Works

January 2021

by Blake Billings, Ph.D.

The monastery and school welcomed the arrival this week of a new Chilean group. Four women representing the Manquehue Apostolic Movement (MAM) have moved into the Guest House, undergoing a two-week period of quarantine in preparation for their engagement with the community at Portsmouth through the remainder of the winter term. This MAM communidad will be working within our spiritual life program, helping cultivate further our lectio groups. Their arrival extends a productive decade-long project of cooperation between MAM and Portsmouth, a relationship that has included winter visits to our campus, as well as the recent extended stay of Alvaro Gazmuri and Cata Quiroga. It has seen two Portsmouth student “trabajos” community service groups travel to Santiago, in 2015 and 2016, and very nearly a third crew this past year, before the pandemic intervened. The patient efforts of our Chilean friends have helped to generate a flourishing lectio program, and have proven to be a visible work of the Spirit in our community life. 

Manquehue missionaries at Portsmouth Abbey this winter

The leader of this term’s contingent returns after eight years. Rosario Achondo joined a group of five members led by Jaime Lira in the winter of 2013. Unlike many of the Movement’s members, Rosario did not join after having been a student at an MAM school. She learned about the movement through a four-month retreat program in Patagonia undertaken while at university. She has not looked back! Just two weeks before arriving with us, Rosario made her promises to the Movement as a celibate oblate. These lifelong promises of oblation within Manquehue resemble those made by priests or those in religious orders, although they preserve the character of MAM as a lay movement. Manquehue maintains a group of lay oblates at the center of its mission, centered in prayer and in the Rule of Saint Benedict. Founder Jose Manuel Eguiguren had arrived at this vision of oblation in discerning, through discussion with the monks at Ampleforth and in Santiago, how to create what Ampleforth’s Abbot Patrick Barry called a “cloister in the world.” The oblates of Manquehue, both celibate and married, are deeply involved in the running and administration of the three large Manquehue schools in Santiago, as in the retreat center in Patagonia. After extended visits to Portsmouth and to Downside School in England, living five year at the remote Patagonia center, and committed work in the Manquehue schools, Rosario has now entered fully into MAM life as an oblate. 

Among the three other members of the winter team is Teresa Quiroga, sister of Cata Quiroga who was in residence at Portsmouth over the past two years. Teresa is a 2013 graduate of MAM’s San Anselmo School and has been in the Movement’s servant novitiate for five years. The MAM novitiate serves as a preparation and discernment period for those who are on the path towards becoming oblates. Teresa spent a year at Downside and three years in Patagonia, and is presently studying to be a music teacher. Bernardita Opazo is also a graduate of San Anslemo (2017), with an interest in a career in design, which she loves. She has remained active in the Saint Therese of Lisieux lectio group she joined while in Form III at San Anselmo. Interestingly, Bernardita has already met Mr. Chris Fisher, director of the Portsmouth Institute, as Chris and his wife Lauren stayed at her home on their visit to Santiago two years ago. The youngest member, Trinidad Hue, is a 2019 graduate of San Benito, the foundational school of the movement. She is majoring in philosophy at Universidad de los Andes, an Opus Dei university in Santiago. Her studies there, while already slowed by the pandemic, have also been delayed by a four month stay in Patagonia, from which Trini has directly come to Portsmouth, making a brief stop off at home on the way. She will resume those studies in March upon her return to Chile.  

Rosario notes that whether a member is an oblate, novice, “promesado” (who make renewable temporary promises), or involved primarily through a lectio group, there is a singular sense of community that links all in the Movement. “It is the same calling,” she says, emphasizing a shared experience of Christian faith and life. This experience of Christian life is centered for all in the movement in lectio and prayer, two foundational dimensions of community life developed in the Rule of Saint Benedict. It is this shared fellowship which also establishes the fraternal bonds linking the Manquehue movement and the Portsmouth community. The English Benedictine Congregation has noted and formally recognized this Benedictine fellowship with the Movement, creating a fruitful association that reaches across continents and languages. 

Lectio Fire 2019

The group is excited about the opportunities arising here this winter term, both in the school and in connection to the monastic community, despite the limitations imposed by the pandemic. They have encountered similar restrictions at the MAM schools in Santiago, and are used to Zoom, masks, and social distancing. These have not inhibited the cultivation of community life and, in fact, early access to Zoom provided for an effective continuation of community life for them. Their schools have made similar adaptations to ours: alternating days of in-person attendance for classes, making full use of distance learning, this after the closure of in-person classes last April and restricted openings of schools in October. This effected the Chilean academic calendar somewhat differently, as their school year begins in March. Bringing this experience with them, the four see ample opportunity to be engaged in spiritual life at the School. While ostensibly assisting with lectio, the group envisions their involvement most fundamentally in light of the heart of Manquehue community life in general: a shared experience of faith. This is enhanced for them here through the diverse cultural and spiritual heritage the Chileans add to our own school’s diversity. Trini notes, “We are not really here to teach students about lectio, since it is already well-established now.” She expresses her sense of the mission as one of sharing and support, of friendship and cultural exchange. Bernardita adds that this is important, since, “There are different ways to connect with God.” Indeed, this is very Benedictine, Rosario notes, as the Rule is very interested in each monk as an individual. Unity is not the same as uniformity, and the strength of the community bond is increased through, as St. Paul expresses, the many members of the body. Teresa expresses the gratitude of the community for this chance to share and grow in faith: “We are so happy to be here,” she says, grateful to continue the friendship with Portsmouth that has been growing so strong over the years. 

Manquehue group, Winter Term of 2019-20

The group has not only been enduring but enjoying its quarantine. It has been a kind of contemplative entry into life at the school, affording them a slow and prayerful pace for acclimation. Rosario speaks of their awareness of many gifts as “miracles”: the visits of different individuals (even if distanced or over Zoom!), the simple presentation of a basketball they could use for recreation, the gift of a special dessert, or the opportunity to walk the peaceful campus grounds. We pray that these “miracles” may be a prelude to even greater ones which, through the generous cooperation of their devoted effort, will be made manifest in our community.