Day Thirty-Nine – Essentials and Necessities
Question: During this past year, the Brothers’ life together has been disrupted by the renovations happening at the Monastery. Has this affected the way you read and interpret the Rule?
Br. Geoffrey Tristram: Absolutely. So much of the Rule was written with the Monastery and Emery House in mind—how could it not have been? But the Rule has a quality of inherent flexibility, I think. In this past year, particularly for those Brothers living in rented accommodation in Cambridge while overseeing the renovation, we’ve not had a proper chapel, for instance, and that has required us to think more deeply about what is necessary, what is essential to our life, in order to sustain the rhythms of daily prayer and worship. We’ve done well, I think, but we’ll be very glad indeed to return!
When I attended the Eucharist in the Bunting Quad, my first thought was “Store Front Church”–no incense, no organ music, no space to kneel anywhere, no real candles. Somehow the holiness survived–the essential silence, the prayerfulness of the congregation, the solemn joy of the celebration.