Joachim Enjuanes Latorre was born on 14 April 1908 in Laguarres, province of Huesca, Aragon , Spain. After receiving primary school teaching in his home town, he was recruited around the age of twelve, for the Abbey of New Norcia, in far off Australia, by the prior of El Pueyo Monastery, acting on behalf of Abbot Catalan. He continued his secondary studies along with others destined for New Norcia, Manila and El Pueyo itself. On 30 November 1924, age 16, he moved to Italy and entered the novitiate in the monastery of St. Nicholas de Boshetto, where other monks destined for New Norcia had proceeded him. His first monastic profession as a monk of New Norcia was made at Boshetto on 10 November 1925. Dom Mauro, as he was now known, left the next day to depart, from Barcelona, never to see his father again, who died in 1946, five years prior to his first trip back from New Norcia.

Fr. Maur retained a lively memory of people he met and events involving him throughout his long life, as the transcribed oral history published in the New Norcia Studies journal, in connection with his 90^th. birthday, charmingly illustrated. After a four week voyage, he reached Fremantle on 22 December 1925. He followed the usual course of philosophical and theological studies for the priesthood, making his solemn profession as a Benedictine on 29 July 1929.

Unlike other Spanish monks, Dom Maur completed his studies in the monastery. He was ordained to the priesthood in St. Mary’s Cathedral, Perth, by the then Coadjutor Archbishop Redmond Prendiville on 21 December 1933. He served as chaplain to St. Gertrudes College and resident director of St. Mary’s Orphanage for Aboriginal boys 1934-1951. After this, he was curator of the monastery art gallery and gatekeeper/guest master until 1954 and thence to Kalumbaru Mission until 1958.

Returning to New Norcia, he resumed his previous role and took classes in Latin, Spanish, Italian and Church History. His first Latin student was a certain James Knox of St. Ildephonsus College, who was about to begin his studies for the diocesan priesthood in the Abbey. His having introduced him to mensa mensae became a life long boast of his, as James Knox went on to become Archbishop of Melbourne in 1967, with Dom Maur enjoying the train trip to attend the installation. He was later to catch up with him again, as Cardinal Knox, when passing through Rome en route to Spain in 1975.

Fr. Maur’s first visit to his homeland was in 1951, his mother being then still alive. Over the next forty years he made several more visits, eventually braving the risks of air travel and even coming to enjoy it.

Understandably the Spanish Civil War loomed large in Fr. Maur’s life. In August 1936, a month or so after that war started, the whole monastic community of El Pueyo, where he had lived from 1921 – 1924, was put to death by the Communists, after first being imprisoned in nearby Barbastro. He used to lament the damage done to the parish church in his hometown during the occupation by the Reds.

Fr. Maur loved the liturgy, retaining a nostalgic memory of its pre Vatican II expression and he never tired of singing the praises of Fr. Stephen Moreno and his sacred music compositions. He tried many times to get support for an undertaking to accomplish a complete recording of Dom Moreno’s twenty masses and other works. I wonder how many Spanish visitors left here bearing a large envelope containing a photocopied list of his compositions, with the promise of the great spiritual and devotional gains to be had by their publication.

He was a man of simple tastes in most things, childlike, passionate, prayerful – ‘a true Israelite in whom there was no guile’. His humour was such that tears would course down his cheeks, when he came to a funny part of the story, to the amazement of his listeners.

He struggled with a scrupulous conscience for much of his life. However his faith in our Divine Lord always allowed him to return to a cheerful outlook after a relapse into excessive introversion.

In his last few years, he became less and less mobile, moving around with the aid of a frame. He was eventually admitted into the care of ‘The Little Sisters of the Poor’ at Glendalough in May 2003. He surprised all by how well he settled in there. He was lovingly looked after there and could be more easily visited by some of his old Perth friends and in fact made many new friends among the residents there.

