an Angel calmed him. He had sought a prudent solution: to not dishonor her, to leave without saying anything. But what sorrow, since he loved her with his whole soul. And imagine his joy when he knew that the fruit of her womb was the work of the Holy Spirit!" 

The Tyburn Nuns of Riverstone: A beautiful life given to God

It’s heaven on earth,” Mother Marie Pierre says when asked why she loves praying before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

“It’s like the closest you can be to God on earth.

“The idea of adoration is not just praying for yourself or asking for things, but it’s going out of yourself to love. In fact we’re all called to love. It’s like being close to the fountain of Love.”

As a Tyburn nun, Eucharistic adoration is the focus of Mother Pierre’s entire life. She is Mother Prioress at Tyburn Priory in Riverstone, 48 km north-west of Sydney, Australia.

There she lives on a large rural property with seven other nuns, a lame rabbit named Lizzie, four chickens and three alpacas, who help to keep the grass short.

The nuns are an eclectic group, varying in age, personality and ethnic background, with two from the Philippines, a Nigerian, a New Zealander, a German and several Aussies.

Mother Pierre entered the order at the age of 29 because she wanted to spend more time with the Eucharist. She tried another contemplative order but found it didn’t satisfy.

“I realised I needed something closer to the Blessed Sacrament, more centred on the Eucharist,” the now 55 year-old said.

One day in her homeland of New Zealand, she came across a booklet on the Tyburn nuns at the back of a church. After reading it she knew the life it described was what she had been searching for.
“It was everything I’d ever longed for,” she said.

The booklet told the story of French woman, Mother Marie Adele Garnier, foundress of the Tyburn Nuns, also known as the Benedictine Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre.

Founded in Paris in 1898 by Mother Garnier, the order follows the Rule of St Benedict and aims to glorify the Trinity through daily Mass, the Divine Office, perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and daily prayer for the Pope, the Church and the whole human race.

Today there are Tyburn monasteries in England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Italy, France and Australia.

The mother house is in London at Tyburn—the site where more than 100 Catholics were martyred during the English Reformation.

The current Mother General is Chinese-Australian, Mother Marella Aw.

“Our life is very simple but it’s according to the Rule of St Benedict, which is work and prayer – a very balanced life, a family life,” Mother Pierre said.

The Priory at Riverstone also has a guest house for those who want to experience the peace and quiet of a Benedictine monastery.

Mother Pierre says the guest house is an apostolate, an “overflow” from the sisters’ life of prayer … “so people can come and share our life of worship and share the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.”

The sisters acquired the chickens and rabbit for the sake of 90 year-old Mother Cyril – former Prioress at Riverstone – who loves animals.

Mother Cyril grew up in Germany and escaped the Nazi regime during WWII.

She avoided signing a mandatory document at school swearing allegiance to Hitler by pretending she needed to go to the bathroom, then putting her head down and running for her life, eventually hiding under a bed in the hospital where her father worked.

Although she can’t speak much anymore and is hard of hearing, Mother Cyril’s face glows with peace and joy.

Each nun spends at least an hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day, and two hours of night-time adoration during the week.

A typical day sees them rise at 4.30am to pray the first office of the day together – Nocturne – in the chapel. They return to the chapel six more times throughout the day to pray the entire Liturgy of the Hours. Bedtime is usually after the last office of the day—Compline at 7.30pm.

In between prayer, adoration and meals, they engage in various forms of work in the laundry, kitchen, garden and general cleaning of the priory. There is also time for reading and recreation.

Talking is kept to a minimum in order to maintain inner peace and on-going dialogue with the Lord.
This is one aspect of the life that vivacious Mother Vianney — originally from Sydney — says she struggled with after entering in 1987 at age 53.

“I’ve got good tenure—I’ve only been 86 for two months,” she joked with a cheeky grin, when asked her age.

“I had always lived my own life and done my own thing … it took a long time to realise what obedience is. I came to appreciate obedience very much in the end,” she said.
“And silence, I’m not good at silence to this day. You can tell. Hopeless! They tried to tame me,” she laughed.

