Re-commencing: Seeing 2020 with Double Vision

While we celebrate on June 1 the Dedication of the Abbey’s church, a large tent set up on the “Holy Lawn” is nevertheless the venue for the May 30 Graduation Mass. And June 13 marks the occasion for commencement exercises for the class of 2020, denied their rightful celebration during last spring’s restrictions. Having just exhaled and witnessed graduates of 2021 survive the pandemic experience with their commencement exercises, we will welcome back the class of 2020 to “re-commence.” Indeed, the large tent remains parked for a couple of weeks, creating a kind of Festival of Booths. Amidst the Graduation Masses and duel commencement exercises, the lawn will also allow for outdoor faculty conferences during the interim. Brother Sixtus Roslevich will be hard at work as Liturgical Director, with the additional planning required to orchestrate celebrants and crowds, though he will be aided by the recent experience of the 100th Anniversary Mass. Not only does the tent allow for fresh air, it encourages us to look forward to the greater openings now being made possible in our less restricted lives. Bishop Tobin of Providence recently announced for Rhode Island the cessation of dispensation from Mass, beginning significantly on June 6, the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. With the two graduation ceremonies culminating, we hope, our pandemic-hampered community life, the monastery will soon be able to step back from the school-time protocols to re-adjust our liturgical practices.

The School has announced its graduation speakers, each of whom brings a distinctive voice to contemporary faith experience. The Class of 2021 welcomes Kerry Alys Robinson, partner and founding executive director of Leadership Roundtable, which promotes best practices in the management, finances and human resource development of the Catholic Church in the U.S. A Georgetown and Yale Divinity School graduate, Robinson has received several honorary doctorates from such Catholic institutions as Saint Anselm’s College and Albertus Magnus College, Santa Clara University, and others. She has authored books on Catholic fundraising and service and has written many articles on social justice and Catholic ethics. Her book, Imagining Abundance, gained for her a first place award from the Catholic Press Association in 2015. Then, having enjoyed this year the Portsmouth Institute’s Zoom presentation by Brother Guy Consolmagno of the Vatican Observatory, the School welcomes in-person another expert on the heavens, Dr. Karin Öberg, who will address the 2020 graduates. Dr. Öberg, an astrochemist and Harvard professor specializing in star and planet formation, came to faith while pursuing her Ph.D., inspired in part by G.K. Chesterton. She joined the Catholic Church and has since defended the compatibility between faith and science, serving as a board member of the Society of Catholic Scientists and encouraging Catholic students in the sciences.