Abbot Michael blesses the NYC Reception
That the experience of two events more disparate, more in contrast to one another, could occur within less than 48 hours of each other is the cornerstone for this week’s thoughts. On one end of the scale, a large number of Portsmouth personnel descended on midtown Manhattan on Thursday, December 7, for the afternoon meeting of the Board of Directors (formerly known as the Board of Regents), followed by the annual Abbot’s Reception held later that evening at the historic 1901 New York Yacht Club, founded in 1844. Monks, board members, faculty, staff, alumni, guests, and assorted spouses and friends gathered for what has become, according one person in attendance, “the premiere social event of the academic year for the Portsmouth community.” On the other side of the balance scale was a much smaller gathering on Saturday, December 9, in Warren, Rhode Island, in the former St. Mark’s Episcopal Church – not a Reception, but rather a sort of simple “Send-Off.” And yet the joy was equal, the scale was perfectly balanced, not tipped from one side to the other, in the sense of mid-Advent happiness, prayer, camaraderie, and with each of the weighing scale’s pans exuding a sense of shared Christian purpose.
The Portsmouth Board is comprised of members residing across the U.S., including one in China. While two meetings are held annually on the Aquidneck Island campus, in September and in May, two others are held elsewhere, in areas where many alumni and friends live and work, allowing them to attend the social events surrounding the Board meeting more easily. The February meeting is held in Miami, Florida, while the December meeting takes place in New York City. Board members not able to travel to any given meeting participate via Zoom. The club’s well-appointed Commodores Room once again proved to be a comfortable and spacious venue for the 4-hour meeting. Board member William Keough ’78 welcomed the crowd at the evening event and had the honor of introducing Abbot Michael Brunner who opened both the reception and the earlier meeting with appropriate prayers. The abbot gave a brief report on the monks and the monastery and spoke in particular of the ongoing construction of the new elevator connecting all four floors of the 1960 Pietro Belluschi building. When completed, it will serve as a modern Italian-style campanile with the hoisting of the bell from its current location to the tower’s rooftop.
Matt and Paula Walter
Head of School Matt Walter, who traveled to the city with his wife, Paula, Dean of Student Life, presented a rundown on several facets of the school thus far in the academic year, including an update on the nearly-completed Student Center and further improvements to the main entry point to the campus at Cory’s Lane and West Main Road. An engaging video helped everyone visualize these projects which are moving the school towards the celebration of its 100th year in 2026. Among the standing-room-only crowd were many members of the Healey Family, including Fr. Joe Healey ’56, Maryknoll Missionary, as well as Tom ‘60 and Meg, longtime supporters; Elizabeth Benestad, Head of the Classics Dept., representing the faculty; Chris Fisher, Executive Director of the Portsmouth Institute; Diane Soboski, Director of College Counseling; Anita Vigerstol, Director of the Annual Fund; her assistant, Dare Odeyingbo, Asst. Director of the Annual Fund; Dr. Brendan McGrail, Director of Enrollment Management; Mr. Kale Zelden, Head of the Humanities Dept.; Nora O’Hara, Director of Development Data & Analytics; Meghan Fonts, Director of Parent Relations; Patty Gibbons, Director of Advancement; and Charles (Chuck) ’77 and his wife, Carla Kenahan, who serves as the Director of Special Events, along with their son, one of the triplets, Kian Kenahan ’12.
Alumni spotted were Jamie P. MacGuire ’70, U.S. Special Projects Editor of the Catholic Herald; Michael M. Seymour ’53, his wife Marilyn, and their son, Christopher L. Seymour ’82; Ted Falvey, Cortez Sanchez and Mauricio Garcia Gojon, all ’20; and Harry Skakel ’19, recent graduate of Wake Forest University. Guests with a special connection to St. Louis Abbey were Dr. Charles Garvin, classmate of Abbot Gregory Mohrman ’76 Priory, and Dr. Garvin’s son, Michael, ’13 Priory, completing his Ph.D. at Fordham. To quote from the history book of the club where all of this activity took place, “If 37 West 44th Street had scriptural inspiration, it surely would be the verses in Psalm 104 (King James Version) that read: ‘Oh Lord, how manifold are thy works! in wisdom has thou made them all: the earth is full of thy riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts. There go the ships: there is that leviathan, whom thou has made to play therein.’”
