Through the Present
Many of the things we do are an attempt to answer the question: how can we
best live and share our vocation in the twenty-first century. The internet is a great way of making monastic life more accessible without destroying the peace and recollection of the cloister; so on this site you will find videos, podcasts, a virtual chapter and so on, all of which play a part in the creation of our online community. We know many people are time-poor, hence our development of online retreats to allow a little monastic space in the midst of daily activity. As the web goes mobile, we are exploring ways of taking the monastery there too. That is why we have had a version of this web site designed for use on mobile devices since 2008 (now in much need of updating!).
From the first we set ourselves to be a resource centre for others, offering talks, short courses and days of recollection here at the monastery. These are open to all, irrespective of religious affiliation. We are very clear about our Catholic identity so are happy to engage with many different traditions and faith perspectives. Our library began with just half a dozen books but is now a sub-library of the University of Oxford, with important collections of modern American Catholic theology and High Anglican devotional works. It is open to students and others by appointment. We are also keenly aware of the spiritual needs of the blind and visually impaired for whom our
Veilaudio service provided a free audio book library loan system based here at the monastery, where we recorded and made the audio books on cassette and CD.
We are different from most other Benedictine communities in that we have no endowment (funds inherited from the past). As we said earlier, our monastic life, online engagement and charitable activities are financed entirely by our own work and the generosity of our donors. It would be a fragile basis for all our undertakings were it not that God is never outdone in generosity. We are hoping that those who appreciate the value of what we are trying to do will be moved to help us.