Mother Vianney discerned a vocation to religious life four years after her husband passed away. Her three adult sons were happy for her to enter, she said, as they thought she would only stay in the monastery for a short while. Eventually, however, they accepted that she was happy there.

She’s says she “just knew” once she visited the Priory that it was where she wanted to be.
Mother Vianney’s main occupation is answering the multitude of correspondence the sisters receive.
“It’s quite a big job. Lots and lots of letters come in. Lots of prayer requests and people like to tell their troubles to someone and have somebody say, ‘I understand’,” she said.

“I like the silence. I like the obedience. I didn’t always find it easy but nobody does … I like having a Rule and I like being able to pray when I want by going into my cell and just praying, person to person.”

Sister Mary Agnes, originally from Nigeria, says the “joy in the Lord” she has discovered as a Tyburn nun is simply “too much”.

“It’s so much I cannot express it. It’s too much … When I joined the monastery the kind of inner peace I have, I’ve never had before,” the 50-year-old said, beaming from ear to ear.
She loves the “continual prayer and day and night adoration,” of monastery life.

“Our Lord wants us to console him. He died because of my sin and the sins of the whole earth. I so love to pray, to console Our Lord,” she said.

“I love prayer so much and that is why I’m here.”

Sister Mary Agnes entered the order four years ago at age 47. She said getting up in the middle of the night for adoration is no problem with the help of God.

“If you ask for the grace of God, you’ll see that things are so easy for you … sometimes I say, maybe I’m weak today, but the moment I pray, ‘oh, Father, I’m weak but I want you to fill me up’, and my weakness disappears. I get extra strength. I say, ‘oh, you are wonderful, God’.”

Mother Veronica says even as a little girl growing up in the Philippines she used to be moved to tears when contemplating the suffering of Jesus during his Passion.

“I used to cry and cry and my mother would get upset with me. My heart was filled, like Our Lady.”
She told her mother when she was just nine years old that she wanted to become a nun but her family told her she couldn’t as she wasn’t well educated.

After having a dream about Mother Marie Adele Garnier, in which the Mother Foundress was following her and wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, she began to think she definitely had a calling.

She entered the Priory in Riverstone in 2011 aged 50.

“The Lord is guiding me, I can see that. He has showed me things that I cannot explain,” she said.

“When the Lord calls you, you have to answer … I realised it. If I don’t come here, where am I going to go?”

During her time in the Priory Mother Veronica says she has come to realise the importance of prayer.

“God is there to keep you straight away if you call on him,” she said.

“If you don’t pray and your mind is wandering, evil comes in straight away … It’s like when Peter walked on water. Peter has to look at Jesus all the time but when Peter looks at the water because he’s scared, then he sank.”

Mother Marie Pierre said life in the monastery is all about continually saying ‘yes’ to God even when it’s difficult.

“It’s like a purifying of you that brings you into a relationship where it’s only He that matters and His kingdom,” she said.

“I would say it’s one of the greatest graces or gifts that you can be given, to be chosen by God. To have the opportunity to live a consecrated life centred around the Blessed Sacrament.

“It’s a beautiful life but it’s not easy of course, especially in the world today because people don’t understand silence.

“But actually if you can get over that hurdle, then it’s a new opening to hear God and grow closer. It’s a beautiful life, that’s all I can say about it.”

The Tyburn Nuns Of London

The Tyburn Nuns - the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre Order of St Benedict - are an order of cloistered contemplative Benedictine nuns. The aim of the congregation is to glorify the Most Blessed Trinity, finding practical expression in the daily participation in the Holy Mass, the choral celebration of the Divine Office, the perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the Monstrance, and in daily prayer for the Holy Father, the Church, the country and for the entire human family.

The nuns live within the monastic tradition of the Church under the Rule of St Benedict, following his instruction ora et labora - pray and work.

Tyburn Convent near Marble Arch, London, is the mother house of the Tyburn Nuns. In recent years the order has grown and spread to Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Africa and France.

The Tyburn Martyrs are the Catholic men and women executed at the Tyburn gallows during the Protestant Reformation. The first was St John Houghton, the prior of the London Charterhouse, who was hanged, drawn and quartered on 4th May 1535 for refusing to take the oath attached to the Act of Succession recognising the progeny of the King Henry VIII and his mistress Anne Boleyn as legitimate heirs to the English throne.

