A Letter from Oblate Director

Dear Oblates and Friends of Portsmouth Abbey,
 
Today, August 15, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Although it is not a holy day of obligation, it continues to hold a special place for many Christians, both in their hearts and on their calendars.  The past six months of this particular calendar year have been unprecedented, frightening, enlightening and, in fact, every person reading this is surely able to add an adjective of their own.  Schools around the world have either already opened, or are about to open in one form or another.  Or not.  The resilient faculty and staff at Portsmouth Abbey School have been hard at work planning throughout the summer for what will surely be the most unusual first day of classes anyone could have ever imagined.
 
It had been my hope that by now I would be able to give you some details as to when and how our Oblates might safely gather again on campus, as is your long-standing tradition.  That is simply not possible at this point until the school itself works out its own plans for moving forward in the context of governmental and diocesan guidelines and restrictions.  The return of large groups of outside guests is something which still needs to be considered carefully, especially given that the Abbey Church as of today remains taped off and subdivided to allow for safe-distancing.  Only a small percentage of our total capacity of congregants is allowed inside at any given time.
 
My schedule in July afforded time to spend with close friends and family on the East Coast.  I found many to be in a retrospective mood, perhaps even in a nostalgic frame of mind, yearning for the ‘good old days’ which were really only a few months ago.  (Remember movie theatres?)  This could have been a result of the physical closeness we were experiencing, of a multi-generational hunkering down together, each person, hopefully, in their own private Zoom-room allowing for work, study, entertainment, or the ongoing search for yet more-newer-better bread recipes.  I myself had to participate in a 2-hour Zoom school meeting sitting behind the steering wheel of my rental car, parked at a Lowe’s Home Improvement Store in the Poconos, the only place open in the area that offered free guest wi-fi access, even in the parking lot.
 
But let’s get back to the retrospection part, especially of this special day of August 15.  The solemnity of Mary, both the day and the date, are important in my family.  My maternal grandfather, a first-generation American of immigrant Slovak/Hungarian parents, was born in Pennsylvania on August 15, 1888.  On his 23rd birthday in 1911, after his stint with the U.S. Army in the Philippines, he married my grandmother who was of a similar immigrant background.  I stress the immigrant aspect in this reflection because the secular and religious traditions which my family associated with this feast day, as with all others they celebrated, had their roots in Eastern Europe.
 
Well into the middle of the 20th century, August 15th was observed not only as a religious holiday but also as a secular bank holiday in parts of the United States.  In the heavily Roman Catholic area of N.E. Pennsylvania, many business establishments closed on that day, in particular the coal mines where my grandfather and so many other men in the area labored.  The holy day/holiday began early for my family at their parish, Holy Trinity Slovak R.C. Church, with the celebration of the Latin Mass and a homily in Slovak. Special excursion trains had been hired for the day and, following the Mass, everyone boarded the cars with their picnic baskets and headed to a local gathering place called Hazle Park. The rest of the day was spent there as a parish family eating and drinking in celebration of the Assumption, as well as of my grandfather’s birthday and my grandparents’ wedding anniversary.  My mother, her sisters, their cousins and the other children of the extended family joined in the festivities because the schools were still on summer vacation.
 
Last month a close friend from St. Louis and I drove past the 19th-century Holy Trinity Church which was closed some years ago, sold by the Diocese of Scranton and is now an event venue in which wrestling matches are held, with spectators cheering from the former organ/choir loft.  Talk about a yearning for the good old days.  It is the church where I attended countless family baptisms, funerals and weddings, including that of my youngest brother.  Who could ever have imagined.
 
Although my grandfather had to return to the mines early the next morning after the festivities of the Assumption, he must have carried with him, besides his lunch pail, the excitement of the family outing knowing that August 16 was his own feast day, the feast of St. Stephen of Hungary (born c. 969, died 1038), for whom he was named at his Baptism.  St. Stephen had been crowned King of Hungary in 1000.
 
In Italy, August 15 is known as Ferragosto and the balance of its observance seems to be weighted more to the secular side.  It is a bank holiday and is seen as a midsummer or mid-August celebration with families leaving the cities behind and heading to beaches.  In true Italian style, I celebrated my first Ferragosto in 2007 on the beach at Pesaro, swimming in the Adriatic with a friend, but only after having first attended Mass in Urbania in the Marche Region where I lived that summer.
 
The Italian word Ferragosto comes from the Latin Feriae Augusti, or Fairs of August.  But few beachgoers know that this holiday was originally held in September to celebrate the end of the summer planting and agricultural season.  The Emperor Augustus, who gave his name to the sixth month of the Roman calendar, moved the rites to ‘his’ month of August.  So even before the Christian church existed, the Roman Empire honored the gods, especially Diana, by gathering together with feasts involving eating and drinking.
 
Instead of trying to do away with the deeply-rooted mid-August pagan festivals, the Catholic Church chose instead to cover them by adding the Feast of the Assumption to the church calendar on August 15.  Little did my ancestors know that their midsummer church festival in Pennsylvania, an outdoor gathering which included eating and drinking, had direct connections to pre-Christian pagan festivals which pre-dated the Church’s honoring of Mary and the Assumption.
 
In 1993 while traveling through Turkey and several of the Greek Islands, I made a pilgrimage to Mary’s House on Nightingale Mountain in Ephesus, south of today’s Istanbul (yesterday’s Constantinople), to visit the small restored stone house that is claimed by some Catholics and Muslims to be the site of Mary’s death and Dormition.  (Other sources place her death in Gethsemane.) Legend has it that she was taken to Ephesus by Saint John to escape the Roman persecutions.  Although it is not a Marian shrine on the level of Lourdes in France or Fatima in Portugal or Knock in Ireland, it made a lasting impression on me in its simplicity, tranquility and in its connection with the Assumption of Mary.
 
I was fully aware at that moment of the significance of having gone full circle, back to Europe, to a place which was the possible site of a miracle, whose commemoration had, and still has, such deep and profound meaning in my family.
 
As I have reminded you before, be assured that the monks always include the Oblates and the wider family and friends of Portsmouth Abbey in our daily prayers.  We ask that you remember us in yours, and especially Fr. Julian and Fr. Christopher who only recently have been able to be visited by monks-in-masks.  Include in your prayers, too, the school and everyone involved in it. Teenagers can seem to be strong and resilient, and often are, but I fear that the ramification of this pandemic in their lives may not manifest itself for some time to come.
 
Much love and in Christ,
Br. Sixtus