Since time immemorial, pilgrims have been travelling to islands to meet holy men and women, and so it was that I found myself heading for Quarr Abbey, home to a Benedictine community within the Solesmes Congregation, to meet Dom Luke Bell. His latest book, The Mystery of Identity, was published last spring by Angelico Press. As the ferry neared the Isle of Wight, I could see the abbey church, its Moorish-Byzantine style lending a distinctly exotic twist to a cold and damp English winter day.
Before Fr Luke became a monk he taught Shakespeare in Morocco, and so his current home in a monastery with a North African flavour seems appropriate. The temperature, however, was certainly not North African as I walked into Quarr Abbey. High energy prices and a loss of revenue caused by Covid meant the heating had not been switched on.
