Brother Justin OSB

Br. Justin Young OSB
Dear Sister and Brother Oblates of Mount Saviour Monastery,

Sadly, on April 4th, our Benedictine brother, Br Justin M. Raphael Young died suddenly.

The opening lines of William Couper’s poem reads: “God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.” Br. Justin lived his life with the wonder of God as his center and he made this very clear in everything he did.

In describing his ‘Experience of the Profession of Solemn Monastic Vows’ in the Mount Saviour Chronicle (Autumn 2016), Br. Justin wrote: “The monk is called to a life of transformation of mind and spirit in the image and likeness of God, despite our shortcomings, to express in word and action the Christ within (Rev 21: 5-7). This ongoing inner spiritual-ascetical work of the monk is nurtured by the beatitude command of Jesus in the gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall see God.”

His writing is so full of the JOY that was a constant expression of his love for the life he had been called into. “My vocation has brought me “to the land of the living”, and: “I commit my monastic life to service in the church, to my community of brothers, and all I come into contact with.” We were all recipients in one way or another of his commitment to serve the Lord with gladness.

Time will heal the sting of this loss. But also our nurturing of the seeds he planted: joy, heartfelt love, awareness that ‘the Lord is my God’, charity, grace, patience, kindness, compassion and long suffering, mindfulness, honor—-all these taken from his own words, and that were always so visible in all he did. Let his concluding words ring out:
“The grace and gift of my solemn profession marks the beginning and not the end of my journey. Please remember me in your prayers.”

Br. Justin’s journey now continues in the presence of God. Our work continues here in the garden that he has left us to care for with those seeds, and will flower and bear fruit in our lives, of Br. Justin’s labors.

The wake will be 3-5pm and 7-8pm on Wednesday, April 10th and the funeral Mass will be at 9am Thursday April 11th, with reception to follow.
The burial for both Brs Stephen and Justin will be on May 12.

Yours in Christ,

Stuart~John  Co~Editor

 


3 thoughts on “Brother Justin OSB

  1. Dear Friends of Mount Saviour,

    I was saddened to read the unexpected news this evening regarding Brother Justin. Although I met him only briefly last October, I still remember him for his wide beaming smile.

    Will be thinking and praying for you all during these difficult times.

    In Christ,

    Yoda

    Sent from my iPhone

    Like

  2. Im so sorry. I didn’t realize Brother Justin had passed. I know I had not seen him in some time but I didn’t imagine he passed. Every single time we visited Mt Saviour he always greeted us with a warm genuine smile and treated us with Christ like kindness and love. He will be missed.

    Like

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