He last visited New Norcia for Fr. John’s first Mass on February 2 this year and it could be seen by all how much thinner he was. His mental faculties were undimmed right to the end and he said as he was being taken to hospital on the Wednesday – ‘I want to die today’. Fr. Abbot Placid visited him the following evening and gave him the anointing of the sick He went to God shortly after 4.00pm Friday afternoon. May he enjoy the high place in heaven, he always aspired to.

When we begin a retreat, it is best always to go back to first principles. As there are principles and rules in any other science or art, so also there are of ascetics. But in the supernatural sphere nothing is arbitrary or fixed - as if we had only to flick a switch and the light would come on.

In the spiritual life, just as in business matters, we need to keep the real end in view and not waste energy on small things that are really of no importance. Common sense is necessary for us. There must be no red tape, that is, doing things from mere routine. We see so much of this in government organisations. Officials are very particular that things should be written out in proper form and passed from one clerk to another - but that is all. Nothing is done, unless some individual or other takes the matter up and gets it through. In a well-managed business you will find none of this. Suppose in an illness we treated symptoms instead of trying to cure the disease, what would be the result? For instance in measles, suppose we powdered the spots instead of treating the cause from inside? The end must always be kept in view.

Therefore, in retreats, we come back to the real ends in view – the principal means to the End. It is very important to have perfectly simple views and principles and to come back to them often, we can't have too much of them. St. Benedict might have contented himself with drawing up rules for the arrangement of the day as it was lived at Monte Cassino. But no - he begins with a prologue giving a few simple truths in simple language - Why do we come to the monastery? Why are we called? What is the end in view? He makes sure that we should come with a right intention. We come under obedience because God has called us. The end is to serve God with an expanded heart - with joy - and to get to heaven. External observances do not matter. If anyone can think of a better way of arranging the psalms for the Divine Office, let him do it.

Now let us think of the very end of all things - or perhaps we should say the beginning. Why did God choose to make us? It cannot be for anything outside Himself. It cannot be for the glory we give Him. Therefore, it must be for Himself. His glory necessarily follows as a secondary end. Thus, a baker makes bread, the bread is made to be eaten, but the first intention of the baker in making it, is that he may be paid for it. So God does indeed make us for His own glory, but beyond that He makes us because He wants to pour out His own goodness. The (first) Vatican Council says - ‘Why did God make the world? The One True God, by His goodness and omnipotent power, created the world, not to increase His beatitude but to manifest His perfection by the goodness that He gives to creatures’. Goodness is diffusive of itself. Charity consists in giving. Love however, includes every sort of affection. There is the love of desire (to desire God is right, but hope is not charity, although placed next to it). Then there is the love of complacency (love by which we enjoy what we have). But I use the word charity, not ‘love’. God, being charity, God-given - He has created us because He wanted to give. In the Blessed Trinity, He gives Himself wholly to the Son. Father and Son give themselves wholly to the Holy Ghost. But in that perfect happiness which He had in Himself, He saw that He could give happiness to creatures - the happiness of knowing and loving Himself which is His chief perfection.

He created us to give to us. He has given us all - body, soul, nature and free-will. He has also given us grace to unite us to His glory in heaven, that we may know Him as He knows Himself and love Him as He loves Himself. As St Thomas says – ‘In heaven we shall be gods’. God does not act as creatures do, out of desire of the end, because He has all, but from love of the end. He made us out of love and because He did not will to be loved by machines, he gave us free will. If we could see Him face to face we would be compelled to love Him. Therefore, He has created us so that we could know something of Him and yet be free to choose. He has given us the chance to choose Him or refuse Him - He will be loved freely.

From our point of view, we may say that He wants to get, as well as to give, because He wants us to love Him. This thought will help us to love Him, to answer His love by our acts of love, no matter how poor they may be. So God has as His end – heaven. Earth is only the means, a time of probation.

What is this love that God has? We love Him because He first loved us - that first love He had because He made the world. He has given us all we have and He wants to give Himself as our End in heaven. All He wills is through love. This puts us in our right position with God.

