Monastery Development

October 2000

Papa Stronsay’s Chapel and Celtic Cross

Before Papa Stronsay was purchased in May 1999 we made two visits to the island. On the second visit Fr. Michael Mary was accompanied by Br. Marcel-Marie. They stayed on the island with the intention of spending some time in prayer and solitude asking Heaven’s blessing on the proposition.

Following the old Catholic practise they also consecrated the property by sprinkling it with blessed medals. These were medals of the Holy Face which they had been given in abundance from Australia and which they left on in stone walls and dropped along the island’s sea shore boundary. This act expressing their desire to see the island belonging in a special way to Our Lord by becoming again a holy monastery found its fulfilment on September 21 when the island’s new chapel was dedicated by Bishop Fellay under the title of the Holy Face chapel.

During the same visit Fr. Michael Mary and Br. Marcel Marie knelt down on the island’s rocky outcrop and promised Our Lord that if the island was purchased a Cross would be raised there. This has now been done. On the same day the bishop solemnly consecrated the granite Celtic Cross which stands where we promised Our Lord it would stand.

How wonderful these events have been: Centuries before the year 1000 AD monks and priests arrived on Papa Stronsay to live and die here. Their chapels dedicated to St. Bride and St. Nicholas are known to us; relics of the holy crosses they planted can still be discerned. In the year 1000 AD they could have been building St. Nicholas chapel (dated about the 11th century). Before all is completely lost and about 700 years after they had left these shores, in God’s Providence they return again. The priests’ holy island of Papa Stronsay now has a new chapel; one dedicated to honouring and offering reparation to the Holy Face of Jesus that was all covered with spittle and blood; and after all these centuries in the year 2000 the island has a new Holy Cross, one dedicated to their memory, the holy celtic and viking monks from the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages who found here their desert in the pathless sea.

November 2000

St Joseph's Building and the Chapel of the Holy Face

Thanks to the hard work of Mr Charles Smith and his workers from Stronsay, St Joseph’s—as our ‘new’ building is now called—has become a reality. Originally built in the 1800’s to house the workers of a fishing station, and used more recently as a lambing shed, the old building has been turned into four new cells (or rooms) for our novices, a common room, and a beautiful chapel.

Exterior view of St Joseph’s Building.
The left half contains four cells (rooms) and a common room,
and the right half is the Chapel of the Holy Face.

When speaking to our friends on 21 September, on the occasion of the blessing of the Chapel of the Holy Face, Bishop Fellay used the Scriptural text: “This is no other but the house of God, and the gate of heaven” (Gen 28:17). He explained that the blessing of the chapel in some way brings heaven into contact with earth. For the blessings of God do not stop with the Fathers and Brothers of Papa Stronsay, but God’s graces will continue to overflow from this chapel upon our neighbours on Stronsay, throughout the Orkneys, and indeed upon all souls throughout the world who are in need of His help.

The entire building was dedicated to St Joseph - the foster-father of Our Lord Jesus Christ - thanks to whom we were able to purchase Papa Stronsay last year.

The chapel in particular was dedicated to the Holy Face of Jesus, in reparation for blasphemies committed against His Holy Name. In the Prophecy of Isaias, we read: “We have seen Him despised, and the most abject of men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with infirmity. Surely He hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows; He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins. He hath borne the sins of many, and hath prayed for the transgressors.” (52:2-5, 12) And St Paul writes: “At the name of Jesus every knee should bend of those in heaven, on earth and under the earth” (Phil 2:10).

And so, as often as our neighbours see the lights of St Joseph’s go on every morning and evening, they can know that our confrères are sending up their prayers to Almighty God for the intentions of all our friends, neighbours, and benefactors, begging Him to give them the spiritual and temporal aids that they need during their earthly pilgrimage in this life, and eternal happiness in the next.

‘Before’ - Beyond all doubt the biggest news back on the home front
was the return of our boat, the Stella Maris, newly refurbished and, indeed,
unrecognisably improved after its sojourn at Mr R. Duncan’s boatyard at Burray in Orkney.
Here the Stella Maris as she was Before.

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