Conventual Mass and Monastic Life

Abstract

The following paragraphs are elicited by Dom Adalbert de Vogüé's article ‘Problems of the Monastic Conventual Mass’ in THE DOWNSIDE REVIEW, October 1969, pp. 327–38. It would be an impertinence on my part to attempt to engage in controversy with so erudite an author; I can claim no more qualification to write on things monastic than may be attributed to one who for a little over twenty years has attempted, however imperfectly, to live the life put before us by the Rule of St Benedict, having been attracted (under God) to the life by reading the Rule (and who will always be grateful to those who encouraged him to read it). But controversy with Dom Adalbert is not in fact my aim; for though, as will be seen, I cannot entirely agree with his conclusions, his article seems to me to point to questions that go to the heart of Benedictine life; questions which must be faced if the renewal of our life is to be true to the origins and tradition of Benedictine monasticism (cf. II Vatican Council, Perfectae Caritatis, § 2).