Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre OSB (Tyburn Nuns)  Benedictine Life of Divine Praise and Eucharistic Adoration

                  

THE HEART of our Saviour is a symbol and compendium of the whole mystery of our redemption.  This Heart of the Son of God is the perennial fount of His inexhaustible love from which arise unceasing supplications to His Father; it is also the source of that love which His Spirit pours forth upon all the members of His Mystical Body.  The Church, His bride, was born from this wounded Heart in the very hour of His redemptive death.  Our Congregation too has been born from the Heart of Christ and is called to share intimately in this mystery of His redemptive mediation.

THE FIRST and highest expression of our vocation lies in our total consecration to the worship and praise of the adorable Trinity through and in union with the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  We achieve this primarily through participation in

The Eucharistic Sacrifice, divine centre of the liturgy,

The choral celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours,

and the perpetual adoration of the Holy Eucharist, the supreme gift by which the Heart of Jesus has willed to dwell always in our midst.

We unceasingly unite ourselves to Him by our adoration, thanksgiving, reparation and prayer for the Church, her visible head and the Sovereign Pontiff, for nations and peoples and indeed the entire human family.  Spurred on by zeal to call all nations to the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, each monastery is dedicated by prayer and penance to labour for the ‘coming of the kingdom’ in the country where it is established.  The celebration of the paschal mystery in the Eucharist is the mainstay and renewal of this totally eucharistic life.

PROMPTED BY these ideals, our first Mother and Foundress, Marie Adele Garnier (1838-1924) could find no better rule of life to bequeath to us her spiritual daughters than that rule renowned for its wisdom and discretion, drawn up by the noble patriarch of western monks, our holy Father Benedict.  From its birth our religious family has been drawn to this rule and has ever been nourished by its spirit, and brings to its observance such modifications and additions as are required by the perpetual adoration of the Eucharist and the needs of our times.

IN THE Benedictine rule there is no other spirit than that of the purest Christianity, no other practice than that of the commandments and evangelical counsels.  All its precepts are expressed in the very words of holy writ – the word of the Lord Himself tracing the path that leads us to the possession of the heavenly kingdom.

HENCE, IN the spirit of our vocation and of the Rule of Benedict, our form of life is primarily one of cloistered contemplation. Its basic elements are:  prayer, separation from the world, a poor and mortified life, work, relationships of filial obedience and close union within our whole monastic family.

PRAYER:  The divine service, the chief duty of every monastic family, is the principal work prescribed by the rule, and nothing is to be preferred to it.  This service is our raison d’etre and includes principally, with the sacred liturgy, the perpetual adoration of the Heart of Jesus in the Eucharist.  All our occupations must be subordinated to this divine service.

SEPARATION FROM THE WORLD:  The spirit of silence and seclusion, so conducive to divine contemplation, is a basic element in our vocation; our enclosure is arranged to facilitate a life of deep contemplative prayer, while yet allowing certain works of the apostolate and hospitality as the overflow of our life of prayer.

A POOR AND MORTIFIED LIFE.  Penance, an essential obligation of Christianity, is strongly enjoined by our holy Father Benedict.  It binds us even more strictly since we are consecrated to a life of reparation and immolation.

WORK.  One of the basic principles of the Rule of Benedict is monastic work:  both intellectual work and manual labour.  Both these aspects of work have always been, and must ever be, provided for with wisdom and discretion in our monastic family.

FILIAL OBEDIENCE AND CLOSE FRATERNAL UNION:  ‘This absolutely authentic spirit of the rule of our holy Father Benedict has always flourished among us.  Filial, docile, humble, reverent affection for Superiors; warm, simple, devoted love, full of reverence for one another; all our efforts have always been aimed at developing this spirit in our monastic family, with the grace of the Sacred Heart.

IN OUR monastic vocation, lived for the Church and in the Church, we have for Mother, Queen and Patroness, the Virgin Mary, Mother of the Lord and Mother of the Church; we also give due honour to the angels and saints.  Consecrated to prayer for the Church Militant, upheld by the intercession of the Church Triumphant, we also come to the aid of the Church Suffering by our prayer and concern for these Holy Souls.

THE BETTER to fulfil the new command of the Heart of  Jesus to His disciples – ‘Love one another as I have loved you ... that all may be one’ – unity of government and observance is always to be maintained and fostered as an essential principle of our monastic family.

TO RESPOND fully to our vocation, we must aspire to transform our whole life in praise of God and in prayer, by purity of intention, by the practice of the divine presence and by union with Our Lord Jesus Christ.  Hence, ‘Love and resemblance to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and union with this adorable heart, must be the very special path to sanctification for us in which we will firmly adhere... to the virtues and fundamental dispositions of the spirit of the Holy Rule and our vocation as Adorers:... in a word, complete “abandon” to the divine good pleasure.’

FINALLY, FOLLOWING in the steps of our holy Father Benedict and our first Mother, as they ‘passed over’ from this world to the Father, may we, surrounded by our monastic brethren and fortified by the Eucharistic Body and Blood of the Lord, hasten to the full possession of His kingdom in life everlasting.  Amen.

The CONGREGATION OF THE ADORERS OF THE SACRED HEART OF JESUS OF MONTMARTRE ORDER OF SAINT BENEDICT, is familiarly known by the name of THE TYBURN NUNS because of the site of the MOTHER HOUSE is at TYBURN CONVENT, London, where our Foundress, Marie-Adele Garnier died and where her mortal remains are enshrined, and this spot is also the centre of international pilgrimage in honour of the TYBURN MARTYRS who shed their blood for Christ here between the years 1535 and 1681.