Eucharistic Apostolate

Tradition of Hospitality

As Benedictines we, the Tyburn Nuns - a consecrated community living cloistered contemplation, are called to serve God and Holy Church by the hidden ministry of prayer and monastic hospitality.

Our monastic ministry of prayer is suspended between two poles:  - celebration of the WORD of GOD, and celebration and worship of the EUCHARIST.

Our ministry of hallowing time and human labour, finds us chanting seven times every day, the Divine Office, the Benedictine Opus Dei, where the living WORD of God is proclaimed and heard, is sung and assimilated, and also acclaimed and contemplated.

This ministry of the WORD itself culminates in the ministry of the Eucharist, where the WORD becomes FLESH and BLOOD in His redeeming Sacrifice.  Here the inner nature of the Church is revealed - a holy community called to celebrate the great Gift of the ONE who is both Offering and Offered - so becoming kinsmen of Christ, to the glory of the Father in the joy of the Holy Spirit.

Our Eucharistic ministry prolongs this celebration of the "Magnalia Dei" outside the Sacrifice of the Mass in the prayer of Eucharistic Adoration..... Thus we gather more plentifully the fruits deriving from the Sacrifice and share more effectively in its grace.  So also we join with Christ in His prayer to the Father, offering adoration, thanksgiving, expiation and earnest intercession for all the Church.

This ministry of prayer overflows joyfully into our other ministry of monastic hospitality.  Thus we welcome and receive like Christ the guests who are never lacking in the monastery, and draw them into our monastic prayer and worship.  So it is that we become receivers and dispensers of the boundless mercy of the Heart of our Redeemer, for these guests bring into the circle of our monastic mediation the - 'joy and hope, the grief and anguish and pain of the people of our world.'  (cf GS:1)

We minister to these guests with sisterly simplicity, offering them the silence of the Lord's Eucharistic presence; the peace of the monastery garden and the message of God's WORD in Scripture; and the warmth of a listening ear.

With Mary, Mother of the Lord and Mother of the Church, the Virgin of humility and prayer, we gladly surrender ourselves to help build up the Church to be more and more 'a people brought into unity from the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,' - (Lum. G:4) - to be a fitting Sacrament of the MOST HOLY TRINITY.

Saint Benedict passed along this same way - from death to life, from Egypt to the Promised Land, that is, from the darkness of this world to that Jerusalem which is a vision of peace ... Let us, dearest sons, so pass through this life that we too may see that great vision.  Let us follow in the footsteps of our blessed Father Benedict.  We have an utterly direct way by which to go:  his Rule and his teaching.  If we hold on to this as we should and if we persevere in it, surely we will arrive where he is.

SECOND SERMON FOR THE FEAST OF SAINT BENEDICT