Our look at the oblates this week comes in anticipation of an Oblate Day of Recollection on October 13. These days are offered several times during the year, helping oblates regain their spiritual footing and foster their awareness of their chosen Benedictine community. While my own path to becoming an oblate was not vividly clear to me throughout my life, my interest in Benedict and his Rule has been a steady companion. I was drawn to the Christian faith while a student at the School. While in graduate studies in Belgium, I resided for one year in the Studium, a section set aside for students in Keizersberg (Mont-César) Abbey in Leuven, Belgium. Members of the Studium were committed to some practice of the Divine Office and community life. My study abroad also enabled me to make retreats at Downside Abbey and gain a closer knowledge of English Benedictines. This all set the ground for a continued interest in Benedictine life, and the gift of a return to Portsmouth as a faculty member. I cannot remember when I decided to inquire about becoming an oblate. I think for me it was more a decision to admit this is the life I am living, rather than a decision to take on something new. Kind of a “no-brainer,” I suppose: daily Mass here, frequent attendance at Vespers, teaching theology, middle name is Benedict. – what took me so long? I happened to overhear a tantalizing fragment of a student conversation while passing on the path this morning. One student had just asked, “Don’t you care if people like you?” The response was, “No, not really. They have to be able to handle who I am.” Indeed. The Rule of Saint Benedict in a nutshell, there. This community has somehow been able to do this, and I am grateful to have been accepted into it, as a (Jesuit) chaplain I know would often say, “warts and all.”
 
Pax - B. Billings, Ob.S.B.
October 6, 2019

On the wall of my classroom hangs a framed picture of Pope Saint John XXIII. I purchased it at a giant yard sale at St. Barnabas Church here in Portsmouth, some fifteen years ago. Overpaid for it. At the time, I was not sure why I was buying it, though I knew I had always had a fondness for John XXIII – initiator of the Council, great sense of humor, so pastorally minded. I am grateful on October elevenths to rediscover him as a kind of visual patron of the class. This morning I was grateful for a letter of this saint shared by Abbot Matthew at the Mass on his feast day, the last letter of Pope John to his family: “Love one another, my dear children. Seek rather what unites, not what may separate you from one another. I take leave, or better still, I say, 'Until we meet again.' Let me remind you of the most important things in life. Our blessed savior Jesus, His good news, His holy church, truth, and kindness.”
 
Pax - B. Billings
October 13, 2019