March 19, 2025

We seem to have found a week of celebration in the midst of our Lenten fast. St. Patrick, St. Joseph, St. Benedict, and soon the Annunciation of Our Lord burst onto the scene amidst our journey of fasting and abstinence. Adding to the feasting, our articles this week give much “food for thought.” Br. Sixtus recounts the gathering of friends, old and new, to celebrate our shared history, both secular and sacred. Abbot Michael directs us to consider not only our culinary diets, but our spiritual diets and all that we are consuming as we take in the news of the present day. Abbot Matthew Stark’s reflection from 1975 contains many valuable insights into monastic life and Christian life in general, and the rich banquet of Truth which gathers us to the God’s table, inspiring us as it challenges us. Perhaps these weeks are the appropriate foreshadowing of the upcoming Laetare Sunday, feasting on reminders of joy and hope as we head towards a Sunday of rejoicing. Are we being negligent and delinquent in our fasting? Or is it that the grace of God so exceeds all that we have done to suppress it? We may regret the former, and so be all the more grateful for the latter, as we encounter these feasts amidst the fast.

Pax,
Blake Billings

March 12, 2025

It is perhaps not too big a stretch to say that our three articles this week, unintentionally, each address one of the theological virtues: hope, faith, and love. Clearly, the Providence Symposium, turning to the theme of our Jubilee Year, confronted head on the meaning of hope, its panelists bringing more clearly into focus its meaning for us today. Abbot Michael’s Ash Wednesday homily addresses our Lenten journey as one of relationship, emphasizing our need to listen – our faith is not simply a declaration or proclamation, but a conversation, which requires us to remember that in prayer we are not alone the ones to do all of the talking. Our brief exposition on William Vincent Griffin, who somehow came to be related to Portsmouth, so as have his name listed in our necrology upon his death and etched into the foundation of our beautiful church before the Mary Altar, reveals a man of great charity, dedicated to nurturing the Church throughout his life. Together, these articles provide some appropriate Lenten content. May they help to guide us along our path to the Paschal Mystery.

Pax,
Blake Billings

March 4, 2025

The communications office for the School for some time published a series of news notes entitled, “Life on the Lane,” inspired by our location here in Portsmouth on Cory’s Lane. The theme of this note, “Lent on the Lane,” takes a page from that book. We can cut and paste it onto the message from Brother Sixtus’ narrative, of his sink or swim efforts to gain a diploma from Penn State. As swimmers learning to stay afloat in a swimming lane; as prodigals finding the right “lane” in which to travel back to the Father; as travelers on a journey even while remaining in one place – Lent means learning to “stay in our lane.” Abbot Michael sets the course for the trip in his homily, with his “homework for Lent”: “to wake up, to listen, and to close the distance between us.” Fr. Julian Stead’s reflection on St. Benedict, expanded in the homily of St. John Chrysostom, gives SPS (“Spiritual Positioning System”) coordinates and provides a “Google Maps” image of the route: prayer with tears, seeking peace with God. As we begin, the SPS is telling us it is forty days until our destination. With perseverance, and a good deal of grace, we can stay in our lane. May we on “The Lane” here in Portsmouth, and you wherever your journey may be taking you, as Fr. Julian proposes, “realize the joy of hopeful anticipation, or ‘spiritual desire, looking forward to holy Easter.’”

Pax,
Blake Billings

February 24, 2025

The return of Ash Wednesday marking the beginning of Lent always prompts a renewed sense of conversion. Perhaps this should be remembered when Benedictines are reminded that all of monastic life should bear a Lenten character. This means not only the asceticism of fasting and the discipline of monastic rigor. It also means inspiration, conversion, rejuvenation of faith. This may be one sense of the “conversatio morum” that lies inextricably bound to stability and obedience, and it is a vital source of joy. The homilies of the abbots, Matthew and Michael, remind us of some of the parameters proscribing that path of renewal – our call to be re-shaped, re-formed, re-cycled, like the ashes produced from the palms of Holy Week. Our call to serve, to assist those in need, to give to the poor. The Oblates are invited to discern their own calls, as they Recollect in listening to the inspired story of one of the young men in the School. As we enter into Lent, we can be grateful for this special time God still has allotted to us to undertake our remarkable journeys of conversion. And as we consider the “Lookout” designed by Richard Upjohn and the beauty it highlights on the grounds, we can be grateful God has also allotted us the space. Perhaps we can adapt that ancient rabbinic wisdom: If not now, when? And if not here, where? God has given us the time, and the place.

Pax,
Blake Billings