Editor's Note

September 18, 2023

At the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross earlier this month, I felt compelled to pray quietly after Vespers before the tabernacle. It became one of those moments in which the Oratory of St. Gregory the Great revealed to me some of her secrets. I have been blessed to be able to spend enough time in that beautiful space to notice the play of light, the sounds of the wind and rain, of the expansion and the contraction of posts and beams. September 14 was a humid and sunny day. One can trace the movement of the sun throughout the year by the angle of the light that sweeps in at different times of day. On the evening of the Exaltation, after Vespers, the sun swept across the tabernacle, and its light encircled the cross designed by Meinrad Burch, acting like a spotlight on a stage – an exaltation. With some consternation, while yet feeling a sense of approval, my prayer session turned into a photo op (see “This Week in Heaven”). I have been in the church when the stones on the floor began to glisten as if embedded diamonds were catching the low-angled winter sunlight. I have found a spot in the upper gallery where, upon sitting down to ponder the crucifix on the Feast of the Ascension, I found myself at such an angle that the corpus became invisible. I have seen on several occasions the paint colors that linger on the statue of Our Lady come to life, as if to accent her beauty. If you somehow did not already find that space beautiful, wait for it: it only gets better.

Peace,
Blake Billings

September 13, 2023

Our week has been “full steam ahead,” the academic year having burst upon us, testing all of our best laid plans. Our gospel to begin the year was about developing our talents, recognizing our gifts. Abbot Michael’s homily points us most fundamentally discerning the gift of God’s love and mercy. Brother Sixtus tells us of how a visit from Jon Yarnell enabled us to refresh our awareness of the gifts visible in the heritage of the physical place which we inhabit, tangibly expressed in part in its very furnishing, such as the remarkable Nakashima collection. And our focus on a “love of learning” in this week’s issue reminds us of the intellectual character of our mission, and of the gift of our Benedictine school. As I was searching the web for a beautiful quotation I only partially remember from Gregory the Great, to let our patron sum up what all this means, I stumbled rather upon a quotation from John Chrysostom, whose feast we celebrate the day I write this: “God asks little, but gives much.” On first reading, the quotation points to gratitude, of our opportunity here “to grow in knowledge and grace.” But in Genesis 1, as we just read in my Basic Theology class, we hear that we are created in the image of God. If so, then we, too, are called to ask little and give much. A challenging lesson to learn, that the best gifts are the ones we give - perhaps trite, still true. So…: Full steam ahead.

Peace,
Blake Billings

September 8, 2023

As we look back this week in our Archives to some previous experiences of this place, I reflect on my own. Similarly, the experience of Lourdes expressed in this issue by Brother Sixtus recalls my own pilgrimages there. I was not raised in a family or culture conversant in outward gestures of piety or religiosity, not prone to frequent signs of the cross, sprinklings of holy water, not Holy-Card Carrying Catholics. So, I am surprised to discern within myself a growing ease with such expressions of devotion. I remember noticing a former student of the School who would bless herself whenever walking past the church. I was impressed. I have always cherished the passage from Ephesians 2 on the doors of our church of St. Gregory the Great. It is beautifully ecclesial, redemptive, apostolic: “You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Shortly before the school year began, we celebrated the feast of my Confirmation patron, the apostle Bartholomew. Ephesians 2 is always read on apostles’ feasts. Rather than using the closer side-entrance, I opted to enter through that front door, to touch it, to again try to absorb the breadth and depth and length of its message. It is a message I first began to truly absorb here, within those very walls. I am grateful for my “fellow citizens” who have shared in its edification.

Peace,
Blake Billings

September 1, 2023

The Current opens its new publishing year on our monastery’s patronal feast of St. Gregory the Great. We report this week on artist William Congdon, whose work expresses a deeply spiritual journey. We cover a devotion to Our Lady of Lourdes, inspiring the recent Oblates’ Day of Recollection. We get our readers up to date with some of the happenings at the Abbey, rounding out the summer and anticipated for the fall. As we publish, the School prepares for the pre-season return of student-athletes, with the whole school soon to follow. St. Gregory – I suppose like any who merit the designation “Great” – seems to have been boundless in his energy, interests, and involvements. With his name attached to chant, to liturgical reform, to church structure, to social concerns, to preaching and doctrine, it seems there is no aspect of church life with which he was not engaged, and upon which he has not left an enduring mark. With the privilege of having him within our own Benedictine heritage, and with the blessing of his patronage, we look to the array of activities emerging and extending from this monastery, as gift and as responsibility. We welcome our readers back, grateful for your continued interest and participation in our Benedictine journey, for your support and for your prayers.

Peace,
Blake Billings