Please pray for the eternal happiness of Fr Cassian Dickie OSB, Monk of Ampleforth Abbey, who died peacefully in the Monastery Infirmary on the 1st October 2022, aged 81.
Fr Cassian was in the 33rd year of his monastic life, and the 27th year of priesthood
May he rest in peace.
Funeral Arrangements
Tuesday 11th October
18.00 Reception of Fr Cassian’s body into the Abbey Church followed by Vespers for the Dead
20.15 The Dirge (Vigil for the Dead)
Wednesday 12th October
07.30 Lauds for the Dead
09.00 Terce
11.30 Solemn Sung Funeral Mass in the Abbey Church followed by burial in Monks’ Wood
Suscipe me Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam, Et non confundas me ab expectatione mea
Uphold me, Lord, according to your promise and I shall live, and let my hopes not be in vain
(The Suscipe is sung when a monk makes his Solemn Profession and at his funeral)
If you will be attending the funeral please contact Julia Brooke, by email at jbr@ampleforthabbey.org.uk, so we may register numbers for catering.
May Fr Cassian rest in peace.
Fr Cassian Dickie OSB
Fr Cassian was born in Aberdeen in May 1941 and attended Robert Gordon’s College in the city. Between 1960 and 1962 he worked in the family pharmacy and then began training as a Chartered Accountant. He gained an MA in Medieval and Modern History from the University of Aberdeen and then a Dip. Ed. from the University of Edinburgh.
For the next twenty years he filled a variety of posts in very different settings: Assistant Master at St Mirin’s Academy in Paisley (1969-1971); Lecturer in Liberal Studies at Peterborough Technical College (1973-1975); Head of Sixth Form, St Benedict’s, Bury St Edmund’s (1975-1980); and Assistant Head Teacher at St David’s High School, Dalkeith. In 1973 he was also a prospective Liberal Candidate for Peterborough.
He was a convert to Catholicism and in 1988 joined the Benedictine community at Farnborough Abbey in Hampshire. He joined the monastic community at Ampleforth Abbey in August 1990 and was ordained priest in January 1996. For a short period of time Fr Cassian was Housemaster of St Aidan’s in Ampleforth College, as well as being Junior Master and Master of Studies in the Abbey. Fr Cassian worked in the local parish in Kirkbymoorside before becoming parish priest of Our Lady and St Wilfrid, Warwick Bridge (1999-2002) and then parish priest of St Mary’s, Knaresborough (2002-2005). In 2005 Fr Cassian was appointed prior of the community of Ampleforth monks at St Benedict’s Monastery, Bamber Bridge. In 2008 he moved to St Austin’s, Liverpool, where he remained until the parish was handed over to the pastoral care of the Archdiocese of Liverpool in 2012. In the last the ten years he lived in the parishes in Bamber Bridge, Parbold, and then Leyland.
In 2019 Fr Cassian underwent surgery for cancer, followed by chemotherapy. He returned to reside Monastery Infirmary at Ampleforth Abbey in May 2022, where he died peacefully on 1 October.