Editor's Note

May 12, 2025

We continue to “unpack” the meaning of recent events – for us at Portsmouth, the addition of a new priest among us and the arrival of a new bishop. For the universal Church, the welcoming of a new pope. Br. Sixtus, in “unpacking” of some these experiences, recalls some of his own role in ordinations and in other significant liturgies that have shaped his own history. We also continue to “unpack” the significance of ancient events, notably, the Resurrection of Our Lord and His appearances to the apostles. Such an “unpacking” of the past may take the form of a questioning, an examination of conscience or of consciousness, a reckoning. This reckoning seeks to connect recent events to ancient ones, the contemporary to the eternal – our lives to His Life. What I think I am trying to express here has something to do with the articles we see in this issue. I am particularly challenged by Abbot Matthew’s reality-check on the seriousness of our contemporary world’s sense of the Resurrection and its significance, its reality. I am also particularly challenged by the question Abbot Michael highlights from the gospel: Do you love me? Christ asks this three time of Peter, and seems to continue to ask it of all of us, at least of me, with a message I seem to constantly be trying to unpack.

Pax,
Blake Billings

May 5, 2025

You are strangers and aliens no longer. No, you are fellow citizens of the saints and members of the household of God. You form a building that rises on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is fitted together and takes shape as a holy temple in the Lord; in him you are being built into this temple, to become a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22)

This passage from Ephesians adorns the doors of the Church of St. Gregory the Great at Portsmouth. It speaks powerfully of church as people – citizens, apostles, prophets. God’s edifice, His dwelling place, is alive and personal. As the vital and authentic church is its congregation, the physical church building is made for them, by them. And they are its ongoing construction, a work ever in progress, directed by and centered in the Master Builder. These thoughts occurred to me as I considered this Friday’s ordination. We witnessed a kind of hypostatic union of spirit and structure, of people and place. We witnessed a gathering of worshippers from near and far, brought together in a beautiful liturgical space, called in a service of prayer for one committed to our service. Some of this is reflected in our articles this week: Brother Sixtus’ report on the event, Bishop Elias Lorenzo’s homily, and our archival material on the excitement for the construction plans for the Abbey’s church. On Friday, May 2, 2025, it felt like we were witnessing the Master Architect’s next move in his construction plans – His building, rising on the foundation of the apostles. And it felt like there was no better place to be.

Pax,
Blake Billings

April 29, 2025

I had the privilege of visiting Rome for the Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Divine Mercy. I in fact arrived just in time for the Second Sunday of Easter, accentuating the significance of the Jubilee and of the feast. The death of Pope Francis in the week of Easter, within the Octave that culminates in Divine Mercy, cannot pass without remark. It is perhaps part of the reason so many attendees of the liturgies associated with his death spoke of a grief seemingly consoled by a joy. These two poles articulate, it seems to me, the very experience of mercy. They map out a journey from grief to gratitude, from penitence to peace. They enable us to reinterpret experiences of our lives, newly framed by redemption and hope. Our issue of The Current this week draws together a range of such experience: in the hopeful witness and testimony of Ordination; in the gospel messages of the Easter Week, messages so visibly embodied in the pastoral engagement of Pope Francis’ life; in the artistic journey of Ruth Ann Petree, closely tied to her life of faith. It is so valuable to recall this “cloud of witnesses” amidst the uncertainties and difficulties we face, personally and globally. So therapeutic, to measure them against the persistent and powerful presence of the Divine Mercy.

Pax,
Blake Billings