Home ⇰ The Current ⇰ Previous Issues ⇰ 2019 October
This Sunday, October 13, will bring another Day of Recollection for the Oblate community. For students or faculty of the School, the group may seem to be a mysterious “outside” group coming to use the facilities. In fact, this group is very much an “inside” group – a community dedicated to this monastery and its Benedictine life. Br. Sixtus Roslevitch, Director of Oblates, tells us that oblates of Saint Benedict are dedicated lay persons who are particularly connected to one specific monastery. While not obliged to take a formal vow as the monks do, oblates rather make a promise, after a period of discernment, before the abbot or superior of the house. “They pledge to live their secular lives, year to year, to the best of their ability, according to the Rule of Saint Benedict, within the sphere of their family, work, education or social activity. The practice of lectio divina, morning and evening prayers, and regular Mass attendance are some of the ways they cultivate their spiritual connection to the monks,” he notes. (Please see more extended article on the website.)
Left: Saint Henry, Patron of Bendictine Oblates
The word “oblate” derives from an oblation, which signifies an offering or a presentation. Over the centuries it appeared primarily in liturgical or ecclesiological contexts and, although it does figure in several Scriptural translations, its use has diminished over the past 150 years. In the earliest history of Benedictine monasticism, the parents of large families who lived in rural vicinity of a house of monks would offer or present a son, usually the eldest, for his care and education. The child’s learning included both secular and sacred subjects, and perhaps a trade to help pay his way over time. The arrangement relieved the family of one more mouth to feed, and it was hoped by both parties that the boy would eventually heed the call to a vocation in that particular monastery. The boys were known as oblates.
While the nature of oblation has changed radically from this process, consistent at a still deeper level is the desire to offer one’s life to Christ. And the path to do so is identified by the Benedictine oblate as having something to do with the Rule of Saint Benedict. That Rule is, as Blessed Columba Marmion and others have stressed, intended as nothing more than a summary and guide for the Christian life. For oblates, their Christian faith has led them in some way to this monastery where, once they go through a parallel though less rigorous testing process to that of the monks, they are received into community life. While that life may lead them around the globe, and our oblates may be found in many places, most live regionally and all maintain connection to this monastery. So we find stability there. We also find a spirt of respectful obedience to the monastery in an attentiveness to its dedication to Christ and what that is all about. And we hopefully also find conversatio morum, a fidelity to the life as an oblate that they have pledged. So in this less visible community of the Abbey, we find an echo of the lifestyle of the monks and a shared inspiration in Benedict and his Rule.
It may be surprising to some to realize that monks do not take vows of “poverty, chastity, and obedience.” While their lives do indeed encompass those three “evangelical counsels,” their vows are stability (commitment to a particular community), obedience (to their superior), and conversatio morum (a fidelity to their monastic life). One may also wonder, in this obedience to their superior, and in stressing the integrity of their own local community, what their formal relationship is to the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Our own monastery not only maintains its distinctive autonomy within the Church, but it is also bound together with similarly structured monasteries, forming the English Benedictine Congregation. Without parsing the intricacies of canon law, one may wonder how all these lines of community and authority work. Pope Pius XI himself wondered about this, allegedly exclaiming in frustration that the Benedictines were “An order without order!”
The Benedictine Yearbook 2019 tells us that, “The English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) is the oldest of the twenty Benedictine Congregations. At the moment it consists of ten abbeys of monks, as well as three abbeys of nuns. Monasteries of the Congregation are found in England, the United States, Peru, and Zimbabwe.” These communities share an Abbot President, presently Abbot Christopher Jamison, whose election took place at Worth Abbey at the end of the General Chapter, a four-yearly gathering of the superiors and delegates of the 13 English Benedictine abbeys, together with the officials of the congregation. In addition to this oversight within the EBC, Benedictines are under an “Abbot Primate,” currently the American Gregory Polan, of Conception Abbey in Missouri. In an effort to clarify the lines of authority, the monastic congregations were confederated under Pope Leo XIII in 1893, with the headquarters of the Benedictine Confederation at San Anselmo in Rome. The role of the Abbot Primate, however, is not like the head of the Jesuits, Dominicans, or other such orders, whose head has direct authority over its members. Rather, there is a collegiality of abbots and a respect for the “cenobitic” communities created in its adherence to the Rule of Saint Benedict. That remarkable document still creates much of the substance of the shared faith life of all Benedictine monks.
