This website has a blog called THE PACHACAMAC POST and exists, like the blog, to promote the                             MONASTERY OF THE INCARNATION on the outskirts of Lima, Peru, a foundation of BELMONT ABBEY, HEREFORD, UK.    Most  of its posts will come from the blog and will constitute a permanent record here of the early history of this young community.   At present, in March, 2010, there are six Peruvian monks in vows, one English monk from Belmont who is the local superior, and one Peruvian postulant.   We are quite frequently visited by the Abbot of Belmont, Fr Paul Stonham, who founded the community and was local superior until 2,000, when he was elected abbot.

THE MONASTIC QUEST

To seek God in silence is as old as Christianity itself.   When Jesus went alone to pray on the mountain he started a trend that would continue down the ages up to the present day.   Those who make it their life's work are called 'monks'.   This is an "ecumenically monastic" websight that will that will share with you the monastic quest of a small community of Benedictine monks who live on the outskirts of Lima, Peru.    Our main website is in Spanish, but it is a highly proffessional job, with lots of photos and surprises.   You will find it at <www.monasteriodelaencarnacion.org>

As this is ecumenically monastic, thie life of this small, insignificant monastery must be seen within the context of all those brother monks and sister nuns who are seeking God all over the world, both in the Catholic Church to which we belong and in the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches 


This monastery belongs to the ENGLISH BENEDICTINE CONGREGATION

To seek God in silence is as old as Christianity itself.   When Jesus went alone to pray on the mountain he started a trend that would continue down the ages up to the present day.   Those who make it their life's work are called 'monks'.   This is an "ecumenically monastic" websight that will that will share with you the monastic quest of a small community of Benedictine monks who live on the outskirts of Lima, Peru.    Our main website is in Spanish, but it is a highly proffessional job, with lots of photos and surprises.   You will find it at <www.monasteriodelaencarnacion.org>

As this is ecumenically monastic, thie life of this small, insignificant monastery must be seen within the context of all those brother monks and sister nuns who are seeking God all over the world, both in the Catholic Church to which we belong and in the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox churches

FATHER AUGUSTINE BAKER O.S.B. 

Although the EBC claims technical canonical continuity with the congregation erected by the Holy See in 1216, that earlier English Congregation was destroyed at the dissolution of the monasteries in 1535-40. The present English Congregation was revived and restored by Rome in 1607-33 when numbers of Englishmen and Welshmen had become monks in continental European monasteries and were coming to England as missioners.

At the beginning of the 21st century the EBC has Houses in the United Kingdom, the United States, South America and Africa

The above was taken from the "Wiki".   Of course, we are the house in South America.  Although the EBC is known for its schools and parishes - I served in the parish of Whitehaven that has had Benedictine monks as parish priests since 1706 - our monastery in Pachacamac has no outside apostolate, nor is it directly involved in education.   This is because we set out to serve the Peruvian Church in what it most needs, a house that offers the cloistered life to men.  There are lots of enclosed convents of nuns, but not a single one for monks; which means that those who had a strictly monastic vocation had to go abroad.

Fr Augustine Baker, who was born in Abergavenny in 1575 and died of the plague in 1641, was born into a "church papist" family - one that conformed to the Anglican establishment while being Catholic by inward conviction,.  He lost all belief in God while up at Oxford, but survived a close shave with death which he experienced as a miracle.   He became a Catholic.  Eventually he became a member of the Middle Temple and could have looked forward to a distinguished career as a lawyer.   However, he left England and became a monk at St Justina of Padua monastery in Italy.   Ill health forced him to return home, but he took vows in the Italian Cassinese Congregation and, a little later, helped in the resoration of the English Benedictine Congregation.   His happiest years were spent with the English nuns in Cambrai, now the Stanbrook Community.   His teaching to the nuns was put into a book called "Santa Sophia" by   and has become a staple diet of English Benedictine monks and nuns ever since.

He was a mystic and belonged to the school of Cassian, of "The Cloud of Unknowing" and of other English mystics.  Indeed, the survival of most of the classics of the English mystical tradition is completely due to members of the English Benedictine Congregation under his influence.   He taught that the purpose of monastic life is continuous prayer.  This is a gift of God, but monastic life must prepare those who live it to receive this gift.   Paradoxically, he only received this gift of constant prayer himself after he had left the silence of the Cambrai convent and had gone across to England to face the dangers of the English mission.   It seems that this act of obedience, against all his inclinations and tastes, was exactly what was needed to prepare him to be completely open to God.   He would probably have become a martyr, but he died of the plague before the authorities could get to him.

