Works

October 2020
- Portsmouth Abbey, in its monks, oblates, and extended school community, is engaged in service to the community in a variety of ways. These efforts, commanded by Christ in his central commandment to love God and neighbor, are outlined in Benedict's Rule, Chapter Four, which provides an extensive catalogue of good works. This monthly column explores different ways in which the Abbey is responding to this vocation.
  
  More Works: 2020 / 2019
Virtual Volunteers, And More
- Fall Service Interns caring for "our common home"
- The recent release of “Fratelli tutti,” the third encyclical of Pope Francis, provides an appropriate starting point for this month’s reflection on service in our community. Headlines on the Vatican News website refer to it as a “radical blueprint for post-COVID world” and “a call to disrupt our lives and pay attention to the world.” Fr Kevin Irwin believes the encyclical should be both read and prayed, and that it is “nothing less than about a way to reread and to live the Gospel for our times.” In an interview with Vatican News, Marie Dennis of Pax Christi International says, “Pope Francis has offered inspirational leadership to our hurting world. His attention to the pandemic’s impact on the most vulnerable and marginalized in our societies has helped the world to see him as a pastor uniquely able to encourage and console.” His third encyclical is clearly designed to do that, as well as to challenge all to more fully engage in a ministry of service throughout the world.
- The second chapter of the encyclical draws its central inspiration from the parable of the Good Samaritan. Francis writes: “The parable eloquently presents the basic decision we need to make in order to rebuild our wounded world. In the face of so much pain and suffering, our only course is to imitate the Good Samaritan. Any other decision would make us either one of the robbers or one of those who walked by without showing compassion for the sufferings of the man on the roadside. The parable shows us how a community can be rebuilt by men and women who identify with the vulnerability of others, who reject the creation of a society of exclusion, and act instead as neighbors, lifting up and rehabilitating the fallen for the sake of the common good. At the same time, it warns us about the attitude of those who think only of themselves and fail to shoulder the inevitable responsibilities of life as it is.”
- The service schedule posted online
  
  for fall term volunteering
- Clearly, the COVID pandemic has made such a goal more difficult. The School, proceeding this year with a “hybrid” model of learning, has students and faculty participating both in-person and online. The term has move forward cautiously, with many questions and with ongoing reassessment; always with the lingering possibility, this far avoided, of the move to entirely remote education. And one of the areas of the school most impacted by distancing restrictions has been our community service outreach. This community engagement has been so dependent on the interpersonal element and interaction within the local community – working with children in after school programs and tutoring, visiting the elderly in local nursing homes, delivering furniture into people’s residences through My Brother’s Keeper. It inevitably has included simply being able to hop on the bus to head off campus – this basic activity is not possible this term.
- Great Pacific Garbage Patch
- This difficult context has prompted the need to rethink service, to get creative, to adjust, to pivot to the possible. Dr. Marc Lavallee, Director of Community Service Interns, has cobbled together a full schedule for students in service. The program has in fact been able to reach out internationally, with students participating through distance learning. The weekly schedule includes an educational activities, independent virtual projects, some local Service, and reflection. The crew has watched several Ted Talks on service to the community, looking into issue in global assistance. In light of taking care of “our common home,” they viewed a video on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The interns also viewed a documentary entitled, "The Shelter," which focuses on a Catholic center for homeless youth in New Orleans, as well as the documentary "The End," which looks into families with loved ones at home in hospice care. The interns also met over Zoom with Rick Akin, director of volunteers at Bowery Residents Committee (BRC), a homeless intervention program in New York City.
- Service Interns are also developing independent projects virtually. One student has joined an online tutoring program with a young student in the Bristol, Rhode Island, school district. Several Asian students are making pictures and writing encouragement letters in Chinese for Chinese-speaking seniors who have been without family and community since the BRC senior center outside of Chinatown had to close due to COVID restrictions. Dr. Lavallee reports that other students, “have done some letter writing for a hospice center in Huntsville, Alabama, for residents at Royal Middletown, and for projects organized by the Bristol Health Equity Zone.” Internationally, remote students have been sending letters and care packages to Royal Middletown (Rhode Island), as well as participating in online tutoring and assisting with the BRC projects.
- Bristol (RI) Health Equity Zone event
- The crew has also been able to get outside for some in-person service. The past three weeks, the interns on campus have walked along the beautiful campus coastline, from the end of Cory’s Lane to the estuary, as well as into the campus woods, to undertake trash clean up and disposal. “It's been nice to get outside on sunny fall days,” Dr. Lavallee notes. This in-person work is not yet permitted in the form of off-campus, interpersonal contact. The School has strictly limited off-campus travel, as well as visiting to the campus. Dr. Lavallee has approached the Interns programs creatively, though he is keeping his eye on future opportunities: “When and if off-campus travel is allowed, we will find opportunities for other local service.” We all look forward to finding such opportunities, and to move as soon as possible into a post-COVID environment!