‘Mindfulness’ isn’t a secular invention
As the end of June brings more rain and grey skies to England, I escape for a few days to the Benedictine monastery of St Pierre de Solesmes, near Angers.
I arrive in time for the midday office of Sext. At its conclusion the guests are led from the abbey church through the smaller cloister which encloses a parterre garden of box hedge. We wait at a corner of the large cloister where the abbot receives us and greets us individually with a few kind words. Then one by one we line up to have him wash our hands in the traditional manner of the rule which dictates how guests are to be received. This gesture has a simplicity and holiness which crowns the warmth of the human welcome. It expresses in ritual the truth that something more sublime than merely a social encounter is taking place.
