Leonard Sargent at Hall Manor

Pictures and Persons. In 1931, Saint Anselm’s Priory in Washington published a monograph by Father Leonard Sargent entitled Pictures and Persons. While I had noticed reference to it in Dom Benedict Neenan’s book on Thomas Verner Moore (of St. Anselm’s in Washington, D.C.), I had, for reasons inexplicable, not actually sought to locate it. As this monthly column features “archival” material on the monastery, a monograph written by the founder seemed an appropriate topic. Indeed, as the monograph included a chapter on his vision for monastic life at Portsmouth, the text seemed required reading. And there it was in our School library’s catalogue, though listed as hidden away in the monastery library “Archive.” This offered a double discovery, as I thus was led to enter for the first time the physical “archive” of the monastery, unlocked for me by Brother Joseph. I soon found Dom Leonard’s monograph, in a box that thankfully had been labelled “Leonard Sargent” by Dom Damian Kearney, who had been keeper of the archive for many years. The copy I located included on the inside cover a hand-written note from “HLS” himself. It indicated that this was the last copy in his possession, and gave a “STRICT” directive that it not circulate. I dutifully, and somewhat tremulously, carried it to the confines of the monastery library for closer examination. 

Preface. The first “picture” we encounter in the book appears in the Preface, which offers a fascinating portrait of Sargent. Written by Frederick Joseph Kinsman at “Birchmere, April 29, 1931,”* it sketches out the personality of the man behind the monograph. Kinsman, himself a Catholic convert who had resigned in 1919 from his position as Episcopal bishop of Delaware to shortly thereafter join the church, seems to have shared much of Sargent’s journey. He describes Sargent as, “a product of three centuries of life in New England, having antecedents in those court-circles of Massachusetts, which cracked, if they did not break, the strict sobriety of unmitigated Puritanism... He belonged to that old Boston of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries whose characteristics are now almost submerged, and to the Harvard of the 1870’s.” Dom Leonard’s “ecclesiastical background” had been “that of New England Congregationalism and Unitarianism,” until he joined the Episcopal church, offering “about thirty years” of ministry to that community. Kinsman hints of a partisanship within the Christian faith that, while remarkably contemporary, no doubt also extends back in some form even to apostolic times. Sargent he identifies with the “extreme Anglo-Catholic party,” though commending his ability to remain “in touch with Anglicans of other types.” He notes Sargent’s involvement with the “Order of the Holy Cross,” whose status he lauds, finding “no finer school of unselfish service and genuine piety in the Anglican Communion.” The Order was an Anglican monastic order following the Rule of St. Benedict, attractive to many “High Anglicans” and associated with many in the Oxford movement. Sargent’s inevitable path to Rome was inspired by the desire for “union with the Apostolic See.” Kinsman, it should be noted, hints of Catholicism’s own partisans, and lauds Sargent’s ability to associate with “Catholics of various types.” Already drawn to the Rule, it was a very small step to enter the Benedictines, which he did at Downside Abbey, inspired by its harmony with the “continuity of the Church’s life from the early centuries.”

 

 

The Monastery Archives

Kinsman seeks to portray a multi-dimensional man, a complex individual, one of high ideals and profound faith, yet also well-grounded in the real world, especially the real world of the church. He notes that Sargent’s “background and experience have given him the opportunity to see life, especially ecclesiastical life, in many facets.” Kinsman chooses three terms to frame his portrait, describing Sargent as “shrewd,” “humourous,” and “kind.” “He is shrewd...something of that Yankee canniness which can rightly size up people and things”; “He is humorous … the humourous man is one to whom nothing human is alien”; “He is kindly... It is difficult to maintain serene temper when differences in conviction separate old friends and co-workers, and when it is necessary to adjust oneself late in life to the needs of those who are products of different environments.” 

Sketching the Journey. Sargent’s monograph gives several concise statements that summarize key moments in his religious journey. His Harvard years first led him to the Episcopal church: “It was in my junior year at Harvard that I severed a somewhat casual association with Unitarianism, the only religion I had known, to enter the Episcopal Church.” In retrospect, he describes this transition as fundamentally inauthentic: “I hope it will not appear flippant or unjust to say that I, and not God, seemed to be the central figure in this religious act.” And it was not long after this, while still at Harvard, that Sargent was given to read The Failure of Protestantism, by Ferdinand Ewer, a dynamic spokesman of the 19^th century’s Anglo-Catholic movement. “The very day I finished his book I became, in heart, a Catholic...” Sargent speaks of his connection with the “Cowley Fathers,” the “Society of St. John the Evangelist,” Anglican monastics still active in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This association enabled him to express a spiritual life akin to his nascent Catholicism, though here too he wrestled with a “native and inevitable puritanism that belongs to every form of Christianity outside the Catholic Church.”  

