Dom mark kirby osb silverstream priory ireland
Silverstream Priory is a Roman Catholic monastery in Stamullen, County Meath, Ireland, founded in 2012. The monastery is an autonomous diocesan priory of the Benedictine Monks of Perpetual Adoration.
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Mark Daniel Kirby (b. 1952) is the founder and, as of 2017, the superior.
History
The community's history began in Oklahoma in 2007, when Bishop Edward James Slattery of the Diocese of Tulsa invited Mark Daniel Kirby, then a Cistercian monk, to form a monastery with the mission of providing spiritual assistance for the Roman Catholic clergy. In 2009, a year designated by Pope Benedict XVI as a "year of the priest", the bishop inaugurated the community under the title Monastery of Our Lady of the Cenacle. In 2011, flooding in Tulsa made the community's residence uninhabitable, and Fr. Kirby obtained Bishop Slattery's permission to move the community.
In autumn 2011 the monks were invited by Bishop Michael Smith to relocate to the Diocese of Meath. In March 2012, the community moved into a former religious house in the village of Stamullen in County Meath. Based on a local geographical name, they adopted the name Silverstream Priory for the monastery.
In February 2017, the community reached a milestone with the formal approval of its constitutions by the Holy See, leading to the canonical establishment of the Benedictine Monks of Perpetual Adoration as a monastic institute of consecrated life in the diocese of Meath. This made Silverstream Priory the first new monastery in the county since the abolition of monasteries under Henry VIII in 1536.
Life
The monastery places a special emphasis on Eucharistic Adoration for the sanctification of Catholic priests. The monks celebrate the traditional Benedictine liturgy (Divine Office and the Mass), in Latin and with Gregorian chant, according to the 1962 extraordinary form of the Roman Rite.
The monastery devotes itself in a special way to the teachings of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (to whom the monastic church and lands of Silverstream Priory were originally dedicated in 1946), Blessed Columba Marmion, and Mother Mechtilde of the Blessed Sacrament.
Priory buildings
The priory house was originally built in 1843 by the Preston family (the Viscounts Gormanston), and was inhabited by the Brothers Hospitallers of Saint John of God from 1941 to 1955, and then by contemplative nuns of the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary from 1955 to 2010.
The priory church, named in honor of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, was built in 1952 when the Brothers of St. John of God resided at Silverstream.