Have no fear, however: this monastery continues with the approval of the diocese, and its sacramental life and teaching are framed in obedience to the magisterial authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Abbot Primate Polan, in celebrating 125 years of the Benedictine Confederation in 2018, said that Benedictine contemplative life and its commitment to prayer is in fact a principal mode of its service to the church, intrinsic to its Catholic faith.
The following article flows from a reading of John Hugh Diman’s “Newman and the Oxford Movement,” published by The Portsmouth Institute in Newman and the Intellectual Tradition: The Portsmouth Review (2010). That volume also contains the related, “The Catholic Newman” by Reverend Dom Damian Kearney O.S.B. The Portsmouth Institute will further explore themes in Newman this winter. We thank Mr. Jamie MacGuire for his work on the Institute and the initial publication of Diman’s text.
This Sunday, October 13, brings the canonization of John Henry Newman. As the monastery marks its centennial, we look at one of its founding figures, John Hugh Diman, representative of those greatly influenced by this saint. Diman, as well as Leonard Sargent, and a number of other members of the Portsmouth monastic community, had been adult converts to Catholicism. Diman’s article on Newman undeniably captures some of the spirit of his own decision to turn to Rome, as well as the journey of several of his confreres.
In fact, at the time of his paper in 1933, Diman was marking another centennial, that of the beginning of the Oxford Movement which, following Newman, he traced back to 1833 and a sermon of Keble on National Apostasy, preached at Oxford. This Movement came to center on Newman, who Diman ranks as, “the greatest religious figure in the English-speaking world of the 19th century.” Does not Diman speak of their shared faith experience, in pointing to those who have “found their true home in the Catholic Church”? He speaks even to our own time, when recounting that, “In 1833, and the years for some time before that date, religion in England had fallen to a very low ebb,” suffering under, “a pall of lethargy and indifference.” Diman links the early 19th century to his mid-twentieth, and dare we see also our own early 21st? He sees the opposition of “radical and revolutionary tendencies” to “established interests,” both in state and in church, in an age in which, “secularism and skepticism were undermining many of the old ways.”
Diman argues that while the Oxford Movement is often seen as a Catholic one, many of its members saw it as Anglican reform, and remained firmly within that communion. It saw itself as, “a valiant and determined attempt to save the people of England, and English religion generally, from all the forces of the day that were inimical to them, whether open unbelief, indifference, hostile legislation, radical social changes, or anything else that threatened to undermine them, and had to an alarming degree succeeded in doing so; …the Church of England, unlike the protestant bodies around it, had never done anything to deny its apostolic origin or to break the historical succession that bound it to the primitive church; …they were to keep to the front the uncompromising assertion of the claim of the church to be in England the realization of the apostolic and Catholic church of primitive days…” Newman himself resisted Rome for some time, seeking a middle path, “a half way position between Rome and popular Protestantism and thus to be able to bring about ultimate reconciliation between these two extremes.”
His anti-Roman resolve gradually weakened, and saw its last moments with the publication of Tract 90, which argues in effect that various criticisms on Roman doctrine and practice were “strawman” arguments, attacking positions the Church did not hold. This indirect defense of Rome was condemned by anti-Roman Anglicans. “The general condemnation of Tract 90 had the effect of opening Newman’s eyes to the true situation. So far as his connection with the Oxford Movement goes, the story now is about told. We have traced in the merest outline the history of his inner convictions from the early days in which he was sure that the Pope was anti-Christ through the years in which he was leading with full assurance and success the Movement that is known by the name of the university which gave it birth. …After the publication of Tract 90, he gradually reached the stage in the development of his own thoughts in which he came to see with increasing clearness and conviction that the great communion which he had been in the habit of calling the Roman Church was not only not anti-Christ and was not a corrupt branch of the true church, but was on the contrary the one church in the world that was wholly apostolic and Catholic, the true home for all souls whose destiny was the Heavenly City and the Beatific Vision. Whatever stains and blemishes had gathered around it in its long warfare on earth, were due to the weaknesses and faults of the poor sinful humanity that its mission was to gather into its own fold and to redeem.”
