"In Coenaculo" - Silverstream Priory (November-December 2015) | Page 8

appointed abbot of the Sanctuary of La Madonna
del Pilastrello at Lendinara (Rovigo). Consumed,
more and more, with a burning love for the Sacred
Host, Abbot Celestino spent himself as a devoted
and tireless spiritual father to the Benedictine Nuns
of Perpetual Adoration of the Most Holy Sacrament
of the Monastery of Ghiffa. Later, he exercised the
same role toward the monasteries aggregated to
Ghiffa in central and southern Italy. The Annals of
the Monastery of Ghiffa relate:
After having studied in depth the Constitutions
and books of the Institute, after having practiced
the spirit of them to an heroic degree, after having grounded the community in this same spirit,
with a patient, enlightened, and prudent zeal, he
asked for the grace of possessing our holy habit,
of practicing our holy Constitutions, of being
a true member of the Institute, a true victim of
the Most Holy Sacrament. The nuns, in a unanimous joy, received the Eucharistic vow of the
Reverend Father. Since that day uninterrupted
requests and prayers have been raised to heaven
so that the Institute will have, at last, its complement to the glory of the Eucharist and so that
the last breath of our great father Benedict will
generate sons of the Host to the Host, Benedictine
Adorers, the priestly victims to sustain and save the
Church in the difficult last times. And so may it be.

The existence of a little sanctuary dedicated to
the Most Holy Trinity near the monastery of Ronco
di Ghiffa, revived in Dom Celestino a desire that
had never gone away: the birth of a Benedictine
community of men dedicated to adoration and
reparation of the Eucharist. One reads in the same
Annals, that coming down, one day from the Sanc-

tuary of the Most Holy Trinity to the monastery, he
expressed “the wish that Eucharistic Benedictine
Fathers would come one day to the Sanctuary of the
Most Holy Trinity.”
This lively aspiration was never erased from the
heart of Dom Celestino, enamoured as he was of
the Eucharistic ideal proposed by Mother Mectilde
de Bar in the 17th century, and lived so well by the
Benedictines of the monastery of Ghiffa. Abbot Celestino Maria Colombo absorbed and appropriated
for himself the spirit of the Benedictine Institute of
Perpetual Adoration, to the point of living it faithfully and fostering its growth in every possible way
until his saintly death on 24 September 1935.
Benedictine life at Silverstream Priory is mysteriously linked to a series of deaths and resurrections,
of disappearances and of re-emergences. “Amen,
amen I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falling
into the ground die, itself remaineth alone. But if it
die, it bringeth forth much fruit” (John 12:24–25).
The grain of wheat is the Eucharistic Benedictine
life of Blessed Andrea di Paolo of the White Monks
of Corpus Christi in the 14th century; it is the
Eucharistic Benedictine life of Mectilde de Bar in
the 17th century; it is the Eucharistic Benedictine
life of Venerable Caterina Lavizzari, and of Abbot
Celestino Maria Colombo in the 20th century. At
Silverstream Priory in Ireland the grain of wheat is
sprouting once again: it is green and full of promise. The intercession of Abbot Celestino Maria
Colomba will surely obtain for Silverstream Priory
the abundant Eucharistic harvest that, for so long,
has been held in the heart of the Virgin Mary, the
Mother of every new beginning in grace. >

HOW TO HELP THE MONKS OF SILVERSTREAM PRIORY
¶ OUR FRIENDS IN THE E.U. & THE U.K.
can send us a bank transfer (which we prefer, as
our bank exacts a large fee for cashing cheques).
Our bank information is as follows:

¶ OUR FRIENDS IN THE U.S.A. can send a
bank transfer to the Monastery of Our Lady of
the Cenacle Foundation:

Bank of Ireland, Balbriggan, Co. Dublin,
IBAN: IE02 BOFI 9035 4196 4472 87
BIC: BOFIIE2D

Bank Name: Bank of America
Acct: 3050 0499 5780
ACH Routing: 103000017
USA Wire ABA/Routing: 026009593

Alternatively, you can send a cheque, payable
to “Silverstream Priory”, and post it to: Silverstream Priory, Stamullen, County Meath, Ireland, K32 T189.

Or you can send a cheque, payable to “The
Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle Foundation”, to: 20315 South Highway 75, Mounds,
OK 74047.

Or, donate online at WWW.CENACLEOSB.ORG