The whole Congress was such an affirmation to me of my rightful place as an oblate and my personal road being the Rule. It was truly a spiritual, emotional, intellectual watershed at a chronological time in my life when I am approaching life-changing decisions for my family and myself. Thus has it been all my life, unexpected and unforeseen, the Lord has placed me or intervened with me, to direct my future existence in some fashion. It was truly the experience of, and for, a lifetime. I do not exaggerate!
Let me ‘throw’ a few facts at you that I did not know, though perhaps some of you will be aware of this already, currently in the Benedictine Community worldwide, there are 8,000
Male Religious – 16,000 Women Religious. There are also over 25,000 oblates and around
50,000 followers of the Rule.
The other outstanding facet of the Congress for me was the all-embracing attraction of and devotion to the Holy Rule. By this I mean, judging by the various faiths present at the
Congress the heritage and spirituality of our Benedictine way appeals to far more than Roman
Catholics.
In our week-old community of 210, plus guest speakers, day visit observers etc I saw
Anglicans, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, Methodists and even Mennonites and Baptists.
These included women ordained but these religious were not in the majority among their brethren.
While I am on this theme of ‘many colours’ at a very varied congress, I might mention that, at my by no means final count, there were people from Saipan/Japan, Korea, Vietnam,
Philippines, Australia and New Zealand, Hawaii, Toga, India, Montserrat, Puerto Rico,
United States, Mexico, Trinidad, Tasmania, Canada, Spain, Holland, France, Germany,
Ghana, Nigeria, Belgium and of course both Irelands and our dear, dear friends from the UK.
Our Ireland/U.K. delegation was about 17 strong plus us four Irish, three representing
Glenstal and one, an Englishman, Peter Stobart, representing Rostrevor in Northern Ireland.
There are four Benedictine Houses, as you probably know in Ireland – Glenstal / Rostrevor /
Kylemore Abbey / Cobh, the last two being female monasteries.
The UK has approximately 35 monasteries but not all these have oblates although most requested to be kept informed of goings-on at the Congress!!
Our delegation was led fortuitously, by a wonderful English/Italian lady called Zina Neagle.
Throughout she proved to be beyond wonderful. For three years she and an increasingly smaller committee, along with Fr. Henry O’Shea (Glenstal) and the Organising Committee in
Rome had laboured to bring the Congress to life. And in our week, she was everywhere, never once ‘neglecting’ us in any way despite being also on the staff helping the overworked organising committee.

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We had daily meetings as a national UK and Irish delegation group, plus special meetings when we were involved in workshops, preparations for the daily office and the liturgy. Each language group led the prayers etc for a day with the English speaking countries having two days allocated to them due to the large number of English speaking countries represented.
Latin was used extensively – God bless my living during and remembering pre-Vatican II and my much loved services in both language eras!
Looking back, my abiding sense is a pervasive one of ongoing prayer/worship, involving all our senses and every one of us. Usually we started at 7.30am with Lauds/Matins, went onto
Vespers, Eucharist and finally Compline. So obviously, our basic routine was completely monastic.
In addition, we had other ‘one-offs’, such as Installation of the Word (in the Conference
Hall); formal Recitation of the Holy Rosary under Don Bosco’s statue of Our Lady, to my own intense pleasure, on the feast of the Rosary/Anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto; and a silent procession to St. Anselmo’s. A few mornings, there was also a voluntary meditation session of half hour circa 6.30/7.00am led by one of my dear English friends. 30 to 40 people usually attended here.
We were housed in the most magnificent Salesian Conference Centre about 20 miles from
Rome’s centre which had full multi-lingual capable Conference Hall, with the most exquisite grounds. One night, I spent three hours walking up and down its lovely Italianate drive with our leader talking about our family lives, spiritual journey and where God might want either of us to go from here!
I will not dwell much on the formal Conference sessions themed around ‘Religious
Challenges and Interfaith Dialogue’, all quite fascinating, eye-opening and mind expanding.
They were most efficiently conducted and usually chaired by our own monk Fr. Henry.
These latter, I subjectively felt, were the more interesting, memorable and certainly more entertaining sessions! One particularly fascinating session and one which got by far the greatest reaction was by Mother Maire Hickey, now of Kylemore Abbey, but formally, which was a fantastic unique position for an Irish person, Abbess of a great German Monastery.
Formidable and respect inspiring in both public and private she made a lasting impression on all who met her. The official website will have a record of her talk on these sessions, so I leave it at that and concentrate, on a personally based report.
Overall, we had four official trips during the Congress. The first on the Sunday to partake of the Holy Father’s Angelus in St. Peter’s Square – amazing! Afterwards, a kind Mennonite friend and a young lay Canon Lawyer, working for the Belgian Bishop’s Conference, led me and two others on a 17 Church foot-tour of Rome. Fantastic, but I was glad of a sit down with an ice cream!
The second trip, in many ways the highlight of the four which was to the Sacro Speco in
Subiaco. An American monk Fr. Ambrose, and his young year-long lay volunteers from the
Monastery of St. John’s in Minnesota, gave us a fascinating tour of this Monastery, clinging to the side of a steep hill and fountain of Benedict’s own origins and the Rule. It also

