2019 October From the Editor

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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

Our community life expanded this weekend with the arrival of parents for Parents’ Weekend. This was a special one for myself, as my youngest daughter is now a Sixth Form student, so the last of my Parents’ Weekends as a Portsmouth Parent. I noticed the interweaving of generations: I now teach the children of former students, sharing with former students the parent experience. I teach the friends of my children, and the children of my friends. I am old enough to be the parent of the parents of our students. It’s all rather confusing…  And over the years and through the generations, I find the thread of a shared history, interest, and attachment to this monastery and school. I had repeated encounters with alumni whose children are now taking up the Portsmouth heritage in a new way. I heard a recurring theme of thanks for the Saint Louis monks who have strengthened our monastic presence, and are opening a new hope for the future. There has been an invisible but undeniable thread of continuity tying together these years and generations, even as I feel all the more the absence of those dear monks whom we have lost in recent years. There remains a sense of communion. We are somehow sharing here a table, a fellowship, a familiarity. It is a present that comes with a past, and with a future. It is a passing of a baton, it is tradition in action, traditioning – yes, that should be a verb. I felt a certain sense of traditioning this weekend. Sort of rhymes with transitioning. Between who we have been and who we will be; between our possibilities and our actualities, and tied together in our hopes and in our prayers.
 
Pax - B. Billings
October 20, 2019

Saint Benedict advises the Abbot to listen to his community, inviting the counsel of all: “The reason why we have said all should be called for counsel is that the Lord often reveals what is better to the younger” (RB 3). In that spirit, I was struck by the remarks offered by Maddie Knudson ’19 this week, in her talk as part of the School’s “Church Assembly” series. Maddie talked about some of the experiences in her movement towards faith that came to change her assumptions and expectations: “…I began to take five minutes every day to just think; I told myself it wasn’t prayer but it was the closest thing I had ever had to it. This led to me using the time in church to think, which then turned into me actually paying attention and participating in Mass. Instead of looking to find every fault in the Catholic faith, I began to think of it as something bigger than myself. All the rules and regulations that people stereotype the church with slipped away.” Maddie’s advice to the seeker was spot on: “…When we have to sit in church, if you’re not Catholic or struggling with what being Catholic means to you, take the time we’re given to be in a quiet space to think. Think about where you are and how you’re feeling as a person. Or be completely silent in your mind and words. Take into account the amazingness and beauty of the people around you who have such a strong faith.” Much of what she says here recalled to me my own journey in faith as a student at the Abbey. I remember myself arriving at the School (way back in 1974!), an agnostic and self-satisfied sophomore, highly critical of all things church – until I started “actually paying attention” and stopped “looking to find every fault,” as Maddie said. I too encountered “something bigger than myself,” and saw my prejudices called into the light. I began to notice “strong faith” around me, not only in the example of the monastic community, but in the sincere religious search of some of my peers. And the opportunity to find “a quiet space,” and to “be completely silent” – this was a new and appealing horizon for me, one that the monastic space provided in good measure. This all reminds me of an ancient insight I gained just recently from Thich Naht Hanh, Buddhist monk, who speaks of “Beginner’s Mind” (“Soshin,” in Zen Buddhism). “Beginner’s Mind” is a precious treasure of inspiration, a kind of well one can return to for sustenance, to rediscover the initial inspiration still leading one, perhaps invisibly, along one’s chosen path. “The Lord often reveals what is better to the younger”: to the beginner, and to the mind of faith that does not forget it is always just beginning. I am grateful for Maddie’s insights and her sincerity, itself a reminder of how to begin to see what matters most.
 
Pax - B. Billings
October 27, 2019