Oblate News

First, please keep in your prayers two friends of Portsmouth Abbey who have died since our last get-together in early December.  Oblate Patricia Wardell passed away on January 8.  She had just retired as principal of Holy Name School in Providence last August.  A week later, on January 18th, Fr. Paul Kidner, a monk of St. Louis Abbey, died in his room at home, the morning after being discharged from the hospital under hospice care.  The four of us St. Louis monks now assigned to Portsmouth flew back to Missouri together to participate in the standing-room-only  funeral Mass.  Fr. Paul was one of the English monks of Ampleforth Abbey who, in his younger days, transferred his stability to St. Louis and taught math in The Priory School for a full fifty years before retiring.  That alone is a remarkable achievement.  Keep in mind those two names, Patricia and Paul, and the fact that they were both educators in Catholic schools.  I’ll return to that thought shortly.
 
At our December Oblate gathering during Advent we were blessed to be on campus and at Mass while classes were in full swing.  You’ll recall that the church that Sunday morning was filled to capacity with the entire student body.  Many of you commented afterwards on what an special early Christmas gift it was for us to worship with them, to hear the students beautifully proclaim the readings, to uplift our spirits with their singing, and to share brunch and lunch with them. 
Today the school is in the middle of Spring Break and it is only by the chance of the calendar that we have the campus mostly to ourselves.  A few international students from China and South Korea have remained on campus due to our international travel ban.  They are not allowed to go home to see their families and, sadly, their families are not permitted to visit them here.  Tomorrow morning the group will depart from Kingston by train for a weeklong stay in New York City supervised by Portsmouth faculty, and so we wish them a safe and fun time.  [Update: This trip has since been canceled.]
 
Not all of our students are international, of course, and some live right here on Aquidneck Island and in towns not too far afield from Portsmouth.  Knowing that the campus would be mostly empty today, we took the liberty of extending an invitation to the parents of local Portsmouth students to join us for this Day of Recollection.  If you are a part of that group, thank you for being with us today.  And please know that you are always welcome to join the Oblates for these special days.  If you wouldn’t mind, introduce yourself to some of the Oblates afterwards and make your presence known.
 
Lastly, I have received tremendous help from Oblate Jeanne Perrotti in fine-tuning the directory of Portsmouth Abbey Oblates with updated mailing addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses.  A print-out of the latest information is on the head table in the Stillman Dining Hall.  Jeanne and I would appreciate it very much if you would take the time and check to see if your names and contact information are indeed up-to-date.