3 demonstrated that more than Cassino was bombed, as the good Sisters (foundress – St.
Scholastica) Abbey, down in its valley had been so badly destroyed that the nuns only returned in 1993 and then to a totally new, conservatory-style building beside the ruins.
The ‘big’ third trip was to Monte Cassino, what can one say? We approached, having recited
Vespers on the bus, on a misty ‘Wicklow Mountain’ type day with the Citadel only gradually revealing itself. Its sheer height and sky touching aspect impossible to take in – no photo gives an idea of what it must been like to assault. From the gates, up one after another height
- enabling bend our bus went for perhaps 40 mins. After this it was a 10mins walk to the portcullis type gate.
The new young Italian Fr. Abbot here, who also has the ranks of a secular ‘signore’ (20 towns subject to him and his right to summon an ‘inspection’ ship if so inclined) was so very hospitable to us. He is in charge of 20 monks. He has the crowd-pleasing ability of a politician, but alongside both charm and holiness. He entertained us to lunch in the seldom used main refectory capable of seating 300 plus. Its previous guest to us was Pope Benedict and, I think I’m right in saying, our ladies were the first ladies to be served a hot meal by the
Community. Fr. Abbot spoke to us in English and celebrated for us his first ever Mass in
English. The Abbey’s restored art, sacred treasures are breath taking and its natural setting, with two higher mountains beside it being higher, are just beyond words. However, as the
American Government has paid the Italian Government to restore the monastery as a gesture of goodwill for bombing it in error, the restoration is still ongoing, and it employs both over strict uniformed and non-uninformed guards. Even the so helpful and informed guides kept locking doors – I did find it a little oppressive. One sobering fact of 1944 we learned was that all 12 remaining monks there survived the bombing. But the Rule’s golden thread of
Christ-like hospitality was violated by the deaths of 600 civilians seeking protection. Ironic in the extreme. The Polish cemetery, over 1,000 died taking the monastery, where formerly no Germans had been, watches gracefully from a nearby hill.
A story which I heard, but cannot vouch for, is that it was an oblate, a German Army Officer, who conspired with the wartime Abbot, to remove and safely store in Rome the ancient and sacred removable artefacts of the Seat of Benedict. Thus all survived and give glory to God still. We learned also, that our oldest oblate present (with his wife), a Knight of Malta, had fought near this place as a Canadian paratrooper, in that terrible winter of 1943/44. He had previously fought in North Africa and went on to serve in Southern France. At the time, he told us the ordinary Allied soldier, considered the non-precision bombing to be utterly uncalled for. Over 7,000 died plus many thousands of Germans during the assault on the mountain.
Our fourth and last trip was to St. Anselmo’s College and seat of the Abbot Primate, Notker
Wolf. We formed a silent thought provoking procession there, thinking of the Christian
Martyrs killed not far from here. The first concelebrated Mass in modern times was celebrated in this college. All the Fathers of Vatican II attended to see how their liturgical directive turned out in practice!
Here our Congress came to its formal end with a lovely flute performance by the Abbot
Primate and a recital by two of the College’s students and a Spanish Brother Christof. This

4 was preceded by a true feeding of the 5,000. A moonlit meal on a beautiful Roman night in the lovely cloisters of the over-crowded college.
I met Fr. Luigi Bertocchi OSB, a native of the Republic of Venice (so he loved to claim), who organised the First World Oblate Congress in 2005, and is a Monk of St. John’s,
Minnesota with its oblates stretching from Japan to Kentucky was present. And you think, I come a long distance from Carlow to Glenstal!
Another persona I met was a Protestant lady minister who travels twice yearly to Minnesota from Ottawa (1,500 miles). Many, many others are attached to equally-distant monasteries.
Interestingly, a good many oblates are really DOING in many places – teaching, bringing choir children from Croatia, one Scottish lady with serious health problems living in Perth parish has spent six years helping Syro-Kirilan Catholics to integrate (many of them are now oblates). Perhaps the role of an oblate was best summed up by my friend, Sr. Benedict, an
Irish lady based over a long time in England ‘ Oblates have a prophetic role in today’s
World’. Perhaps we might consider this oblate connected active apostolate in the future?
The every moment of this Congress was a moment of grace in my lifelong search for faith, I know now even more certainly than before, God has a plan for me, Benedictine in outline and for such I must now search.
Abbot Primate, Notker Wolf is a wonderful, wonderful man, the oblates are so close to his heart and he longs so much to strengthen, increase and consolidate them. He longs for a network of some sort to be built, with Lectio at its core, with us thinking globally but acting locally. That’s our challenge between now and the next Congress.
I cannot find words to thank my Oblate Master, Fr. David Conlon, his assistant Fr. Columba and indeed Fr. Abbot Patrick for the truly great honour of allowing me to attend. Also, I place a sincere word of thanks on record to my fellow delegates, Geraldine White and Ann
McCarthy for being so supportive of me and with whom I had a lot of happy times especially on our last day in Rome.
Martin Lynch
14 November 2009