October 18, 2023
In our days of conflict, animosity, and violence, this issue’s articles seek to provide guidance for the perplexed. We see light shed on the center of the Gospel in Abbot Matthew’s Maundy Thursday homily and in an array of some of the church leaders and spiritual writers whom he has studied. Yet perhaps we find our way most readily through the practice our community has taken up this past Tuesday, in solidarity with those suffering in war in our Holy Land: the prayer of Divine Adoration and in fasting. We famously hear of the Eucharist as “source and summit” – the alpha and the omega of our spiritual, intellectual, and liturgical life; “the living heart of each of our churches,” as Pope St. Paul VI succinctly teaches. The reflections we offer here may assist us in our understanding. But surely it is the incorporation of the Blessed Sacrament into our “daily sacrifice” (Newman) that will secure our path – such a teaching echoes throughout the reflections here presented. In all of this, may we recall and heed the Latin Patriarch’s fervent plea: “We cannot let death and its sting (1 Cor 15:55) be the only word we hear.” May “the living heart” in our tabernacles thus be the source of enduring peace in our world.
Peace,
Blake Billings
October 11, 2023
With our monthly theme this week addressing the “Love of Learning,” we consider our monastery’s commitment to education and its engagement in the lives of our young students. Brother Sixtus Roslevich outlines the discovery of a remarkable article from The Providence Visitor, whose description of the origins of the School still rings true to our mission and character. The reflections offered by Abbot Michael at a recent Church Assembly provide a contemporary context and an admonition, inspired by the exhortation in the Gospel stated by Our Lord. We hear in this a call to an ongoing need for education. The gospel reading admonishes us concerning what defiles and what improves, concerning what helps and what hurts, concerning learning a wisdom that is substantial and that sustains. Our founder, Leonard Sargent, seems to have been keenly aware of such stakes, seeking to create a community that embraced the importance of the search for such wisdom. We hope to continue to carry that hope forward.
Peace,
Blake Billings
October 6, 2023
Our articles this week have a distinctively Benedictine flavor. We report on the Fifth World Congress of Benedictine Oblates, and the blessing of having one of our own oblates invited to attend. We include a weekday homily offered by Fr. Paschal Scotti on Blessed Columba Marmion, a product and saintly representative of our Benedictine heritage. And we recover some of the history of our own monastic community – Doms Damian Kearney, Edmund Adams, Julian Stead, and Benedict Lang – as discerned through a reading of previous publications of our Newsletter. And in each of these articles we find represented something of Benedictine life: the search for God, the path of holiness, the love of learning. We perhaps discern a line of continuity in this shared journey, which we, whether monk, oblate, or friend, may take up together. That line, as discerned by Fr. Paschal within the writings of Blessed Columba, is surely Christ-centered, outlining the profile from where Christ “Shines Forth,” as Dom Julian Stead’s 1983 publication reminds us.
Peace,
Blake Billings
September 28, 2023
The continuation of academic life, like the perseverance in spiritual life, presents itself as a life of search, of change, of discovery, of novelty. The more one seeks a life of stability, the more one may find an uncomfortable call outward. Our articles this week speak to this movement of growth. Our news update points to the busy-ness that can overtake a monastery – here a busy-ness of hospitality and service. The homily we share from Abbot Michael outlines a call to stewardship in the gospel, to the business of labor for the kingdom to which we are called, which God compensates in His way, so high above ours. And our story about our Artisan of the Abbey, Luis Raposo, reveals a professional artisanal journey from the Azores to a diverse and talented engagement in so many different projects for the monastery and School. As we move further into our busy academic year, we seem to find the labor in the field continues to expand and to call us to more. We capture this week a sliver of that ever-widening spectrum.
Peace,
Blake Billings