Works

Many of you have read about the Manquehue Apostolic Movement (MAM) in this publication, or seen something on the School’s website or publications. For those interested in learning more, a great place to begin is A Cloister in the World by the former Abbot of Ampleforth Abbey, Patrick Barry OSB. The book has a foreword by the founder of the Movement, Jose Manuel Eguiguren Guzman, a thorough history of the Movement and its spirituality, and appendices with extracts from MAM documents. Currently available on Amazon through Book Depository*, it reminds me that the message of Christ, as well as the Rule of St. Benedict, is not only timeless but can be re-expressed in each century, including our own. I hope my brief introduction inspires you to learn more.

Cloister, Portsmouth Abbey

When you read the history of any religious organization, you can’t help but realize that the word “coincidence” doesn’t really do justice to what happened. There’s no doubt that Jose Manuel could have done many different things, but “accidentally” running into Father Gabriel Guarda, OSB, in the National Library in Santiago set him on a near-daily journey of three years of lectio divina with the monk. “Everything in those three years turned on Father Gabriel’s patient and tenacious availability.” Father Gabriel’s monastery did not have a school. When Jose Manuel started thinking about forming his own school based on Benedictine principles, it turned out that the Headmaster of Ampleforth Abbey at the time was Father Dominic Milroy, whose mother was Chilean. Father Dominic was visiting relatives in Santiago, Father Gabriel met him, and later urged Jose Manuel to write to him. He did, and while Father Dominic replied with an essay he had written, he also said, in Jose Manuel’s retelling, “that it was not possible to understand about a school without visiting it.”

In 1981 Jose Manuel traveled alone to visit Ampleforth while in the midst of preparations for starting his own school. It became the first of many visits, but it could easily have been the last. As Abbot Patrick writes, “He began to wonder if he should turn around and go home, but in the end he decided to persevere. A strange episode when he got to London encouraged him. It seemed like a heavenly confirmation of the path he was treading. There in London he was offered and accepted his very first pupil for San Benito School.” As Jose Manuel tells the tale, “While I was in London a Chilean, who was working in England for the Chilean copper company, and his wife said that they knew I was starting a school and wanted to register their son with me. So he was registered in St. James hotel in London.” As Abbot Patrick said, “He was always able to accept the extraordinary as though it was quite ordinary.”

Forty years later the Movement runs three schools in Santiago, including San Lorenzo in the inner city, and Jose Manuel is still the leader of the Movement. Thanks to the visits to Ampleforth, the English Benedictine Congregation (which includes Portsmouth and St. Louis) has been able to share in the great fruits of this extraordinary apostolate. This is our tenth winter with a two-month group here from Santiago to help us grow in our knowledge and practice of lectio divina. I have made five trips to Santiago myself since 2010. When I am asked why we are doing this, I always respond: “Friendship.” That is where it has started and the friendship deepens each year.

We have always known that the Benedictine life is “not just for monks, ” but to see a lay community actually demonstrate it through their own devotion to the Rule, to lectio divina, and to the Divine Office, has helped us move from theory to practice. We were also greatly helped by a two-year visit from the newly married Alvaro Gazmuri and Cata Quiroga, whose first child was born here and baptized in our Abbey Church. Fortunately for them and us, they completed the two years shortly before COVID arrived. For the first time, the “winter group” from Chile arrived and found that lectio groups from the previous year were still active, thanks in no small part to the seeds planed by Cata and Alvaro, and nurtured by faculty lectio leaders Chris and Lauren Fisher and Dan and Emily McQuillan.

In addition, the Movement has demonstrated abundant hospitality to those of us fortunate enough to visit them in Santiago. On a formal level, there is also the “Cunaco Group,” which has met periodically over the last two decades, usually every two years or so, mainly in Santiago, and consists of Abbots and Heads of the English Benedictine Congregation (EBC) and the Manquehue Apostolic Movement. We meet to continue our friendship in Christ while praying together and discussing the religious and educational formation provided by our schools. Our last meeting was in January 2018 in Patagonia and we had planned to meet in Portsmouth last summer. Instead, we will meet virtually in June of this year with hopes to see each other in person again in the future. At present, the EBC and MAM heads are also meeting virtually on a monthly basis. Meeting with others that are engaged in the same tasks of education and formation has been invaluable. 

I urge you to visit the Manquehue website (http://www.manquehue.org/mam/english/). To learn more about the Movement:  A Cloister in the World, Patrick Barry (Amazon link).