A Good and Gentle Abbot goes home...

Abbot Cuthbert Johnson, OSB died yesterday after a protracted illness.  He was a friend, a respected colleague and a man who said his prayers.  His deep love for the Lord Jesus and for his Church were evident to all who met him and he will be deeply missed.

Abbot Johnson was the fourth abbot of Quarr Abbey, having made his monastic profession there fifty years ago. He earned a doctorate at the Pontifical Liturgy Institute at Saint Anselmo’s in Rome and made significant contributions to the study of the musical and textual sources of the Roman Liturgy in the years to come.  Abbot Cuthbert served as an official of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments for eleven years and was a longtime advisor to the Vox Clara Committee.


Please join me in praying that this good monk know a full measure of the mercy of God and come to be with his father and brother, Saint Benedict, in the Kingdom of Heaven. Having worked beside the Good Abbot on the prayer for the feast of his patron, I can think of no more appropriate prayer than to sing the one which guided his life.


O God, 

who made the Abbot Saint Benedict
an outstanding master in the school of divine service,
grant, we pray,
that, putting nothing before love of you,
we may hasten with a loving heart
in the way of your commands.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 

one God, for ever and ever.