Holy Week Message

Dear Oblates and Friends of Portsmouth Abbey:

As we approach Palm Sunday in the midst of this extraordinary and unprecedented worldwide situation, I felt it necessary to reach out to you all with a brief but heartfelt message.  Please know that you remain in our thoughts and prayers daily, despite the fact that our church doors must remain locked during Mass and the Divine Office.  Many of you have joined us in spiritual communion through the efforts of Br. Benedict who records the liturgy twice daily and posts it immediately on the abbey’s website where it is available throughout the day and night for your convenience. 
 
It has been mandated that the liturgies of the Holy Triduum next weekend must be live-streamed, not pre-recorded, and that is the plan which we must follow.  The times of those specific liturgies will be posted on our website. 
 
Sadly, visits to see Fr. Julian and Fr. Christopher in their respective care facilities in Newport have been curtailed.  Many of you have inquired about those visits and, for the time being at least, not even their fellow monks are allowed in the front doors.  In fact, most of the monks here in the monastery have not ventured off campus in several weeks.  A few have gone to doctor appointments or on pharmacy errands but, for the most part, we are content with being truly cloistered.  Within the enclosure we maintain safe distancing: at Mass, in choir, at meals and at recreation.
 
Last week Abbot Matthew, as the assigned reader at meals for the week, read a booklet prepared by the English Benedictine Congregation five years ago.  Titled To Prefer Nothing to Christ, it includes a paragraph on the importance of lay Oblates not only as an encouragement to individual monasteries, but equally vital to the local churches.  I have attached a page with the paragraph for you to read.
 
For weeks we have been bombarded with numbers in the news.  Mostly they are not good numbers and I won’t even begin to suggest a list of what those numbers represent.  You know what I am talking about.  While meditating in the church this week, trying to remain secluded and warm and dry, while outside the wind was howling and the rain was pounding, I noticed something for the first time.  The nave of the church seems to be supported by 8 thick wooden posts.  Beginning at the floor level, they reach straight up to support the gallery or balcony area of the second level.  Reaching higher, they brace the octagonal ‘lantern’ of the church with its multi-colored windows.  Continuing up even further, they gently curve inward to form the ceiling beams.
 
How is it possible for 8 posts, not steel or cast-iron, but wooden posts, to assume that much weight, to take that much work upon themselves?  Many writers have used the phrase “there is strength in numbers” and claimed it as their own.  Its origins lie in Scripture, actually.  Next time you’re allowed back in the church, look closely at any one of those 8 beams and you’ll see that each one consists of 21 layers of much thinner wooden planks, glued and clamped together, smoothly sanded and finished.  Each post or beam finds its inherent strength in the number of its smaller pieces of wood.  As Aristotle said, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
 
And so it is in the monastery, on a human level.  At the moment, we are only 8 solemnly professed monks (Br. Benedict, who is certainly poised for great things here at Portsmouth, is still in Simple Vows).  How is it possible for 8 monks to assume that much weight, that much work, upon themselves?  I’ve already given you the answer.  Through numbers.  Our strength comes from the numbers of those supporting us: you Oblates far and wide, our many friends, alumni, family, faculty, the campus staff, and even the students who keep us young.  We yearn for the time when we are able to welcome you back into the fold.
 
Let me end this with Easter greetings to all of you, for continued good health and safety, and with sincere gratitude for your support of us.  Just as we know that the joy of Easter and the Resurrection awaits us following the grief and sadness of Good Friday and the Holy Triduum, may we expect some future positive to come out of this present negative.  God bless you all.
 
Much love & in Christ,
Br. Sixtus O.S.B.
Director of Oblates