Our Lady’s altar during Vespers of Christmas Octave

Advent Retreats. No sooner had most of the school population begun its “retreat” on Friday, December 20 – to points near and far for their holiday break – then the monks began their annual retreat of a different sort, safely and warmly collected in the confines of their calefactory. The program of eight conferences was led by our Dominican friend, Father Justin Bolger, O.P., who had completed his own canonical retreat at the Abbey last spring. Residing in the Friary at Providence College, he is currently the Chaplain at Brown University, as well as being a member of the Dominican bluegrass band, The Hillbilly Thomists, who performed at the Humanitas Symposium of the Portsmouth Institute last June with Narragansett Bay as their backdrop. Blessed with a strong baritone voice, Fr. Justin began his first conference on Day One by explaining that he wanted “to draw his themes from Advent hymns,” often understandably “overlooked in favor of Christmas carols.” Thus, each of his eight talks began on a musical note, as it were, with a hymn or an “O! Antiphon” sung either solo by himself or together with the monks. “You all are pretty medieval,” he continued, as he begged us “for forbearance,” admitting that this was his first series of conferences ever delivered to a group of religious. Fr. Justin’s first selection, one of his favorites, was “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming,” a traditional 1599 German hymn, slightly later than the medieval time period. It is inspired by Isaiah 11:1: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.” The beautiful melody disguises and distracts from what is actually a strange image, that of a rose blooming from a dead stump in the dead of winter, what he calls an “agricultural phenomenon. It’s like something from a fairy tale.” But it presages the renewal and restoration of a kingdom.

Fr. Juston Bolger, O.P. leads retreat in calefactoryThe retreat days progressed seamlessly, with more beautiful melodies interspersed with references to, among others, the philosopher Thomas Kuhn (1922-1996, theory of paradigm shifts in science); the Elves of Lothlorien; music producer Rick Rubin (The Beastie Boys, Johnny Cash, LL Cool J, et al); T.S. Eliot (The Wasteland); C.S. Lewis (The Weight of Glory); Fr. Justin’s nephew Thomas; and Mariah Carey. In his fifth conference on Sunday, maybe having just seen ads in the morning papers for the new Bob Dylan film, A Complete Unknown, which opened on Christmas Day – and featuring a former college student of mine, St. Louisan Norbert Leo Butz, as ethnomusicologist Alan Lomax – Fr. Justin began to wax nostalgic. Well, sort of. And that’s his word, not mine. He admitted, “One thing I’ve noticed since entering religious life is that I’m less nostalgic. That Dylan line makes more sense now: I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now. I used to be more nostalgic. But I noticed nostalgia in myself actually at a young age. That something was lost. That I was already old somehow. It’s very weird.” Ensconced in a cozy calefactory during those days of retreat, it was comforting to hear him verbalize such feelings and share such emotions in the context of Advent, a season of anticipating something, of waiting for... someone. Each of us, and I’m not speaking only of monks and friars now, have unique and individual backgrounds which have created all manner of memories, often coming to the fore at these special times of the year. It was a blessing, a treat even, to have Fr. Justin lead us through his conference themes and thoughts and music, leaving us time to meditate on our own memories. Or, as Thomas Merton once said, to allow the monks “to readjust their perspectives.”
Fr. Francis Jin, O.S.B. of St. Vincent’s Archabbey, PA,
Fr. Jairon Olmos Rivera of Diocese of Providence,
and Brother Sixtus Roslevich at SEEK25.Contrasts of Christmas. The liturgies of the Christmas Season at Portsmouth contrast somewhat with those of the other seasons of the year when the students and faculty are present. Whereas Easter finds the School in session, Christmas means they have vacated (or retreated) to spend time with their families. Our church building takes on a different feel when filled to the rafters with 300+ bodies, unlike the simplicity of Christmas when there is a scarcity of them. The convergence of the Church’s new year on the first day of Advent and the secular new year on January 1 creates a special time. In the middle comes Christmas. The Midnight Mass and the Mass in the Day were “pontifical” liturgies, calling for Abbot Michael as principal celebrant to sit in the larger presider’s chair and make use of the miter and crozier. The homilies he had prepared for each liturgy shared certain elements and, especially at the Midnight Mass attended by a number of younger folks (students and faculty children), employed some words that made some of them sit up and listen more intently. The abbot, highlighting contrasts throughout his midnight homily, said, “I think sometimes we make out Mary to be a pious version of Wonder Woman, a kind of superhero.” Similarly, at the morning Mass, he referred to St. Athanasius, noting, “Jesus was not Superman, but human like us except for sin – and He was God” (italics mine). He thus challenged us to consider the central mystery of the Incarnation, that Christ is fully divine and fully human.

Br. Sixtus Roslevich serving, Br. Benedict Maria as Deacon, and Ab. Michael Brunner as Principal Celebrant at Christmas Mass during the day

Hosting and Guesting. The break also saw the arrival of a new Chilean Manquehue community of six men who will stay with us for the rest of the School’s winter term. In fact, the crew includes returning members José Antonio Navarro and Nicolás Letelier. We look forward to their engagement with our students, principally in developing our lectio groups, as well as their active participation in our monastic life. While the Chileans were part of a significant number of friends hosted by the monastery, including Franciscans, oblates, and others who either completed retreats or joined us for Vespers and meals, I found myself to be a guest in Salt Lake City at the SEEK25 conference, an annual event hosted by FOCUS (The Fellowship of Catholic University Students) drawing thousands of young people involved in ministry in higher education. We will be providing more extended reflections in subsequent issues of “The Current” on both the Manquehue group as well as the SEEK conference and the cultivation of vocations.