The debt owed to Newman in John Hugh Diman’s own journey is not to be underestimated. He speaks of Newman’s unique virtue: “…he was a genius of a high order and that is in itself rare. He was early recognized as a supreme master of the English language. No one could question this as to his prose, but even in his poetry, his Dream of Gerontius, and his “Lead Kindly Light,” to mention only two of his poems, have taken a secure place in English literature. Besides this, his natural gifts had been trained and embellished by the best education that Oxford could give. Most of all he had a depth and power of spiritual influence that could not fail in a religious movement to win for him an ascendency which in increasing measure came to be felt by all. In addition to all these qualifications, there was one other that singularly fitted him for command at this particular juncture, and it was the one that a little later became, in the eyes of his followers, the most essential of all. He was known to be absolutely sound in the Tractarian faith. This faith, to state it baldly, was catholicity without the pope…” Further, Newman’s Oxford Movement, “has been of great benefit to us in two ways. It has been the recruiting camp of a steady stream of individuals who have had their early education in this way and have become later converts to the Catholic Church. In another way perhaps, its influence has been greater and even more helpful. It has accelerated and has often been itself perhaps the main cause in changing, in many places, the whole mentality of Protestantism towards the liturgy, the ceremonies and the externals generally of the Catholic religion. It is owing to this influence, to a very appreciable degree at least, that the church is better understood and the prejudices against it have so largely diminished.”
So, we begin to capture some of the motivation John Hugh Diman himself found in his faith journey, and find ourselves led to this day’s canonization. In summarizing Newman’s influence, Diman speaks of the Catholic faith and the “a desire to enter into the beauty, the peace and the joy of which that faith is the secret.” He sees Newman as the greatest figure in the “great Movement” which for him was, “the most steady, the most energetic, and the most persuasive expression of this longing, of this desire. For this reason, the men and women who are still leading or being led by it should have our sympathy and our prayers. One should have no other wish for them than that they may surely find the goal that they are so earnestly seeking.”
Read Diman’s complete article.
The canonization of John Henry Newman provides an opportunity to consider the role of music in our liturgies at Portsmouth Abbey. Newman had brought Philip Neri’s Oratorian life to England, establishing the Birmingham Oratory. The musical interest of this community is intensely clear, as simply witnessed in our word “oratorio,” derived from what was sung in Neri’s church in Rome. Newman speaks fervently of music in his Idea of a University, that it, “has an object of its own; …it is the expression of ideas greater and more profound than any in the visible world, ideas, which center indeed in Him whom Catholicism manifests, who is the seat of all beauty, order, and perfection whatever… If then a great master in this mysterious science… throws himself on his own gift, trusts its inspirations, and absorbs himself in those thoughts which, though they come to him in the way of nature, belong to things above nature, it is obvious he will neglect everything else. Rising in his strength, he will break through the trammels of words, …he will go forth as a giant… Should he resolve by means of his art to do honour to the Mass, or the Divine Office – he cannot have a more pious, a better purpose, and Religion will gracefully accept what he gracefully offers – …he must make himself its scholar, must humbly follow the thoughts given him, and must aim at the glory, not of his own gift, but of the Great Giver…”1 Omitted from this excerpt, it should be noted, are Newman’s qualifying warnings against an overly humanistic interest in music, a valuing of the gift over the Giver. In his mind, liturgical music must always be at the service of genuine Christian prayer, helping to foster an active and authentic participation in the liturgical event.
How does liturgical life at Portsmouth express this service? It surely reflects the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that, “Gregorian chant is specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services”2 The Monastic Schola, led by Fr. Edward Mazuski and Br. Joseph Byron, takes up at Mass leadership of the chants of the Graduale Romanum, whose contents reflect an absorbed history of musical prayer from the early Medieval period, revised famously at Solesmes Abbey in France at the turn of the twentieth century. Further, the core of a monastery’s life is the Divine Office, and at the core of the expression of that prayer is music. The nature of the Divine Office makes it best suited to singing,3 and it is sung here in simple forms of chant in English, many antiphons and melodies having been adapted in a unique way within this monastic community into the vernacular from the music of the Latin office, after the Council. At the Conventual Mass with the School present, the “Abbey Schola,” a student ensemble, guides liturgical song. This Schola was created distinct from the Abbey Singers, formerly the Glee Club, to form a group dedicated solely to liturgical music. In 2010, the group migrated from the gallery to the sanctuary, where it is more visible and audible. Mr. Jeff Kerr, musical director, guides the group through its rehearsals, while Blake Billings ’77 serves as the group’s liturgical director. While echoing the monastic interest in chant with the regular singing of the Pater Noster and the occasional singing of Latin hymns, the School often draws on Taizé chant, which alternates between Latin and vernacular lyrics.
