Tuesday, 17th January 2023
Vale Dom Placid Lawson OSB
Having tested COVID-negative after seven days of isolation, I was able to travel to Victoria to assist at the Requiem Mass (11th January 2023) of Dom Placid Lawson, a much-loved monk of St Mark’s Anglican Abbey, Camperdown, the only Anglican monastery in the Subiaco Cassinese Congregation to which New Norcia belongs.
Dom Placid, Australian born (1934), entered the Anglican Abbey of Nashdom (England) in 1966. In the late 70s, he returned to Australia to assist (for a couple of years) with the newly established Anglican Benedictine Community, which had its beginnings in Fitzroy (1975), moving to Camperdown in 1980 where Dom Placid eventually transferred his stability in this monastic community of monks and nuns, and remained till his death (31st December 2022).
I have many fond memories of Dom Placid, an exemplary monk of steadfast faith. He had a profound love of prayer (both personal and liturgical) along with work, hospitality and community, the core components of monastic spirituality. Dom Placid was most renowned for his skill in the garden, the place where he felt particularly close to God, and revelled in the beauty of creation. It was no secret that he much preferred digging in the garden to balancing the books in the Bursar’s office. He loved to read (serving as librarian), was passionate about the Arts (himself a talented painter) and had the wonderful gift of humour – he made us laugh.
Like many monks and nuns who have lived a long life, Dom Placid witnessed many changes in the Church, the world, and in the monastery, yet even in the things and people he found challenging, he embraced them graciously, trusting that “all will be well”, a product of the unwavering commitment to his monastic vows of obedience, stability and conversion of life. Throw in a good measure of humility (often considered – along with listening – central to the Rule of St Benedict) we were given in Dom Placid a model monk.
With attendees including his family, bishops, abbots, clergy, religious, associates and dear friends, along with the inclusions of his beloved plain chant, dignified ritual and a very fine homily prepared and delivered by his monastic sister and superior Sr Raphael Stone, the Requiem Mass gave testimony to a wonderfully rich monastic life. One was left feeling, however, that it was in the concluding rites that the essence and radiant joy of Dom Placid was truly captured – as we processed from the abbey church to his place of rest in the abbey cemetery overlooking the rolling hills surrounding this most beautiful place, we sang with great gusto words of life, words of hope:
“…I am the life that’ll never, never die. I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me; I am the Lord of the Dance, said he.”
Abbot John