WE ARE A FOUNDATION OF BELMONT ABBEY, HEREFORD, ENGLAND

There will be more about Belmont in the website.  Here it is enough to say that it began life as a cathedral priory for the whole of Wales.  It was the only cathedral to have the whole Divine Office, and it was here that Gregorian Chant was re-introduced into England after having been silenced at the Reformation.   It was associated with the English Benedictine mission to Mauritius and to Australia, and Roger Bede Vaughen who was Cathedral Prior of Belmont became first Archbishop of Sydney.   It was also associated with the conversion of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.    Its other role was as the common noviciate and house of studies for the other EBC houses and it made an important contribution to the formation of the present day congregation.  In the 20th century it became an independent abbey and had its own parishes and schools.   At the time of the foundation, Fr Paul Stonham was a housemaster at Belmont Abbey School, while Fr Luke Waring was parish priest and I assistent at St Begh's, Whitehaven in Cumbria. 

In 1980 the Belmont chapter voted in favour of making a foundation in TAMBOGRANDE

This is a modern picture, and the adult is not one of us, but it is typical of Tambogrande all the time we were there, from 1981 to 1990.  You will be seeing more photos as time goes on.   Fr Luke Waring, now chaplain at Colwich, was superior and was 54 years old; Fr Paul Stonham, now the Abbot of Belmont, was parish priest because he could speak Spanish fluently, and he was 34 years old; while i was just there, theoretically as guestmaster, and I was forty four.  We tried to combine being a monastic community with running a parish the size of Herefordshire.   In 1983 we were hit by the "Nino phenomenon", when the coastal desert is subjected to tropical rain forest rain.  Adobe houses melted, roads were cut in half by rivers that appeared overnight, crops destroyed,cattle, and sometimes people, drowned.  The monastic horarium collapsed, and, by general consent of the people, Fr Paul was put in charge of distributing all the aid, food and medicines, to the stricken population.   It was decided to separate the monastery from the parish.   Fr Mark Jabale, who later became Bishop of Menevia and who retired to become parish priest of Chipping Norton, came out to build the monastery in the countryside.   In 1986, Fr Paul moved to the new monastery while Fr Luke Waring and I, Fr David Bird, remained to look after the parish.   From 1986 till 1990, this arrangement continued, with Fr Paul founding the monastery and Frs Luke and David working on the parish.   At the beginning of 1990, Fr Luke was recalled to Belmont, and I continued to work on Peruvian parishes  until 2000  when the new superior who replaced Fr Paul, Fr Simon McGurk, asked me to join the monastic community.   (You will see him later.)

  In the year 2000, Fr Paul Stonham was elected Abbot of Belmont, and a new era in the life of the community began.  When in 2006 the monastery moved to Pachacamac, it had the slow process of forming its own identity.   Fr Paul has watched over this process - after all, he poured out his own life blood in forming the community, so it is a part of him - and we are grateful for his constant care

Dom Paul Stonham is the real founder of this community and visits us two or three times a year.   At the moment we live in what was built to be a guest house.   As we become better known, so the number of guests increases; and the community feels exposed and vulnerable.  Perhaps, this next year, when the money can be squeezed out of wherever it is hiding, we will start the first stage of the monastery, under Abbot Paul's watchful eye.

 . This website is meant to be a window: a window so that people may come to know our community, its ideals and why and how it lives.   It also serves as a link with other blogs and websights    It is our attempt to make contact with you out there.   We encourage comment; we appreciate help; and we await your contribution, perhaps with photos, with comments, with greetings, or, perhaps, in other ways.   

This website is not directly about theology or spirituality etc, but about us and, perhaps, about you.   It is about maintaining and strengthening old friendships and forging new ones.   This is the only community to offer the cloistered life for men in the whole of Peru.   There are many convents that offer an enclosed monastic life for women, but none for men.   There have been four other attempts to found a Benedictine monastery in Peru.  We have benefited from their experience which has contributed much to our success, and God has blessed our attempt.