These two scholae are tasked with assisting what the Council famously calls, “active participation” on the part of all joined in the liturgy. Less famously, the Council considers that participation to be, “above all internal, in the sense that by it the faithful join their mind to what they pronounce or hear, and cooperate with heavenly grace.”4 External participation is indeed promoted, “to show the internal participation by gestures and bodily attitudes, by the acclamations, responses and singing.” But the goal of the musical project is that, “the faithful should also be taught to unite themselves interiorly to what the ministers or choir sing, so that by listening to them they may raise their minds to God.” This fully resonates with the Saint Benedict’s teaching to, “consider, then, how we ought to behave in the presence of God and his angels, and let us stand to sing the psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices”5 This awareness helps us to regain a well-directed approach to musical expression in liturgy, so that it may enhance our conversion to an authentic faith, and so create Benedict’s “school of the Lord’s service,” in “the workshop where we are to toil faithfully at all these tasks,” the faith community. With Newman’s canonization then, we are heartened to trust there is another in the heavenly host with whom we may hope to unify our own voices.
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1. Newman, The Idea of a University (New York: Doubleday, 1959), pp. 111-12.
2. Sacrosanctum Concilium 116.
3. Musicam Sacram 37
4. Musicam Sacram 15
5. Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 19.
Abbot Matthew drew upon a discourse of John Paul II at Mass on the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary (Oct. 7): “It is no wonder that having heard the words of his preaching, Mary was troubled. The approach of the living God always arouses awe. Nor is there any reason to wonder that Mary asks what this greeting meant. The archangel’s words put her before an inscrutable divine mystery. Moreover, they involve her in the orbit of that mystery. This needs to be meditated on again and again, and ever more deeply. It has the power of filling not only life, but also eternity. The angel's greeting is near to all of us. Let us therefore try to participate in Mary’s meditation. Let us try to do so above all when we recite the rosary.” (See further reflections here)
We report on our Oblate Day of Recollection and Fr. Michael;s conference on "Mercy." We also look at our work with My Brother's Keeper in the section on "Works."And a brief report on the BENet experience in Australia, brining together Benedictine educators from around the globe..
The day began at the 9:20 a.m. Conventual Mass in the Abbey Church with the monastic community. Fr. Michael Brunner OSB, the Prior Administrator of Portsmouth Abbey, delivered the main conference titled “God’s Mercy” in the school’s comfortable Regan Lecture Hall. Backed by an engaging PowerPoint presentation, he began by leading off with an explanation of the concept of mercy from the pre-Christian era and the Old Testament. Not surprisingly, he elicited a number of questions and comments from the listeners about very current topics, most seemingly ripped from recent news headlines. Perhaps most moving and emotional were deeply personal stories freely shared by some Oblates about family matters involving examples of mercy and forgiveness and reconciliation, in many cases, or sadly not, in other instances. Fr. Michael was introduced by Br. Sixtus Roslevich OSB, Portsmouth’s new Director of Oblates who until recently held the same position at the St. Louis Abbey in Missouri. Christopher Fisher, Executive Director of the annual Portsmouth Institute, said a few words about the 2020 edition of the program scheduled for June 19-21. Before the afternoon drew to a close with the Midday Office chanted with the monks in choir, Eucharistic Adoration, and time set aside for confession, a young man made his Promise of Oblation to Fr. Michael, as the superior, and to the monastic community of Portsmouth Abbey. Eric Buck of Somerville, Massachusetts, who made his initial promise as an Oblate Novice on March 4, 2018, read his promise and signed his documents in the abbey church. The next Day of Recollection is being planned for the upcoming Season of Advent. (See extended recap here)
The Rule of Saint Benedict has taken root over the centuries in an array of cultures and times. Two of our community, Father Francis Hein and Mr. John Huynh, traveled to Australia recently, encountering Benedictines from Africa, South America, Europe, and the Philippines, as well as from “down under” in Australia. Gathering at St. Scholastic College in Glebe for the annual BENet (Benedictine Educator’s Newtwork) conference of the International Commission on Benedictine Education (ICBE), the two discovered a Benedictine conference with an Australian accent: Its theme: “The wisdom of Benedict as the context for BENet will be explored through storytelling, reflection, prayer and listening. The Benedictine imperative to ‘listen with the ear of your heart’ (RB Prologue) will guide the program which will also draw inspiration from one of the oldest traditions in Australian indigenous culture – that of songlines. Like the epic poems of many cultural traditions, songlines are where stories are both held and passed on; like teacher and guide, imparting knowledge, language and wisdom across the land and across the years.” Presenters situated these ideas in their own cultural and educational experience, offering a broad spectrum of Benedictine life. Speakers included Michel Casey, O.S.C.O of Tarawarra Abbey in Victoria, Kathy Cox of the University of San Diego, and Terry Creagh O.A.M. of Good Samaritan Education. Several representatives of the Manquehue Apostolic Movement presented workshops, including Mr. Alejandro Greene, headmaster of San Anselmo School in Santiago and leader of a former Portsmouth Abbey Manquehue group.
