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Kinnoull Monastery featured in the Catholic Herald...

Recently the Catholic Herald did an article on the top 10 places to go for silence and a retreat. Of us they said...

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St Mary’s Monastery, Kinnoull

Perth, Scotland

St Mary’s Monastery, Kinnoull, Perth is home to the Redemptorists of Scotland, and functions as a community, ecumenical retreat house and Centre of Spirituality, offering a full programme of courses and retreats all year round.

The impressive neo-gothic building, which has views of the Grampian mountains, opened in 1869, when the Redemptorists first came to Scotland. The church was dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. It was the first Catholic monastery to be built since the Reformation and was from the beginning used extensively by the Scottish bishops for their clergy retreats.

St Mary’s is still very much devoted to the tradition of offering retreats and has been refurbished recently; it can now take up to 36 residential guests and 50 day guests at a time. They run a popular Holy Week retreat each year, which starts on the Monday of Holy Week and ends on the morning of Holy Saturday, at the price of £425 per person, as well as a Lenten retreat and others.

kinnoullmonastery.co.uk/retreats

Vocations Sunday May 2022...

cssr vocations may 2022

Called to Build the Human Family

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

At the time when the cold winds of war and oppression are blowing and when we frequently encounter signs of polarization, we as a Church have undertaken a synodal process: we sense the urgent need to journey together, cultivating the spirit of listening, participation and sharing. Together with all men and women of good will, we want to help build the human family, heal its wounds and guide it to a better future. On this 59^th World Day of Prayer for Vocations, I would like to reflect with you on the broader meaning of “vocation” within the context of a synodal Church, a Church that listens to God and to the world.

Called to be protagonists together of the Church’s mission

Synodality, journeying together, is a vocation fundamental to the Church. Only against this horizon is it possible to discern and esteem the various vocations, charisms and ministries. We know that the Church exists to evangelize, to go forth and to sow the seed of the Gospel in history. This mission can only be carried out if all areas of pastoral activity work together and, even more importantly, involve all the Lord’s disciples. For “in virtue of their baptism, all the members of the People of God have become missionary disciples (cf. Mt 28:19). All the baptized, whatever their position in the Church or their level of instruction in the faith, are agents of evangelization” (Evangelii Gaudium, 120). We must beware of the mentality that would separate priests and laity, considering the former as protagonists and the latter as executors, and together carry forward the Christian mission as the one People of God, laity and pastors. The Church as a whole is an evangelizing community.

By the preeminence of love, we define ourselves as love...

May 6, 2022

(from the Blog of the Alphonsian Academy)

Our interest, for now, is to continue to want to focus on theological work from the depths of aesthetics as the source of ethics. And to this end, continue to bet on the addition of an important theological place, such as art and in this case literary art. Writers and poets have been able to keep this existential flame burning when other disciplines, in their search for the fundamental, forget the same foundation. We refer to the fact of being able to grasp love not only as second nature, or as a reality that, although important, is relegated to the world of “passions”, of “emotions”, which in turn are unfortunately relegated to less fundamental realities of the human being. On the other hand, synthetically, it could be said that since “we love, therefore we exist”, or rather, we are the existence of love, we are the love that exists, that is realized in and through history, that seeks authenticity through love stories.

Facing one’s existence in love and from love remains a great challenge. Yet, for Christians, “God” is “love”, there is no better definition, as profoundly metaphysical as it is existential. And if we are his work, designed in his “image and likeness”, it would seem simple: we are loved, because only in love do we realize ourselves, and only in love we are and will be credible as authentic human beings. So, our attitudes, lifestyles, and behaviours should be shaped in love and by love. We should be able to project an ordo amoris, as the fundamental structure and the most radical and exemplary system of our existences. So, we should develop a morality of lovers of life and the entire ecosystem.

Following this inspiration, we propose as a theological place some brushstrokes that come from the life and contribution of the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), and in this case how not to mention his work: Letters to a young poet (1929: Briefe an einen jungen Dichter), a text full of sensitivity and wisdom. Love – like life – is simple, because this is its fundamental datum, but unfolding life by unfolding what is and can be, that is, love, is something more complicated, but not impossible, it is an art, it is a task, it is a constant creation. Because to be human is to be each oneself, but in deep relationship with others, and this is possible through the art of loving and the art of letting oneself be carried deeply by the logic of this love, one could say. It is an apprenticeship, as demanding as life itself.

We conclude by letting the poet speak:

The Alphonsian musical tradition told on Vatican Radio...

On April 11-12, the Redemptorist Father Paolo Saturno, the Redemptorist Oblate Antonio Saturno and Salvatore Esposito Ferraioli, guests of the programme “L’Arpeggio” by Luigi Picardi at the Italian Vatican Radio, talked about the Alphonsian-Redemptorist musical tradition with particular attention to the Passion repertoire and the compositional work of the Redemptorist Father Alfonso Vitale.

During the first episode, our guests not only retraced the musical tradition linked to the Passion songs but also recalled the Duetto fra l’Anima e Gesù Cristo by Saint Alphonsus M. de Liguori, a sacred chamber cantata for two voices, violin obbligato and basso continuo, which designates the holy founder, according to a happy expression of Father Paolo Saturno, “the only holy musician”.

In addition to the Duetto, the following songs were performed: Gesù mio con dure ropes, Offesi te, mio Dio, O fieri flagelli, Figlio, deh torna o figlio, Teco vorrei, Signore, O fedeli, se figli voi siete, Stillatevi in pianto.

To listen to the episode, a podcast is available:

https://www.vaticannews.va/it/podcast/radio-vaticana-musica/arpeggio/2022/04/l-arpeggio-11-04-2022.html

Newsletter from the Provinces of NorthWest Europe...

Click here to read our Newsletter

Enjoy the Solemnity of Easter…2022...

Christus Resurrexit! Vere Resurrexit!

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!

The Lord is truly risen!

Alleluia Alleluia!

easter 2022 empty tomb

We, the Redemptorists of the London Province wish

our confreres around the world,

our sisters, those cloistered and apostolic,

our lay associates,

our co-workers,

our families,

our friends,

our benefactors,

those whom we have had the privilege to minister to,

and all those people who follow us on line,

a Happy, Holy and Peace filled

EASTER!

Enjoy this day

and pray for us, as we do for you each and every day!

www.redemptorists.co.uk

Roamin' Catholics - Two of our Missioners...

Fr Kieran Brady and Fr Royston Price CSsR recently in St. Patrick's Coatbridge...

Click here to read an article about them in The Scottish Catholic

Provincial Letter April 2022...

Read letter here...

Week Six of Fr Denis' Lenten Retreat...

Sincere thanks to Fr Denis and his co-workers at RP Redemptorist Publications

Martyr of Communisms: Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky CSsR...

"On April 2, the Catholic Church commemorates Blessed Nicholas Charnetsky CSsR, a Ukrainian Catholic bishop who suffered martyrdom at the hands of Soviet Communists. What can his life teach us about how to live out our faith today? Perhaps the best place to start is to ask a question: why did he respond to God’s call to become a Redemptorist priest in the first place?"

These words come from an article on Blessed Bishop Nicholas Charnetsky CSsR who is a martyr, who suffered at the hands of the Soviet Communists.