It may seem strange to you that I begin this retreat with a conference on the love of God, but not so, for it is the foundation of all - the love for Himself. That is why I am here - to love God in Himself and to see all in His love.

(Notes taken by a participant at a retreat given by Dom John Chapman in 1921.)

Henry Chapman, the son of an Anglican canon of Ely Cathedral, was educated privately and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he received a first in Classical Greats. He was ordained deacon in 1889. However, he was subsequently received into the Catholic Church at the Brompton Oratory in 1890. He entered the Benedictine Abbey of Maredsous in Belgium, where he was professed in 1895, taking the name of John.

After priestly ordination in 1895, he went to Erdington, near Birmingham, an English foundation of Maredsous, where he lived until 1912. In 1913, he was made temporary superior of the Caldey Abbey community when it entered the Catholic Church in 1913-14. On the outbreak of the 1914-18 war, he became army chaplain to the British forces and in 1919 transferred his stability to Downside Abbey. In 1929, he was elected Abbot. He died on 7th November 1933.

He was thought by competent critics to be the greatest patristic scholar of his age. He read both Greek and Latin with the greatest facility and also read and wrote French, Italian and German with similar ease. Many of his contributions to patristic and biblical scholarship have proved of lasting value, especially his work on St Cyprian, St. John the Presbyter of Papias and on the priority of the Gospel of St. Matthew (that is, he argued compellingly that the Gospel of Matthew was the first gospel to be written).

He was a leading authority in his day on prayer, the spiritual life and mystical theology and his writings remain of perennial value, especially his Spiritual Letters.

As Abbot of Downside, he carried on the work of Abbot Butler and Abbot Ramsay during his short term of four years, cut short by his death. He completed the transformation of Downside into a modern abbey in the mainstream of Benedictine tradition and was the founder of Worth Abbey in 1933.

He had a brilliant mind and was a fascinating conversationalist and a much sought-after spiritual director. He was also a talented pianist and a Christian humanist in the finest tradition. I count myself proud that with seven other young men, I was clothed by him at Downside on 25th September 1932 and made my first religious profession under his rule a year and a day later. His life has always proved a great inspiration to me.

MOUNT ATHOS –The Holy Mountain

Some general comments from the Mt. Athos web site.

The Twenty Ruling Monasteries of Mount Athos

Holy Monastery of Megistilavra

Founded 963 AD

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Vatopedion

Founded 4^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Tviron

Founded 963 AD

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Helandarion

Founded 10^th Century

Serbian Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Dionysos

Founded 14^thCentury Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery

of Koutloumous

Founded 10^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery

of Pantokrator

Founded 14^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery

of Xiropotamos

Founded 5^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery

of Zografos

Founded 10^th Century

Bulgarian Orthodox

Holy Monastery

of Dochiarios

Founded 10^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Karakalos

Founded 11^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Filotheos

Founded 10^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Simonpetras

Founded 13^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Saint Pavlos

Founded 10^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Stayronikitas

Founded 10^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Xenophon

Founded 10^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Gregorios

Founded 14^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Esfigmenos

Founded 5^th Century

Greek Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Panteleimon

Founded 11^th Century

Russian Orthodox

Holy Monastery of Kastamonitis

Founded 4^th Century

Greek Orthodox

The territory of Mount Athos is situated in the entire third, eastern and most beautiful peninsula of Halkidiki, called the peninsula of Athos. It is the only place in Greece that is completely dedicated to prayer and worship of God. For this reason, it is called the Holy Mount. The Holy Mount is about 50 Km in length, 8 to 12 Km in width and it covers an area of about 350 square kilometres. The mount itself, that dominates the whole peninsula, is a huge cone of 2,033 metres in height. It’s a naked, treeless crest that seems to lance the sky and its slopes are fully covered by ancient evergreens. All these help to create an area of incomparable natural beauty.