The conference extended well beyond the classroom, to incorporate liturgy, prayer, and other distinctively Australian cultural experiences. Hosted by “Good Samaritan Education,” based in Glebe, it offered regional visits through “Walking Workshops,” including tours of Mary MacKillop Place, Cuckatoo Island, and places of interest to Archbishop John Bede Polding, O.S.B. Polding arrived in Australia from Downside Abbey in England in 1834, seeking to help the poor and disadvantaged, founding in 1857 the first Australian religious community, the Sisters of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St Benedict. This community has evolved into the present “Good Samaritan Education,” established with the approval of the Australian bishops in 2011, and still rooted in its Benedictine heritage. This array of experiences shaped a highly engaging and instructive experience for our Portsmouth participants. John Huynh notes, “The ideas and themes that left the greatest impression on me were the reminders to shape my classroom in a way that seeks to understand every individual, honors the students’ current values, and allows the students to be exposed to the spiritual realities of their life.”
The following is taken from Fr. Michael’s conference offered to the oblates on Sunday, October 13.
Mercy means God is love; Mercy is God’s second name, the greatest attribute of God. [There is a famous] picture of Pope Saint John Paul II …with the man who shot him in St. Peter’s Square. The pope visited him in prison and forgave him - this was exceptional. It reminds me of a picture I saw last week. There was recently a trial in Dallas of a policewoman who went into the wrong apartment and shot a man. She was convicted. There is a picture of the brother of the man she had shot, hugging the policewoman and forgiving her. That kind of forgiveness has to come from divine compassion. We do not often see it in our world. Mercy is God’s response to chaos and sin. God’s plan is to counteract everything that went wrong at the beginning. The Bible says that in the six days of creation, everything that He created was good. …The English word “good” in our translations does not truly encompass the meaning of the Hebrew. The Hebrew word “good” means… perfect and complete, just the way it was designed and that God wanted it to be. And we broke it. As a matter of fact, the word for evil in Hebrew means “broken.” So, what God is trying to do is fix what we broke, to compensate for it. His mercy is how God provides resistance to evil, despite what we see around us. In mercy, God creates new space for life and blessing. This is like what the mercy and forgiveness of John Paul II made for the man who tried to kill him…it allowed for repentance and the renewal of the spiritual life in that man.
(See full conference transcript here)
The Manquehue group has added to its presence, with the arrival of Antonia Lopez Valdes. Miss Lopez Valdes is a 2011 graduate of San Anselmo College in Santiago, and brings to her work experience in event production, singing, dancing, and sports, such as volleyball, Aerobox and Zumba. She has an interest in social work and Scouting. She will remain in residence through the end of the calendar year, helping to cultivate lectio groups and other work in spiritual life, together with her confreres Alvaro Gazmuri and Catalina Quiroga. The three are also preparing the ground for a new contingent of young men who will join us in the winter term.
For our monthly focus on Benedictine wisdom, we present selections on the Rule from the book, Saint Benedict: A Rule for Beginners, written by our own Fr. Julian Stead. In this week of All Saints, we point in particular to the ingredients Benedict sees in sanctity, such as humility, obedience, and perseverance in faith. It is Fr. Julian's ability to effectively express for so many this daily journey toward sanctity found in love and in faith that leads us to select exemplary passages from his books. These highlight some of the wisdom embodied in his writing, resonating so deeply with that of Benedict. We offer some brief glimpses here, inviting the reader to delve further into these texts so worth exploring.