It was with sadness that I learnt the news of the recent death of Abbot Aldhelm Cameron-Brown, at 89. I met him probably fewer than 20 times but he had a profound impact on my formation. Prinknash Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in the west of England, was where I would escape periodically from the hurly-burly of student life, searching, as I thought, for the sanctuary of the cloister.
Abbot Aldhelm was too wise to buy into so simplistic an opposition. He challenged me in the most direct way possible to seek God rather than the pleasing sound the search for Him was making. He asked me the single most important question anyone had ever asked me, simply and disarmingly: “Is God real for you?”