Michael Evora leading the Prism of Praise Community Gospel Choir at the Send-Off
From the polished Yacht Club on W. 44th St. where not a single light bulb was burned out, we travel 3½ hours northeast along the coast, but still near the “great and wide sea”, to an 1830 Greek Revival architectural gem by the architect Russell Warren. He was also responsible for the Providence Arcade, Brown University’s Manning Hall, and Bristol’s DeWolf Linden Place. St. Mark’s Parish was closed in 2010 with the building being sold by the diocese in 2012. In those ensuing 10 years, the new owners, Hadley and Peter Arnold, and their daughter, Josie, made an astonishing discovery during their restoration process. Intact stained-glass windows, one of a kind, which were commissioned in the 1870’s and subsequently covered over by pebbled-glass storm windows for protection, were finally revealed. One in particular, according to their research, is “a window that illuminates conversations ancient and contemporary at the intersection of race, gender, private conscience, and public art.” In August 2022, Dr. Katie Zins (who teaches in the humanities at P.A.S.), and I were invited to sit in on a discussion in St. Mark’s about the significance of one particular window which portrays Jesus as a person of color. As the Providence Journal began its front-page story on Sunday, April 9, 2023: “For decades, the stained-glass window hid in plain sight.”
Jamie MacGuire ’70, Mauricio Garcia Gojon ‘20 at the NYC Abbot’s Reception
Hadley Arnold, a Harvard-trained art historian and architectural designer, “was pretty sure she was looking at a portrait of Jesus Christ depicted as a person of color. And he was talking to two women, who were also shown as people of color,” according to the newspaper report. Two Bible stories are depicted, one of Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, plus the story of Jesus talking to the Samaritan woman who is gathering water at the well. All three women, and Jesus, are depicted as people of color, the only such known portrayal in a public work. Katie and I had viewed the window closely, photographed it and made notes, since she, too, had been trained as an art historian at Penn State. Discussions ensued, and we listened to Dr. Virginia Raguin of the College of the Holy Cross, author of the definitive books, Stained Glass in America and Style, Status, and Religion: America’s Pictorial Windows 1840 – 1950.
St. Mark’s Church, Warren, RI
Fast forward to the afternoon of December 9, back inside St. Mark’s, where here a few light bulbs were burned out, and where many of the Arnold’s supporters had returned for a Send-Off Celebration. Clad in coats and scarves because the building has not yet reached the HVAC stage of its restoration as an events venue, we warmed ourselves with piping hot apple cider and munched on holiday cookies. We cheered at hearing the good news that this unique window, commissioned by Mary P. Carr in honor of Mrs. Ruth Bourne DeWolf and Mrs. H. Gibbs, abolitionist sisters of Warren over 100 years ago, is headed to the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. It is a women-led institution in a Black-majority city at the heart of the nation’s civil rights movement, along the Mississippi. “Our” window is entering the museum’s permanent collection to be housed in new galleries designed by the Pritzker-Prize winning architects Herzog + DeMeuron. The museum director, Zoe Kahr, and its lead curator, Rosamund Garrett, were on hand in Warren to offer their thanks. They see the “1877 Black Gospel Window” as “playing a catalytic role in the Memphis community, anchoring [a] public space and inspiring public conversations both as an historical artifact as a living form of public art.”
The Send-Off ended with an hourlong performance by the amazing Prism of Praise Community Gospel Choir under the direction of Michael Evora. As individual singers introduced songs, a common refrain made clear that, for many of them, this is a window in which they and their children can see themselves. I thought I was familiar with many gospel songs, but the playlist was a revelation to me: Everything Will Be Alright, Jesus is a Rock in a Weary Land, Nobody Told Me That the Road Would Be Easy (I Don’t Believe He Brought Me This Far to Leave Me), Jesus Promised He’ll Take Care of Me (introduced by a recent brain surgery patient), and finally, I’m On My Way Home. And happily, in the knowledge that the window will soon be transported to its new home, we made our own way home, as the late afternoon sun slowly began to sink below the “great and wide sea.”