Editor's Note

- The Final Days
  
  March 27, 2021
  One of the striking visual memories of my childhood parish is the covering of statues during Lent. One dramatic statue was of our patron, St. Michael, in his battle with the devil. Seemingly just as dramatic, and even now in my memory, was finding it wrapped in violet for the forty days of Lent. Here, we have captured some of that drama for me, as Our Lady, in her side chapel of the church, remains enshrouded for Passiontide, the final days leading up to the Easter mysteries. There is perhaps a paradox here: the covering of the visual draws attention to what is seen, and unseen. Silence accentuates our hearing, and what we would love to hear. And with the arrival of Holy Week, the opening of Life Eternal appears against the horizon of whatever it is we are living now. May these final, heavy days of our fast prepare us to be more fully attentive to the Feast to which it calls us.
- March On
  
  March 20, 2021
  
  This week and this season seem to represent for me an ongoing “reality check.” This year, in particular, we know well the discontent of our winter. In the ongoing rigors of Lent, we face the realities of our sin. In this week in the Transitus, we confront the approach of death. In this issue, we present images of winter that are playful, though mostly if we view them in retrospect. And yet, despite the depths of our Lent, we find a stubborn insistence on hope: a Sunday of Rejoicing; a feast for Saint Joseph; the approaching remembrance of the Annunciation of our salvation. With all of this, it still feels like there is little peace in the quietude of our spring pause. While there is much anxiety in the quiet isolations of our long pandemic, we persevere, remembering a call to take up a cross. And while perhaps asking, “When will I come to the end of my pilgrimage?” – we March on.
  
  Pax,
  
  Blake Billings
- Walking the Walk
  
  March 13, 2021
  
  With the beginnings of spring, it becomes more appealing to walk the grounds. All the more so with the hazards and restrictions that present themselves in going anywhere else. Fortunately, walking seems to be a Lenten sort of activity. I often walk past the monastery cemetery. I heard a student once call it “hidden” - perhaps since it can sit unnoticed, particularly to us who have much else to do. But, in fact, it lies right next to the principal entrance. Indeed, the elegant stone pillars mark what used to be the one entrance to the monastery. Keep death daily before your eyes. This is the teaching of Benedict’s Rule. Surely also the teaching of Lent. And no doubt the experience of our pandemic. This Laetare Sunday, we inject light into that mourning, we recall that the bridegroom is with us, and we think of the widening days of spring. Consider a walk this Sunday. You may find it perfectly Lenten, and so discern what may be the one challenge of Lent: to trust in all things, in life and in death, the grace of God.
  
  Pax,
  
  Blake Billings
- Pandemic and Penitential
  
  Somehow the passage of time feels accented these days. Every day is marked by some further grim landmark. Yet every day also carries additional thousands of vaccinations. This week has brought the release and relief of our school’s spring break, yet the grounds will be not entirely devoid of students, as some are allowed to remain on campus to avoid the remaining risks of travel. We have “made it through” another term. And it seems that now I find “pandemic time” to be intersecting with “Lenten time.” Perhaps this illuminates the contemporary concept of “intersectionality”: when two social categories collide to reinforce an encounter with discrimination. Here, these two weighted times intersect – pandemic and penitential - nailing down an experience of limitation, weakness, grief, and the need for grace. Lent is a time one may often look to the calendar, “counting the days”; another week in the books for better or worse; just four more weeks until... Yet, conversely and strangely, Lent carries for me such a deep attraction. How is it that this Lenten time, even in its reinforced pandemic restrictions, inspires and strengthens? Perhaps it is this: Lent imposes humility. That is not why I am drawn to it: it is more what it draws from me. It carries a reality check of incapacity, fragility, sinfulness, mortality. Ash Wednesday sets the tone. Good Friday leaves no doubt. The only hope I have is Easter, and that is so entirely up to God. But an Easter hope somehow saturates and sustains this pandemic and penitential time, gives it purpose, and provides a balm for the frailty that Lent has exposed.
  
  Pax,
  
  Blake Billings
About
- Blake Billings '77, Ph.D. is a graduate and current faculty member of Portsmouth Abbey School. He received his undergraduate education at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, then joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps to assist in an inner-city parish in Oakland, California. From Oakland, he went to Leuven, Belgium, receiving degrees in theology and philosophy. He returned to the Abbey in 1987, teaching for three years before getting married and returning to Leuven to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy, which he was awarded in 1995. Having taught in higher education at various schools, including St. John's University, Farifield University, and Sacred Heart University, he decided his calling was at the secondary level, gratefully returning to Portsmouth in 1996, where he has resided ever since. He became an oblate of the Portsmouth community ten years ago. His four children were all raised on campus and graduated from the school, the youngest in 2020.