On the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, in the month of Mary St Michael’s Abbey launched The St Mary’s Subsistence Appeal. This is an urgent call for funds for our Benedictine Community at Farnborough Abbey in Hampshire, UK.   The community of 9, including novices and postulants, which has an average age of 36, live off the production of honey, its farm, book binding, and rent. This however does not cover the humble living requirements, and the need for private benefactors to support has become acutely necessary.   The funds raised will go towards food for the monks, education costs for the young monks in training for the priesthood, the completion of three monastic cells (bed rooms) that are not currently habitable and are needed for the growing community, and the creation of a modest, but positive, bank balance in the monks’ account.

The Abbot, Dom Cuthbert Brogan said “living so close to the line makes it hard for the young monks not to be distracted from their life of prayer, however we have great hope in this appeal and the generosity of people of good will”.   An anonymous benefactor said “it is great that such a healthy, growing Benedictine community, is looking confidently to its future, I hope others will join me in supporting them”.  St Michael’s Abbey was founded by Empress Eugénie of France in 1895, when living in exile with her husband Emperor Napoleon III. It is part of the Subiaco-Cassinese Congregation of Benedictines. The monks sing the daily round of offices as laid out in the Rule of St Benedict. The monastery has an excellent reputation for its liturgical tradition and its music. The monks are young and hard working and the monastery is one of the few attracting novices in England today. The full daily round of offices are sung in Latin in Gregorian Chant, and the Mass is offered according to the Extraordinary Form.