A Benedictine House. Leonard Sargent seems to have always understood his path through ordination and pastoral ministry in the south, and later entry into the Benedictines at Downside in England, as stages intended to prepare him for a later, lingering project, that of establishing a Benedictine community in America. This hope persisted, nourished it seems by Abbot Cuthbert Butler among others, and carried Sargent back to United States to pursue the dream. He notes how “the Genius of the Benedictine Order” made this possible, notably, its structure as a “loose federation of Religious Houses.” Sargent’s compares his vision of such a house to a Christian family: “Each of these houses represents a family... anyone unfamiliar with it might sketch out the life by taking an ideal family of Christian people and following them through the day.” Such a family, he proposes, rises early for prayer, for Mass if possible; it cherishes moments of silence; meets for recreation. Each member is “assigned his responsibilities.” This family’s basic internal structure is derived from “work, prayer, reading, study, relaxation of many sorts,” all well-scheduled to successfully cultivate its interests. It is also hospitable: “Guests would come, would be welcomed as fellow-Christians.” And it would also serve those needing the “help of a religion that should be paramount, but not oppressive.” In this ideal vision, the community-family would be “Christian all through” and designed with only one purpose – to serve God. 

Balance. Sargent also returns often to the Benedictine theme of balance and of carefully negotiating extremes. His portrayal of his goals and hopes typically charts a kind of middle course. Benedictine life “does not admit idlers nor does it keep its members at high pressure in their occupations; it is not tolerant of self-indulgence nor is its standard one of cultivated leisure, but neither is a marked austerity a feature of its life”; “If any man or woman is seeking more, or less than this description comprises, the Benedictine is not the vocation of that person.” The Benedictine genius allows essentially, as Sargent summarizes in the statement of Cardinal Gasquet: “a systematized form of life according to the Gospel counsels.” This is most basically seen in the vow of stability, which helps assure that “the balance shall not be upset.” This leads to “habits of prayer” and “real fraternity.” 

The Three Vows. This picture leads Sargent to outline how the three vows construct the parameters of this community structure. Stability keeps the monk at home, with his “family”: “the habitual tourist, the gentleman of society, the man of many holidays, is not Saint Benedict’s monk.” “Conversion of Manners” becomes “a lifelong work, a gentle, kindly, reasonable, but persistent effort.” Its aim: “to re-form nature” by “grafting upon it the fruits of Sacraments, prayer, and discipline.” The Rule thus enables grace to build upon nature, “keeping all that a man has of good by nature to make him a man of God.” This produces “’the new man’ in Christ” - a project that offers for Sargent another simple summary of what the Rule is after. Obedience, for Benedict, is “that of the family, not institutional, not military in character.” It, nevertheless, must be “prompt, willing, and entire.” Yet here again Sargent elicits the balance of the middle ground: the Rule seeks “neither weakness nor harshness” nor does it allow “haggling with obedience, no murmuratio.” “It is a liberal rule,” he asserts, “generous in its allowance for the weakness of human nature, patient of human follies, and considerate of physical infirmities in its subjects, as it is of spiritual shortcomings.” 

 

 

Apostolic Blessing from Pope Benedict XV

Apostolic. Having outlined some of the principal constituents of the monastic community, he appeals to history to remain quite open to a variety of possible areas of labor to which a monastery might be committed: “...none of these occupations is integral to their life.” The community must “first of all, see that the contemplative life is well-established"; “a Benedictine monastery is, par excellence, a house of prayer.” This is not an inward-looking project. It offers a radical and much-needed service to the world, in Sargent’s eyes. “Monasticism has a great part to play in the effort to restore the world to normality; it can contribute a spirit of peace, a heavenly outlook, a balanced faith... a tranquil and contented life, one where God always comes first and His laws are supreme.” His sense of the apostolic nature of his community thus moves in both historical directions, looking back to its foundation, and forward to its mission. Sargent notes that he decided to enter the church at Downside Abbey because, as Father Maturin had advised, “...They are on the bedrock of antiquity.” Yet also because, “it would enable me in time to return to America and... attempt the founding of a monastery according to the aims we have tried to follow at Portsmouth.” “America may not know it,” he asserts, “but she is in great need of more, not fewer, centres where quiet-minded people may live and pray and, in little or in much, keep companionship with God.” With this “picture” in place, he thus sought to recreate at Portsmouth what monasteries of old offered: “places of refuge for men who fled from the world, sanctuaries where they found safety and peace,” fostering “self-knowledge and penitence and renovation of spirit.” 

An Ongoing Experiment. Sargent arrived back in America armed with “two blessings” from Pius X, and one from Benedict XV as well. His monograph expresses a confident sense that the invisible hand of God is indeed at work, even if, at his writing, the community remained small and slow to develop. Signs seemed to accompany the founding. While in Newport, advised to visit Hall Manor: “The very day of my visit the transfer of ownership was practically settled.” This seems to have been aided, he suggests, by the dropping of a medal of St. Benedict in the field upon arrival. While still dutifully remaining, according to the monograph’s title page, “A Monk of Downside Abbey,” Sargent continued, and one hopes continues, to pray for his “family” on Narragansett Bay, to which he later returned and which now recognizes him as Founder. And that house can continue to learn from the pictures he has provided of a vision of Christian community.

* Frederick Kinsman was a product of St. Paul’s in New Hampshire (and later a master there), a graduate of Keble College of Oxford, and the Episcopal bishop of Delaware 1908-1919. His resignation was reported in the New York Times on May 15, 1919. He subsequently formally converted to Catholicism and became a professor of modern church history at the Catholic University of America. Birchmere was his family residence on Bryant Pond in Maine.