I made my first visit to Farnborough Abbey in Hampshire and wondered why I hadn’t been there sooner. Built by the Empress Eugénie as a memorial to her husband, Napoleon III, and her son, who was killed fighting with the British in the Zulu wars, the abbey church is in a flamboyant Gothic Revival style. But it’s small and intimate in feel. It also boasts a magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ.
When first built, the abbey was in the countryside. Now the town of Farnborough encircles it. But the monastery still owns 40 acres of land and but for the noise of the trains you would scarcely notice the town because trees surround the place on every side. It seems serendipitous that one can reach an oasis of monastic calm and peace in half an hour on a fast train from Waterloo.
No wonder so many people of my acquaintance make their way there for retreats and days of recollection, drawn not only by convenience, but also by the dignified liturgy and homely welcome from the Benedictine community.
Within the enclave the monks keep chickens, sheep and bees, adding to the rustic feel of the place. Some lambs in the field by the room where we had our conferences were more of an aid to contemplation than anything I said or did in the course of my retreat-giving. The sheep that belonged to the abbot knew his voice and would come when he called – and he knew them all by name.
I have heard it said that one should be able to pray anywhere. I would need to know in what tone of voice that is said in order to know whether it bears scrutiny. One could, after all, propose marriage or play the euphonium anywhere. But as human beings we recognise that certain places and conditions are conducive to the flourishing of certain activities. The older I get, the more I realise that there is a need to be connected to the natural world, the world of creation, in order to pray, and that the world of technology, splendid though it is in many ways, is inimical to prayer.
It is so for at least two reasons. The first is because all technology aims to maximise convenience and pleasure and minimise inconvenience and pain. Its remarkable success at facilitating just that can influence our own sense of what prayer is for and how it should proceed.
One cannot pray if one cannot be humble and our prayer easily acquires a technological slant, which is that I pray in order to defy the limits of my present condition, in order to find solutions and make my life work better.
Like the tower of Babel, I imagine that prayer is just a matter of perfecting the technos in order to touch the sky. In bringing us down to earth, the latest-born lamb in the field taught us far more about God than any technique of prayer could.
Digital technology is also robbing the human person of interiority, of the ability to exist for more than a few moments without visual, aural and cognitive stimuli on a scale which is unlimited. Reality itself is becoming virtual: unremarked unless its existence is confirmed through a screen or in the process of being recorded to be consigned to one. The moment exists to be recorded, not savoured.
See how the vast majority of people in St Peter’s Square reach for their camera the moment the Pope appears. What does this mean for the encounter with reality? It suggests that, in the end, we are fearful that without the ability to make a graven digital image the experience itself will not be sufficiently satisfying or meaningful.
Technology is actually teaching us to be afraid of (or at least underrate) any human experience it has not mediated. I can have thousands of “friends” I have never met, “followers” who have never set eyes on me and “likes” from those whose affirmation extends to the clicking a button. Despite the human-sounding names, the effect of this is dehumanising. Just read the comments thread at the end of almost any blog post if you doubt this.
Farnborough Abbey, an oasis of tranquillity and prayer set in the very midst of a town famed for its technology, perhaps bears a symbolic message in addition to its charms.
To find peace, man must return to contemplation of his true scale, which is calibrated against the created world and his connection to the One who took flesh in order to lift up human nature to the realm of the divine.
This article first appeared in the latest edition of the Catholic Herald magazine (17/7/15). Take up our special subscription offer – 12 issues currently available for just £12!
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