MAM 2025 (l to r): José Antonio Navarro, Nicolás & Cristóbal Letelier,
Javier Barbano, Renato Salazar & Anthony Dore

January brought the arrival to Portsmouth of six men from Chile who are part of the Manquehue (man-KAY-way) Apostolic Movement (MAM). They have spent the better part of this winter term engaging with our students as well as with the monastic community, living together in the Guest House on the lower campus. Their primary activity has been the continuing development of the school groups which practice lectio divina, or holy reading. Following in the tradition of past Chilean contingents, the men even hosted a recent evening “lectio party” – two words rarely seen together in the same sentence. José Antonio Navarro Vial is one of the two “elders” leading the group, along with Anthony Dore, raised in England but now residing in Santiago. I met them both in 2002, on the first of my four trips to Chile for Holy Week and Easter, just six months after 9/11 when people were still reluctant to fly, let alone on international flights. The four college men under their charge this term are Nicolás Matamala Letelier, his younger brother, Cristóbal Matamala Letelier, Renato Madrid Salazar, and Javier Di Pede Barbano.

The six, with us until February 22, have immediately immersed themselves in the life of the school. They love the new Student Center, the serenity of the Abbey Church, and have regularly been seen in the stands rooting for our School’s hockey, wrestling, squash, and basketball teams. Hopefully, they will not be too occupied with packing their suitcases on the evening of Friday, February 21, to catch the opening night of Mary Poppins, the winter musical presented by the Performing Arts Department. Unfortunately, it does seem as if the new tradition of a “polar plunge” into Narragansett Bay, embraced by last year’s Chilenos, is not to be carried on this year. These young men are products of Colegio San Benito, Colegio San Lorenzo, and Colegio San Anselmo, the three K-12 MAM schools spread across the vast Santiago area, serving over 4,500 students and their families. True to the centuries-old legacy of Benedictine education, it was only a matter of time before MAM became aggregated into the larger English Benedictine Congregation. In 2009 the EBC General Chapter “established a ‘Consociation’, a reciprocal commitment to spiritual communion, mutual support, collaboration, hospitality and prayer” (The EBC Newsletter, September 2024). On the weekend of the Feast of the Presentation, the group helped oversee the Confirmation retreat held on campus, which ended with the School Mass on Sunday evening.
Br. Sixtus & Fr. Bruno Shah, OP at Pius V benefitIt was busy weekend for everyone. On February 1, Fr. Andrew Senay and I represented the monastic community at a dinner-auction in Pawtucket to benefit St. Pius V School, located near Providence College. The elementary school is operated by our good friends, the Dominican Sisters of the Nashville Province. Sr. Mary Amata is the school’s principal and we were greeted warmly by her and other sisters of the community and joined by a number of the Friars based at Providence College. Father Andrew and I were reunited again with the Dominican communities and other religious houses of the diocese on the very next afternoon on the P.C. campus to celebrate the World Day for Consecrated Life. For the second consecutive year we were hosted by Fr. Joseph Guido, O.P., Prior, and Fr. Kenneth Siccard, O.P., President of Providence College at the gathering coordinated by Sr. Elizabeth Castro, H.M.S.P., head of the Bishop’s Office for Religious in the Diocese, working in tandem with Christine Roberti, Vice President of Administration and Board Relations in the Office of the President. The afternoon began with a sit-down luncheon served in the medieval-inspired Great Room of the Ruane Center for the Humanities. The main presentation followed with an inspiring talk given by a former P.C. professor, Fr. Michael Dominic O’Connor, O.P., S.T.D., titled, “Belonging to God: The Gift and the Call of Consecrated Life.” Fr. O’Connor currently serves as Director of Liturgical Music on the faculty of Mount St. Mary Seminary and University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he also serves as a formator and spiritual director.

Father O’Connor reminded those gathered that “God is the primary object of our service” as consecrated religious. He wants us “to abide in him in the intimacy of a personal love, a shared life of friendship. God can only fill emptiness; he cannot fill what is already full.” He admitted that there are some to whom “this might seem to be seen as demeaning, for who wants to be a child, weak, or poor?” It was the beginning of Father’s exploration of “the four fundamental relationships revealed by the gospels between man and God: Servant, Friend, Child, and Spouse.” Recall the words of Jesus, he said, in John 15:15 in the Last Supper Discourse: “I no longer call you servants, I call you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.” The day ended in the St. Thomas Aquinas Priory Chapel with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and Vespers. Presiding was the Most Rev. Robert Evans, Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of Providence. Father Andrew was invited to do the Reading at Vespers.
(l to r) Fr. Michael D. O’Connor, OP,
Fr. Andrew Senay, OSB, Fr. Kenneth Siccard, OP
at World Day for Consecrated Life eventThe approaching departure of our two Chilean Oblates and the four young men serves as a reminder to our own Portsmouth Oblates and Friends that our next Day of Recollection will occur on campus on Sunday, March 9, the first Sunday of Lent. Please mark your calendars accordingly and plan to attend.