...at Minster Abbey., named for St Mildred and originally founded in the wake of St Augustine's arrival...
A fabulous, quiet day there. I went with D., who is secretary of the Catholic Writers' Guild, and on the evening before she gave an excellent dinner party at her London flat, lots of laughter and lively talk over a delicious meal. The next morning we were up early, to get to Minster in time for the morning office at 8.30am (the nuns get up even earlier and sing while all is still dark and the birds are just beginning to wake up...but we had to drive from London...).
Minster is glorious - the nuns singing, the familiar words of the psalms going back and forth, bluebells in the garden, lots of books to enjoy in a comfortable guest-house. There is a sort of farm-ish area they call Parkminster where there are ducks and a big barn they use for welcoming large groups of visitors, pilgrims, and groups studying crafts etc. The village has a couple of good pubs and we lunched there...
We agreed to be silent during the day, except for lunch, attended the nuns' Offices, enjoyed the grounds, read, wrote, sewed, rested. The final Office,Compline, was sung in Latin and followed by a time of silent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The chapel is very simple and attractive, the altar centred on a big chunk of glossy wood, the big windows beyond the altar clear glass giving views of the glorious trees and wide Kent sky. We drove back through a dusk still glowing with the remains of a pink sunset.
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