The 2023 graduation tent in front of the Abbey church

With this particular issue, we thankfully slow the pace down a bit, moving to a monthly circulation for issues in June, July and August. We thought this month might be a good opportunity for updates, in particular to our oblates of Portsmouth Abbey, and to lay out, as it were, a road map for the summer, to sneak in a vacation metaphor. As this issue is being prepared for publication, we are experiencing several days of the most unimaginable beautiful spring weather. It was a picture-perfect Memorial Day weekend for our school’s Prize Day on May 27, the Commencement/Pentecost Mass in the Abbey Church on Sunday morning, and for the graduation ceremony itself afterwards, conducted under the massive white tent floating above the Holy Lawn. The Rhode Island rhododendrons seemed to have saved their best burst of colors and abundant blossoms for the arrival of so many school families from around the world.

All of the commencement speeches, as well as the introductions of those speaking, were inspiring and moving. Each year the senior class votes for a young lady and a young man to deliver addresses and this year both Benjamin Taber Bredin and Mary Kimball Powell, each in his and her own distinctive voice and style of writing, appeared to hold the entire audience in the palm of their hand. It was clear throughout the weekend that this Class of 2023, the Covid Class, had successfully navigated the mask-wearing, the pandemic shutdowns, the school and church closures and the challenges of international distance-learning to reach the finish line stronger and more resilient. Heartiest congratulations and fervent prayers to all of them as they “commence” the next chapter of their lives. The monastery’s scholastic work truly reveals its fruit on Commencement weekend. And to make the celebration possible the extended Abbey community pulls together – from the dining hall staff, housekeeping, landscaping and maintenance, to the faculty and administrators and others – and don’t forget about our security, music and technology personnel. But now to begin that summer road map, here are a few landmarks:

The Humanitas Symposium. The Portsmouth Institute, newly-rebranded as the Annual Humanitas Summer Symposium, will be held on the Portsmouth campus on June 9-11. An in-depth look at the programming will be found elsewhere in this issue.

The Lourdes Pilgrimage. From July 12-22, a group from Portsmouth, including myself, will be on pilgrimage in southwest France at Lourdes, a heretofore annual event which was disrupted by the pandemic. As another example of crossover news between monastery and school, this trip will provide a small group of Portsmouth students with chaperones from the monastery and the school. We will join with a contingent from Ampleforth Abbey in Yorkshire in the U.K. and will be called upon to assist the many people in need of assistance in their search for healing at the basilica and grotto. I intend to offer a report on this endeavor in the form of a journal in our August issue of The Current.

Portsmouth Abbey Oblate Day of Recollection. Scheduled for Sunday, August 20, this day allows us to spend time together on a mostly empty campus that will still be in vacation mode. I have been assured by Sarah Rodrigues, Director of Dining Services, that we will be well-taken care of. More details to follow but, for the time being, consider this as a “save-the-date” note.

5th World Congress of Benedictine Oblates. Announced a year ago in June, 2022 by Abbot Primate Gregory Polan, O.S.B., former abbot of Conception Abbey in Missouri and now resident in Rome, this gathering will be held September 9-16 in the Eternal City at the Badia Primaziale Sant’Anselmo atop the Aventine Hill. Due to the limited number of rooms available at the monastery for participants, the names of monasteries around the world were entered into a lottery, and Portsmouth Abbey was blessed to have been chosen. We shall be ably represented by Oblate Dionne M. Larson and more information will be shared with you about the congress as the date draws closer.

In closing, I just finished reading an excellent book written by my friend, Catherine R. Osborne, titled American Catholics and the Church of Tomorrow: Building Churches for the Future, 1925 – 1975 (The University of Chicago Press, 2018). Ms. Osborne visited St. Louis Abbey on a number of occasions while I was the Guest Master and the Archivist, and we shared an interest in many things, in particular a large collection of original drawings in the archives by Dr. Frederick Franck dating from the early 1960’s.

Photographers were prohibited in the sessions of the Second Vatican Council but Dr. Franck had received express permission to attend in order to sketch the participants from life. Ms. Osborne completed the St. Louis Abbey Franck Log for the St. Louis Archives (ASLA) in 2015. I highly recommend her book and plan to write more about it in the future. Besides the research done in St. Louis, the author also visited Portsmouth and she credits Fr. Damian Kearney for his archival assistance. In fact, chapter one begins with a photo of our Church of St. Gregory the Great along with background anecdotes on the choice by the early monks of Pietro Belluschi as its architect. A quick scan of the index reveals other names, besides his, which are familiar to us, including Ade Bethune, E. Charlton Fortune, Gyo Obata, the Monastery of Christ in the Desert (NM), George Nakashima, Pier Luigi Nervi and Alfonso Ossorio ’34. You may, dear readers, consider adding it to your list of summer reading. And may the summer be a blessed one for you!