This autonomy of the ‘self-ruled monastic state’ originates from a goat parchment signed and sealed by the Byzantine Emperor Ioannis Tsimiskis in 972 AD. This important document is preserved in the House of the Holy Administration in Karyes. Independence of the Holy Mount was later confirmed again by Emperor Alexios Komninos in 1095 AD. The Holy Mount continues as a self-governed part of the Greek state, subject to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its political aspect and to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as regards its religious aspect. It has been divided into twenty self-governed territories. Each territory consists of a cardinal monastery and some other monastic establishments that surround it (cloisters, cells, cottages, sketes, hermitages). The architectural structure of the monasteries and the coenobitic cloisters consist of a cluster of sequential high buildings, which enclose an inner courtyard. These buildings were also a defensive shield and give the monasteries of Athos peninsula their characteristic castle-like appearance. There are also towers with embrasures. The portal is usually tunnel-shaped for defence purposes and is closed by heavy iron-sheeted wooden gates. Outside and near the main entrance there is usually a roomy kiosk with an open view. Near the centre of the paved interior courtyard, is the most important part of the monastery, the central church that is called ‘katholikon’ and opposite, on the west, there is the refectory. Other basic parts of a monastery are the assembly room and the administration offices, the guesthouse, the monks’ quarters, the library and the sacristy. In front of the west entrance of the main church, there exists an ornate marble washstand containing holy water. Within the courtyard, there is a fountain with fresh water. Little chapels are interspersed at various points of the monastery. All the monasteries have their liturgy, prayer, housing, nourishment and work among their monks. The Superior of each monastery, being elected by the monks for life, is responsible for it’s affairs. All the Superiors of the monasteries are members of the Holy Assembly and exercise legislative authority.

In the middle of the peninsula of Athos, established in the 9^th century and in a charming verdant area, is situated the capital of the monastic community – Karyes. The church of Protatos is the most important building of the capital. Its name originates from the axiom of the First, that is, the oldest church of the Mountain (built at the beginning of the 10^th century) and belongs to all the monasteries of Athos. Nearby is situated the building of the Holy Community, which is used as the head office of the legislative and administrative divisions of the city. On the north-east side of Karyes, there is the school that for the last sixty years has prepared hundreds of young men for the monastic life. In the town of Karyes there are also the ‘Konakia’ that house representatives of all the monasteries as well as shops, workshops and public services such as a bank, post office, customs office and so on.

According to tradition, the Virgin Mary with John the Evangelist, on their way to visit Lazarus in Cyprus, encountered a stormy sea that forced them to temporarily seek refuge in the port that is now the Holy Monastery of Tviron. The Virgin Mary, admiring the wild beauty of the place, asked God to give her the mountain as a present. Then the voice of our Lord was heard saying: ‘Let this place be your lot, your garden and your paradise, as well as a salvation, a haven for those who seek salvation’. Since then, Mount

Athos is considered as ‘The Garden of the Virgin Mary’.

The number of visitors allowed to visit Mount Athos, according to the Protocol of the monastic state, are limited to 120 per day. Visitors can go by road (by private car or by bus) from Thessalonika, to either Ierissos, Nea Roda or Ouranoupolis. The distance is around 140 kilometres. From one of these towns the tourist catches the boat to Mount Athos. Activities such as singing, dancing, swimming, sunbathing are disapproved of and there are restrictions on filming, musical instruments, cars, bikes, hunting etc.

A little man called my name and came forward holding a document and a pamphlet. Across the document in Greek capitals was printed ‘DIAMONITIRION’. The document was dated Karyes, 20^th April 1975. It carried five names; the first being mine, the others were signatures of the four representatives of the twenty ruling monasteries forming the current administration of the monastic republic of Mount Athos.