The last Tyburn martyr was St Oliver Plunkett, the Archbishop of Armagh, who was hanged, drawn and quartered on 1st July 1681 after he was falsely accused of conspiring to kill King Charles II under the fabricated plot of Titus Oates. There are 20 canonised saints among the martyrs. They include St Edmund Campion, St Robert Southwell, St John Southworth - as well as two women, St Margaret Ward and St Anne Line.

Lenten Music

Few people today would think of Lent as a season for liturgical music, because Christmas has almost cornered the market. Unsatisfied with its own ample store of tunes, Christmas absorbs other seasonal compositions. Handel's Messiah, no matter what you have heard, is an Easter oratorio, and the "Hallelujah Chorus" celebrates the Resurrection not the Nativity.

Lenten music has its own particular beauty, which may be lost on modern man. Father Robert A. Skeris, chairman of the theology department at Christendom College in Front Royal, attributes this partly to the general degradation of religion and partly on the trivialization of religious expression. "If the liturgy is on the decline, it follows that music will be less of a blessing," he says.

"The idea of penance is not so popular today," Father Skeris remarks dryly. "The tendency is toward horizontal worship. People don't want to be reminded of the suffering Savior, who is of less interest to us."

This is regrettable because "when you look back at musical history, Lent has been an enormous source of inspiration for composers," the birthplace of gems like the hymn "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," and the chanting of the Lord's Passion on Palm Sunday.

Another little-noticed indicator of the times is the censorship of traditional music. In Catholic and Protestant hymnbooks, any words that might upset suburban sensibilities is carefully expunged. The lyrics of "Amazing Grace" used to read, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound/That saved a wretch like me." Now it's "that saved and set me free," lest anyone think that sinners are wretched.

"The Battle Hymn of the Republic," originally sung by Civil War soldiers, may have endured the worst fate. The final line of the last verse, "As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free," inspired men to risk death in battle rather than let the Union perish. In the Catholic missalette used in most parishes, the line reads, "As He died to make all holy, let us live to make all free," thus achieving a perfect combination of political correctness and religious happy-talk.

To call this flight from humility "pagan" is tempting, but incorrect. The ancient pagans were often acutely aware of man's frailty and unworthiness.

In a way, Lenten music began before the Church did. Jesus and the apostles sang Passover hymns on the first Holy Thursday, as testified by the Gospels of Matthew and Mark. The earliest Christians often sang of the passion and death of Christ, although their music is mostly lost.

The High Middle Ages was a rich seedbed of penitential music. The Dies Irae ("Day of Wrath"), attributed to the 13th-century' musician Thomas of Celano, was eventually incorporated into the Requiem Mass in the 16th century. To this day, composers take great delight in using this apocalyptic text as a starting point for. magnificent (and very loud) orchestrations.

Stabat Mater, another popular I medieval hymn written c. 1300, is a meditation on the Virgin Mary watching her Son on the cross. "Who is the man who would not weep, seeing the mother of Christ in such torment?" asks the anonymous author.

Like many similar hymns, Stabat Mater began as plainchant, but enjoys new life in each successive musical era. At the dawn of polyphonic music, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina composed a heartbreakingly beautiful setting of the Stabat Mater for eight voices, one of his finest works.

As Historian Paul Henry Lang writes, "In the eyes of many, church music ended with Palestrina and became history." While he is not a household name, like Beethoven or Mozart, Palestrina played a very significant role in the history of music. Largely because of the deep piety of his works, the Church began to incorporate polyphony in the liturgy. It is impossible not to be enraptured by God's majesty while listening to Palestrina.

Bach's name is inseparable from Lenten music, due to his four oratorios based on the Gospel accounts of the Passion. Two of them are lost, but the St. John Passion and St. Matthew Passion are high-water marks for depth and complexity. From the opening notes of the St. John Passion, we are invited to contemplate a world thrown out of balance by sin' and the innocence of the Lamb to be slain; in Bach's own understated way, the trial sequence of the St. John Passion chillingly reminds us of the world's darkness.