Douai Abbey welcomes new Brother

Brother Aidan Messenger

Source: Oliver Holt

On Saturday 22 June, the Benedictine community of Douai Abbey, Woolhampton, were delighted to accept the Solemn Profession of Brother Aidan Messenger, aged 29.

In a solemn sung Mass attended by his family and friends, together with monks from other Benedictine monasteries in England and many of his fellow students from Blackfriars, the Dominican House of Studies in Oxford, Brother Aidan professed the traditional Benedictine vows of Stability, Conversatio Morum and Obedience.

Abbot Paul Gunter received Brother Aidan's vows, pronounced the special blessing for profession and, together with the other Douai monks, welcomed Brother Aidan as a full member of the Community.

Brother Aidan comes from Basingstoke and becomes the first monk in the history of the monastery since the arrival of the monks in England in 1903 to have lived so locally. Strangely, when the Community lived in Paris from their foundation in 1615, one monk is said to have come from the village of Beenham, less than a mile from the Abbey's present location.

Douai Abbey is the home for 13 resident monks; nine other monks live on parishes in the Midlands and the North of England, and also another who lives in Rome. The monks are responsible for the Catholics living in the area with churches at Pangbourne and Theale as well as the Abbey Church itself. One of the main activities of the monks is the ministry of hospitality to guests from far and wide.

Having made his Profession, Brother Aidan said: ''I sense that this is the place where God has called me to be.''