I had finally arrived, after five days gruelling travel from North Wales, at Karyes, capital of Athos. The coveted ‘Diamonitirion’ entitled me to free hospitality (donation accepted) at each of the twenty principal monasteries and any other monastic settlement with a guesthouse. The Russian monastery was and possibly still is, an exception due to its reduced circumstances. Primitive though life can be on Athos, even for a visitor, it was a relief after the journey by so-called modern civilized transport. A temporary check to my plans had made me cancel a flight booking, following a misguided trip to a cinema in Rhyl to see Agatha Christie’s ‘Orient Express.’ This suggested to me that a journey overland would be a suitably romantic approach. This famous train turned out to be elusive and incredibly uncomfortable. Not till we were trundling through Yugoslavia had we any confidence that we were in a carriage definitely bound for our desired destination. Conditions resembled those of wartime transportation of forced labour. Even water was frequently unobtainable. Soon after Venice, a close reading of the timetable disclosed that our arrival at Thessalonika would be a day later than expected. We were discharged finally on to the wet streets of St. Paul’s city in the small hours of Good Friday.

On Holy Saturday morning we made our way to the back street, where two coaches waited in the dark for passengers to Ouranoupolis. Having completed this trip, we took the boat from Ouranoupolis to Mt. Athos, the visitor being obliged to report first at Karyes, the capital. The handy guide published by the Patriarchs Institute of Patristic Studies advises you that a bus waits at the little Athonite port of Daphne to transport visitors to Karyes and that this bus is ‘full of small icons and NO signs’. The alternative is a climb of two and a half hours. The bus did the five or six mile journey in one hour, stalling, revving like mad and sometimes you felt, on three wheels with the fourth over the edge.

The Athos peninsula is some fifty kilometres long. Most of the monasteries overlook the sea on either coast. Karyes is roughly central and the seaward end rises to the peak of Athos. The mountain walls fall so abruptly to the sea that there are no large monasteries, only several monastic villages and the desert where hermits live, isolated and barely accessible. It is just about possible to walk round the slopes of the mountain in the course of the usual seven day visit, or to go from monastery to monastery by boat. If you omit this more interesting end of the peninsula and take the monasteries to the north-east of Karyes, going would be easier, again by track or by boat. I chose to go round the mountain, sometimes on foot and sometimes by sea, visiting eight monasteries and one village.

Our first call was at Stayronikitas, about ninety minutes walk from Karyes, on the further coast. The present buildings are sixteenth century and later, with the ‘Katholikon’ (principal church of the monastery, for there are usually several), listed as the smallest on Athos. It is so small that it is lost in the depths of the courtyard. From my third floor room I looked down on to its dome. As you approach, Stayronikitas resembles a fortified house, or a very domestic fortress. A fairly recent account of Athos had described this monastery as in a state of decline, but today this was far from true. Debts have been paid off, the brethren have gone cenobitic, (formerly each monk lived in his own apartments, the ‘idiorhythmic’ style, still followed in several houses on Athos). There are two types of ‘cloisters’- the coenobitic skete and the idiorythmic skete. The first, both in architecture and life-style, follows the typical model of a monastery. In contrast, the second is rather like a small village and daily life there, is much like that of a ‘cell’, but there are also some duties for the community. The revival of Stayronikitas is apparent in the frieze of modern painting of scenes of monastic life on the walls of the guest parlour.

The first person we met here pacing the garden, was a white habited French Benedictine of Fleury, who at present lives a hermit life somewhere in the south of France. Our next encounter was with the guest-master, Swiss from a German-speaking area, who also spoke French and English. He had left Roman Catholicism for Orthodoxy. I learned later that he was not in fact a member of the Stayronikitas community but was on loan from an Orthodox house on the mainland.

The Abbot here is said to be one of the more ecumenically minded and also French-speaking. He looked youthful, middle-aged and intelligent, but I had no opportunity to speak with him as our visit covered Holy Saturday night, not a time to seek interviews. They had difficulty finding beds for us but they need hardly have bothered – I was in church from 8pm to 4am! The French hermit staggered out long before I did.

