Our Chapel
Our chapel at Tyburn Monastery, officially called the Church of Saint John the Baptist was built in Taneatua and consecrated in 1990 by Bishop Edward Gaines (1926 - 1994). The first church built at Taneatua in 1922 was declared unsafe and demolished after the 1987 Edgecombe earthquake . The present chapel was then built. In 2009 it was lifted and brought to the monastery site at Ngakuru as a gift from Bishop Denis Browne. It was blest on the 21st December 2009.
In 1990 it was 150 years since the signing of the treaty of Waitangi, so acknowledgement of the presence of the Maori people was seen to be called for and appropriate. The carvings above the entrance doorway hopefully do this and at the same time provide the people of European descent with a key which will enable them to read and come to some understanding of carving found on a whare nui (meeting house). There is a description of the meaning of the carvings inside the front door.
If you would like to learn more about our chapel's history and the years in the portal's carvings, please click here.
Walking down the aisle from the entrance towards the sanctuary, five pairs of beautiful stained-glass windows on the right hand side will accompany your spiritual journey.
Each pair of windows is related to one of the five Sundays of Lent and each window is linked to a key story from the Holy Bible.
To enlarge the images, just left-click on them.
Temptation
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman ‘Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?’”
“Temptation - an enticement to do something against our better (moral) judgement is the constant testing ground of our ability to grow to full human maturity, especially in regard to our relationship with God”
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.”
“The temptation of Jesus shows us how God truly ‘so loved the world that He sent His only Son’ - true God and true Man - so that he too, entered into this arena of temptation - to lift us out of it if we willingly choose to do so with his grace...”
Listening
“The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.’”
"Abraham listened to Gods Call...This listening was a wholehearted intent concentration so that he truly heard what God was asking him to do- and then, without hesitation he did it... The window shows us the tortuously long, winding path that Abraham has to follow in his response to God's mysterious Call..."
“After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.”
"In the Transfiguration God the Father speaks to the Apostles - "This is my Son, the beloved; he enjoys my favour. LISTEN TO HIM". So we must listen intently to the VOICEand TEACHING of Jesus if we are to make our way safely to the Heavenly Kingdom..."
Thirsting
“The Lord said to Moses, “I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.” So Moses did this in the sight of the elders of Israel.”
"The miracle of the water flowing abundantly from the rock in the dry desert when Moses struck it at God's command, is well known. In the following scene it is God incarnate who is thirsty..."
“Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water...Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’”
"Jesus opens up for us all the wellsprings of our deepest, perennial DESIRE - our THIRSTING for GOD, and proclaims Himself to be the source of the eternal living waters..."
Seeing
“But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’”
"God's choice of David is dependent on David's keenness of vision, far seeing vision and acute perception. (1 Sam 16:12) These were his innate gifts that carried him through his kingly mission and through to high holiness of life..."
“After saying this, he spat on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.
’Go,’ he told him, ‘wash in the Pool of Siloam’. So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.”
"First: in the spiritual journey to God, physical seeing leads intrinsically to an interior seeing with the eyes of the soul. The final goal is indeed the Beatific Vision of God forever in Heaven..."
Believing
“Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel...I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
"I believe in the resurrection of the Dead!" These are the first recorded words we have in writing from our Mother Foundress, and what words they are of hope, of joy, and of believing..."
“‘Lord,’ Martha said to Jesus, ‘if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’... Jesus said to her, ´I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?´”
"For all who triumph over TEMPTATION, who LISTEN to God, who THIRST for Him, who yearn to SEE Him, who BELIEVE in him; for such as these all their ardent desires will become their sure path to everlasting union and intimacy with our Creator. Lent is fading away, even as Easter splendour bursts upon us..."