A visit from the Providence College Knights of Columbus

On two consecutive evenings at the end of our past week, residents of our grounds here in Portsmouth, monks included, would have been forgiven if they had settled down for a good night’s rest only to dream of stories about, perhaps, …knights? Well, on Thursday, November 7, a mini-bus pulled onto the campus and from it dismounted fourteen young Knights of Columbus from Providence College. Led by their student Grand Knight, Colin Sheehan, and their Assistant Chaplain, Fr. Damian Day, O.P., they arrived for Vespers, followed by dinner in the Linenfold Panel Room, and completed their visit by praying Compline in the Abbey Church with the monks. Fr. Day works in the Office of the Chaplain at P.C., but it was Mr. Sheehan who, according to our Guest Master Br. Joseph, “has a love of Benedictine life and has wanted to do something like this for a while.” We hope that these young Knights pay us another visit soon on their next crusade to this side of Narragansett Bay.

The next evening, Friday, November 8, an excellent award-winning documentary film was shown in the Regan Lecture Hall. It coincidentally gave its attendees additional food for thought about knights, or at least about one particular knight, or wannabe knight. This main course was served up by the film’s director, Sam Sorich, who was a guest of The Portsmouth Institute. Titled Things Hidden: The Life and Legacy of René Girard and featuring that deep thinker, who is most associated with the term “mimetic desire.” The film included edited clips from the 1947 Spanish film by Rafael Gil, Don Quijote de la Mancha. The fictional character created by Miguel de Cervantes in 1605 was “sitting around reading books,” according to author and educator Luke Burgis, “when the desire to be a knight captivates him. Until he started reading about heroic knights, the thought of being one had never even crossed his mind!” He began miming, or imitating, the “other.” Sorich was introduced by Dr. Darryl DeMarzio, Executive Director of the Institute, who also moderated the panel discussion afterwards which included Duane Armitage, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Scranton; Gersende Chanfrau, French teacher in the School’s Modern Language Department; and Dan Caplin, teacher of Humanities, a course in which he focuses on René Girard’s theory of “mimetic desire.” An enthusiastic audience was in attendance, comprising students, faculty and seven monks, prompting members of the panel to compliment them several times for their thoughtful and engaging questions.

Looking ahead, next month will start out with the Advent Day of Recollection for the Portsmouth Oblates and Friends on the First Sunday of Advent, December 1. The students will still be away on Thanksgiving break allowing guests a little more flexibility and mobility in walking between the Abbey Church and the Dining Hall. The topic will be the celebration of the Jubilee Year which begins in December during which thousands of pilgrims from around the world are expected to walk through specific portals of the four Catholic basilicas in the Eternal City of Rome which have been designated by the Vatican to receive a plenary indulgence which includes the forgiveness of sins. The Church has for centuries celebrated jubilee years, but usually only every 25 years. The first one was held in 1300, proclaimed by Pope Boniface VIII. The ritual that begins this special year is the opening of the Holy Door, or Porta Sancta, at St. Peter’s Basilica. That special main door of St. Peter’s is closed and locked at all other times, except during a jubilee year. Those who are unable to travel to Rome are still able to participate fully in the Jubilee Year. It is expected that all over the world there are churches, cathedrals, simple chapels in convents and in monasteries, and even basilicas, which will be designated and which will decorate their own Holy Door. I had the privilege of being in Zimbabwe at Christ the Word Monastery for the 2016 Jubilee.

Two pilgrims before the door during the 2016 Jubilee Year of 

Divine Mercy at Christ the Word Monastery, 

Macheke, Zimbabwe (image: Br. Sixtus Roslevich)

Oblates and guests present for Portsmouth’s Day of Recollection will hear about that year of recent memory, eight years ago, in which Pope Francis called for an “extraordinary” celebration of a jubilee, meaning simply that it’s out of the ordinary schedule. The Holy Father wrote what is called a Bull of Indiction and announced that a special Jubilee Year of Divine Mercy would begin on December 8, 2015, the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. It ended almost a year later on November 20, the Solemnity of Christ the King. It is important to note that this gesture or posture of passing through the Holy Door is not simply a hollow, physical act of following one’s feet. Pilgrims are urged to follow their hearts – moving from the outside to the inside – symbolizing the passage from this earthly world into the presence of God. No one is forced to do this, the individual makes a personal decision to cross the threshold, literally and figuratively, to walk through the door. In Scripture, in John 10:7, when Jesus says, “I am the door,” he makes it clear that no one can come to the Father except through him.

The Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica (Year 2000 Jubilee)

The upcoming Jubilee Year begins on Christmas Eve, December 24, when the doors of St. Peter’s will be unsealed by Pope Francis. In addition, special doors will be opened elsewhere in Rome at St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major, and St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, the latter of which is directly across the street from the Pontifical Beda College (Pontificio Collegio Beda), the seminary where Fr. Andrew Senay and I took our theology studies. In line with this pope’s personal charism of prison ministry, he has expressed his wish to personally open a door at a Roman prison, designated as a fifth set of Holy Doors in Rome “to offer prisoners a concrete sign of closeness.” Last July on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, Pope Francis made frequent reference to the opening of doors throughout his homily at St. Peter’s and in his Angelus message. Reflecting on the literal prison doors which afforded Peter his freedom and the metaphorical doors of Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, the pope described their individual encounters with the Lord as “a true and properly paschal experience; they were set free; the doors of a new life opened before them.”