If your familiarity with Byzantine worship comes from attending a Ukrainian, Russian or Greek Church, then an Athonite service will come as a bit of a shock. The proclamation of Easter took place in the courtyard and when we returned to the church, the great chandelier in the dome had been set twirling. It was still twirling hours later. I cannot think how they set it going, nor why it does not incur the risk of crashing down in the midst of the community. If you have seen the Buckfast corona, it will give you an idea of the size of these chandeliers. I was told its movement – its dance – expresses the joy of the angels.

Stayronikitas, for all it’s apparent sobriety, was good at effects. Before dawn, monks in the bell tower began to play a carillon. It continued at intervals till we left in mid-morning. It was such a jolly little tune that I nicknamed our first monastery ‘The Town of Titipu’.

To be completed in the next newsletter.

I knew I was going to have trouble with Conversion, from the very first moment of the novice year before my final Oblation. I understood Stability and Obedience and this understanding would deepen the more I studied the Rule of St Benedict, but Conversion baffled me because I really had no idea what I was aiming for.

I knew that it was not just a matter of changing my pub or having my ears pierced, but just what was this Conversion and how should it take place? As far as I knew, I was living 'a good Catholic life’ although admittedly not that of a Benedictine and I simply could not find a way into the concept of Conversion.

Light eventually dawned and the source was unexpected. I happened to be once more delving into Guy-Marie Oury's beautiful book ‘St. Benedict, blessed by God’, when I came across a passage that stunned me. ‘Benedict's life is not so much Benedict being present to God as God being present to him. The immensity of this objective presence filled his inner world. Before our gaze upon God, there is God's gaze upon us and St Benedict had a deep sense of God being there, present and gazing upon him, the living and seeing God’.

What follows from this is that God cannot be present in our lives unless we make space for Him. If our lives are cluttered with the irrelevances of sin and the occasions of sin that 'the real world' throws at us, then there will be no space left for God. No space for His love, no space for His guidance, no space for His hand to reach out when we need Him.

St. Benedict understood this very well. He did not write his Rule because he was an obsessed administrator, but because he knew that the well-ordered community he defined so precisely, would drive out the irrelevances of life and thus make space for God to take His rightful place in the community. What is good enough for St Benedict is good enough for me and it was on this concept that I worked for the remaining months of my novice year.

There was a tiny, very faint, cloud on the horizon when I considered free will, but this soon disappeared when I realised that the very act of clearing my life to make space for God and then to ask Him to come in and guide me was itself a demonstration of the free will He had given me.

There is much more to Conversion of course. It is not enough for us, at some stage, to lean back and say - ‘Well, that's Conversion completed. I have asked God to fully enter into my life and the rest is up to Him’. Exactly the opposite is true. The life that results from the process of Conversion, is a living, vital thing. Jesus, who knew just what 'the real world' is if anyone did, was so vital, so untiring, so dedicated to the service of His fellow men, so anxious to comfort, so patient to explain, so willing to suffer, that He is for us the very personification of living this life to the full. It is up to us. It is we who must provide the motive power, the drive, in our lives. Even if God is showing us the way, we can hardly expect Him to pedal up the hills whilst we sit back. He is there, of course, always present, always looking on us with loving concern, but it is we who, through our own God-given free will, must take the responsibility for our own destiny.

What the process of Conversion can give us, is the opportunity so to live our lives, not only for ourselves but also for others, so that, when the time comes, we shall travel a path which leads effortlessly from this life into the joy of eternity. We must pray for this. St Paul says – ‘Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed.’(Rom. 12:1-2).

It is a tremendous undertaking, much larger than we can perhaps imagine, but we must carry on working away at it because the rewards are great, not only for us, but for every one of God's creatures with whom we come in contact.

MEETING PLACE

PRAYER LIST

ITEMS OF INTEREST

OUR END - THE LOVE OF GOD

DOM JOHN CHAPMAN - (1865-1933) - 4th Abbot of Downside

The Twenty Ruling Monasteries of Mount Athos

Holy Monastery

Holy Monastery

Holy Monastery

Holy Monastery

Holy Monastery