'The Monastery'

BBC2 has just concluded a series of programmes in which five men stayed at Worth Abbey, a Roman Catholic monastery, for forty days. They were required to join the monks for the regular six (or was it seven?) church services a day, take part with the monks in serving meals and physical work to maintain the Abbey and grounds, receive teaching from the abbot and spend time regularly with an individual spiritual counsellor. None of the men was a bornagain Christian, indeed, most had had little contact with `church'. I found it a very moving experience to see the men confront themselves and their pasts and come up against the (apparent?) inner calm of the monastic life. The weekly programmes showed how, out of their inner conflicts, were coming real signs that the Holy Spirit was entering their lives. A recent follow-up programme, a weekend re-union about eighteen months after their stay, showed how much the men's lives had changed for the better: a former Northern Ireland paramilitary with substantial experience of jail now works for a charity, giving talks in prisons to inmates about how his life has altered; another has been accepted for training for the priesthood; a third has given up his former sleazy job but cannot find a church where he can stomach the other Christians - "they're all ******* fakes"! (Obviously he's never been to this church). A similar series, `The Convent', with five women starts shortly: perhaps we should all watch it and pray for them, and for the men, too.

Derek Greasley