02 Jul June 2026 Digest

Greetings, and welcome to another opportunity to catch up with life here at Mucknell. As you’ll see, we’ve had a fair few things on this month, which accounts for the slight lateness of this post. So without further ado, read on!

Garden and Grounds

The kitchen garden and the wider estate are bursting with life: fruit and vegetables are growing and ripening, and cooks are holding their breath waiting for the deluge of courgettes to begin. The grounds are looking beautiful; we seem to have a good number of butterflies this year, along with all the usual avian and other residents. The birds have been proving slightly troublesome in the kitchen garden: we didn’t quite get the cherry trees netted in time and so the crop has not been the best this year. What there was, though, was delicious as ever, and the raspberries have had another excellent year – plenty of jam on the horizon!

The wildflower patch at the front of the monastery has also been at its peak recently, providing another valuable source of biodiversity.

We also had some days given over to kitchen garden work this month; one job here was to tidy up the boot room, where we keep all of our outdoor gear. Given that there were more pairs of wellies than community members, it was needed – the picture below shows everything that was taken out and found to be either beyond use, or without an owner:

Welcoming visitors

It was a great joy to welcome about 30 people from Highworth and Shrivenham, the two Methodist churches for which Br. Ian now has responsibility. I had the great joy of visiting them back in March, and sharing a little of our Benedictine life; this then was the next in what we hope will be a series of visits and encounters as we get to know one another. Despite the weather not entirely cooperating, some hardy souls went with Br. Cassian for a tour of the grounds, while others stayed closer to the building with myself and Br. Philip for a tour round the building, garden and chapel. There then followed a Q & A session with Abbot Thomas and Br. Michaël, and the afternoon was rounded off with tea together in the Refectory.

New boilers

Regular readers of the blog will be well aware of the ongoing boiler issues we’ve been having over the past 9 months or so. We are therefore delighted to have had both of our boilers replaced – both the biomass, and the LPG backup. The new biomass boiler seems to be altogether too clever for its own good, and so we’re still learning its ways, but hopefully all will be well.

A new priest

As you may remember, Br. Michaël was ordained as a deacon last September; it was a very great joy to welcome family, friends and a couple of bishops for his ordination to the priesthood, which took place here at the Abbey on Sunday 28th. As Michaël explained to me at some length, putting together a service which was acceptable to Michaël himself, two bishops, and Abbot Thomas involved no small amount of back and forth, as various theological and liturgical questions were discussed and ironed out. The service was presided over by Bishop Anne, our Bishop-Visitor, and Bishop Hugh, the Bishop of Worcester preached the sermon. The day was both glorious and solemn, and the wide range of guests from across the diocese and far beyond bore witness to the great love and esteem that surrounds Br. Michaël in his various ministries.

The celebrations didn’t end there – the following day was the Feast of St. Peter and St. Paul, and Br. Michaël’s first Eucharist as priest. Again, a solemn and beautiful occasion, with great clouds of incense filling the chapel. We waited until they had dispersed somewhat before taking this photo:

Rocky caught in subletting scandal!

Another function of our boot room is as part of Rocky’s suite of accommodation; his food bowls are in the boot room, as is a very little used bed – he tends to prefer Br. Stuart’s room most of the time. As part of tidying the boot room (see above), we uncovered a mouse nest hidden away behind Rocky’s box, stuffed with biscuits that had very obviously been pilfered from Rocky’s bowl. Rocky has yet to offer an explanation for this state of affairs…we’ll be keeping a close eye from now on!

And finally…

One of the hymns Br. Michaël chose for his ordination was St. Patrick’s Breastplate: “I bind unto myself today”. In reflecting, I’ve been particularly struck by the fourth verse:

I bind unto myself today

The virtues of the star-lit heaven,

The glorious sun’s life-giving ray,

The whiteness of the moon at even,

The flashing of the lightning free,

The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,

The stable earth, the deep salt sea,

Around the old eternal rocks.”

This verse sits as an equal in the midst of perhaps more ‘traditional’ images of God and faith: Christ’s Incarnation, His baptism, the great love of Cherubim, the Prophet’s scrolls, the power of God, the wisdom of God, the strong name of the Trinity. To see creation in this company is to see it as shot through with the glory of God, a site of revelation, inspiration, something that we can hold to ourselves alongside so many other ways of experiencing and seeing God. As the beauty of summer is evident all around us, I hope and pray that we might see God present in all that he has created.