Editor's Note

- Annunciations
  
  March 25, 2022
  
  The week has brought to us the beginning of spring and the return of students to campus, with its accompanying buzz of activity. Spiritually, for me, the Lenten journey has drawn me into deeper waters over the School’s break, so there is a sense that it is time to resurface. And things are happening. The church’s sound system is in the midst of an overhaul. Br. Sixtus and Abbot Michael have been looking into preparations for the Abbatial Blessing. Holy Week draws ever closer on our schedules. And all of this seems overshadowed by ever more grim global events, rumors of a third World War, and a consecration of Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Annunciation has arrived this week, and it has always been one of the most powerfully evocative of the Mysteries of the Rosary for me. Somehow all of these events, local and global, conspire to draw me towards this Solemnity in an ever more poignant way. It is the springtime of Mary’s vocation; there is abuzz of activity; things are happening. We have a task to accomplish, and Emmanuel, God is with us.
  
  Pax,
  
  Blake Billings
- DST (Daylight Savings Theology)
  
  March 16, 2022
  
  We have heard much of late about Daylight Savings Time. The U.S. Senate has voted to eliminate the change, with a vote revealing uncharacteristic, widespread agreement. They hope to keep us in this time slot, preserving light for the later hours of the afternoon and evening. This does mean that our Manquehue friends in Chile would for now remain at least one hour ahead of us, depending on what their own nation decides to do about it. (Yes, Chile is ahead of us - this may surprise those who do not realize that South America is not only south of us here in Rhode Island, but mostly east of us as well.) Africa, Asia, and most of South America do not observe DST at all. One noticeable change for me here at Portsmouth is the greater light suddenly present at Vespers. The stained glass of the clerestory is more vibrant; the crucifix above the altar shines forth more vividly. It all speaks of the progress of Lent and the approach of Easter and spring. Somehow for me this lends itself to an understanding that our time is experienced in the mirror dimly, only a shadow of God’s time. No matter how we contrive to carve it up, light is His, the very first act of creation. And while we may hope to save a little bit of light, the truth is that the Light is saving us. The season of Lent is an appropriate one to keep that in mind.
  
  Pax,
  
  Blake Billings
- Lenten Breathing
  
  March 10, 2022
  
  Is Lent the season of humility? Augustine famously stated the threefold way to abide in truth: “the first, humility, second humility, third humility...” He continues: “...if humility does not precede and accompany and follow every good work we do, and if it is not set before us to look upon, and beside us to lean upon, and behind us to fence us in, pride will wrest from our hand any good deed we do while we are in the very act of taking pleasure in it” (Letter to Dioscorus, 22). Humility. Around here, we’re working on it. As we reread our Psalms 51 this season, we are reminded again and again and again of the call to humility. As I waver in my Lenten commitments, in my struggle to discern and to act on God’s will, I am surely reminded yet again. Nevertheless, miraculously, in all such occasions of humility, can we not also discern the fruit of humility, its steady and surprising companion? It too is threefold: first gratitude, second gratitude, third gratitude. I am grateful that so much is in God’s hands; grateful for how much God nonetheless asks of me, and forgives me; grateful for a community to join in Lenten prayer and penance, a community that shares in the awareness of the need of it. And grateful that God’s purpose with humility indeed is gratitude, and not humiliation. Humility and gratitude: is this the inhaling and the exhaling of the Lenten season? Just thirty or so days left: I am grateful for the chance to make the most of it.
  
  Pax,
  
  Blake Billings
- Curve Your Enthusiasm
  
  March 3, 2022
  
  Should a monk, or anyone else, be “enthusiastic” about Lent? Monastic life does bear a Lenten character, Benedict says. And I was indeed anticipating Lent with a sense of gratitude this week, a grateful, odd enthusiasm for this season of self-denial and penance. Ash Wednesday, to be sure, provides an immediate challenge to that, and Good Friday a yet more profound test. Still, I am grateful for a renewed opportunity, a new chance to return to God, to my true self. But truth be told, this enthusiasm seems immediately cheapened and hollow when measured against events happening in the world. How am I entitled to positivity amidst brutality and sorrow? Maybe my Lenten project, then, is to re-orient this sense of enthusiasm. I think of the scripture verse: “Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep” (Romans). Another: “To everything there is a season” (Ecclesiastes). Well, now is the season of penance, and there are many who weep. Perhaps these verses outline a call to repentance: Lent is not about a self-centered enthusiasm for what is offered to me, but a re-oriented enthusiasm - a “good zeal” (Rule of St. Benedict, ch. 72) - truly rooted in the commandment to love God, to love neighbor, to love... enemy. This would make Lent no longer a “me” project, but a “you” project, a “for-the-other” project. It would transform my enthusiasm into a joy for the joy of others, and a sorrow for the sorrow of others. Maybe I will use these 40 days to work on that.
  
  Paz,
  
  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.