Newsletter Masthead, 1984

As our Archives series looks back into previous monastic publications, we gain glimpses into events, attitudes, and spiritual insights shaping community life here over the years. Our previous issue looked back a half-century to stories found in “The Portsmouth Bulletin.” This installment moves up a decade, reaching back forty years to the monastery’s “Newsletter.” This publication would become familiar to all who visited the church in those years, with copies of the folded 8.5” x 11” sheet, prepared by Dom Damian Kearney, readily available at the door. A note handwritten by Father Damian at the front of the bound August 1983-October 1994 issues tells us that the 1983-1994 volumes were the work of Dom Damian, that Dom Julian took over that job from November 1994 through 1996, when the task again fell for many more years to Dom Damian.

The Newsletter. The publication was at this time entitled, “Newsletter of the Abbey of Saint Gregory.” Dom Damian prefaced each edition with the salutation, “Dear Oblates and Friends of Portsmouth.” Dom Damian was in fact not at this moment the Director of Oblates. That job still remained in the hands of Dom Benedict Lang, and would be “for almost 40 years” – from the early 1950’s until the 1990’s. In fact, an issue from 1994 refers to Dom Benedict’s passing of that torch – not to Dom Damian, but to Dom Maurus Fleming:

After almost 40 years as Oblate Director, Dom Benedict Lang has relinquished his post to Dom Maurus Fleming, who returned to Portsmouth in June after serving as pastor of a church in Texas. At the oblate meeting held at Portsmouth on April 24, Dom Benedict was honored for his many years of faithful service as Director. Dom Maurus was also introduced at the luncheon following the regular conference in the church. (Newsletter, May 1994)

In the Newsletter of August 1983, Fr. Damian’s mentions his “finding” that one of his duties is now to edit the monastic newsletter, and that his predecessor in the task had been Dom Julian Stead.

Since becoming novice master, I find that one of my duties is taking on the editorship of the monthly Newsletter which is specifically concerned with monastic matters. We shall continue the format established so well by Dom Julian and hope that there will be enough items of interest to make a monthly mailing worth while. Included in this issue is a list of the meetings scheduled for the Oblates by Dom Benedict for the coming year, some reflections on the Assumption of Our Lady which occurs in August and is the patron of the feast of Portsmouth along with that of Saint Gregory, notes on happenings at this monastery and news of other houses in and outside our congregation, and the feasts observed in August by the EBC. (Newsletter, August 1983)

As novice master, Fr. Damian was also finding that the position was gaining an uptick in work. He speaks optimistically of the status of vocations at that moment:

Portsmouth’s future seems brighter now than it has been for many years; there is a great deal of interest evidenced by a steady stream of inquiries; not all applications can be acted on favorably; some candidates are not suitable for our way of life, others find that their preferences lie elsewhere, but there is a growing interest in the monastic vocation and Portsmouth is gaining from this resurgence. During the coming months we should be clarifying our objectives both as a school and as a monastery with the hope that we are better able to express and give witness to our specifically Benedictine commitment in the world whose values run counter to those of the Christian ideal...

A Notable Publication. One of the more notable events for the monastic community in 1983 was the publication of Fr. Julian’s There Shines Forth Christ, “a collection of poems written over a lifetime,” as Father Edmund Adams noted in his review of the volume. Dom Edmund, an alumnus of the School, was at this time a novice, having been before his return to Portsmouth a Professor of English at the University of Toledo. His review of Fr. Julian’s poetry was included in the October Newsletter, from which we include the following illuminating excerpt:

Dom Edmund receives a belated diploma from Portsmouth Abbey
from Head of School James DeVecchi in 2007

“Three constant elements in Dom Julian‘s verse, especially in ‘Thanks Be To God,’ are the closely observed specifics of created nature, the worn spirit of a man (‘Take your old, thumbed map of life / and with wet matches of your faith, read the way.’), and the God waited for and turned to. There are frequent images of the hollow or void, death and grief, shadow and dark, fear and a cold stillness of life under the moon, with only the blood and fire of God for warmth and light. Even in the most bleakly ascetic poems, restlessness or exhaustion are left quietly before God and the tone is often that of George Herbert’s ‘Bitter-Sweet’: ‘And all my sour-sweet days / I will lament, and love.’ A strong example is ‘O Jesus, My one Love,’ which laments the loss of a childhood faith and love – this sonnet of Spring giving way to ‘barren emptiness and arid cold’ concludes with:

What was both source and goal of warms now bores
My chill embittered brain, and I am old
No more a child whose trusting smile adores.

Consign these bones beneath thy Cross’ ground
And let me fly to Light and ever circle round.

Dom Julian Stead

“… At the end of the book Dom Julian includes a brief, auto-biographical sketch to explain elements in what he terms ‘my rather introspective verse.’ The information is helpful, but a few of his poems need to be explained, and none are introspective in a limiting or self-absorbed way. The author is aware of himself, but that self is turned outward. A personal soul is revealed when one takes all the poems together, but that soul belongs, with all its faintness and force, to another.” (Newsletter, October 1983)

A Theological Reflection. The Newsletter was a simple document, not published with any elaborate format, and its graphics were limited primarily to underlining text headings or an occasional bold font. A repeated format recurs in each edition, typically offering “Monastery Notes,” “Prayers Requested,” “Recent Guests to the Monastery,” a monthly “Liturgical Calendar,” and other news, usually with dates and times for upcoming oblate meetings. Fr. Damian would invariably begin by offering an extended pastoral reflection.

We conclude with this brief retrospective with a reflection Dom Damian offered in September 1983, on the occasion of the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross:

Dom Damian Kearney, pictured in his article
on construction of the School’s library

“September 14 is the original date of the feast marking (the discovery of the True Cross), but allied to it is the triumphant return of the Cross to Jerusalem by the Emperor Heraclius, and the Office from the old Breviary reminds us of the significance of the Cross which can apply to the most ordinary Christian in any age as truly as it could to the mighty emperor of the seventh century. Legend like mythology can often convey a truth more cogently than a dry statement of fact or doctrine. The following passage is a quotation from the Second Nocturn of the old office for this feast:

“’Heraclius came to Jerusalem, bearing the cross (which had been in the hands of the Persians for fourteen years) in solemn procession to the Mount to which Christ had borne it. A marvel then occurred. For Heraclius, richly adorned with gold and jewels, was forced to stop at the gateway which leads to Mount Calvary and the more he tried to go forward, the more he seemed to be held back, at which all present were filled with amazement. Then Zacharias, Patriarch of Jerusalem, said: ‘Consider, O Emperor, how little you imitate the poverty and humility of the Savior by carrying the cross in triumphal robes.’ Casting away his princely garments and taking off his shoes, Heraclius dressed in a coarse robe and easily completed the remainder of his way.’

Dom Damian Kearney

“Here we find a different kind of triumph, one which is more consistent with the Jesus of the New Testament and one which reminds us of the fundamental paradox of being a Christian: to live, we must die to ourselves; to triumph, we must become lowly and humble. It is only in virtue of the Cross that we are saved, and in the words of the writer of The Imitation of Christ, “If we would be with Christ in glory, we must follow him in pain.”

This somewhat more developed newsletter, The Current, with its more advanced graphics, color photos, and its online edition, hopes nevertheless in some way to continue to uphold the example of grounded spirituality and of theological reflection inherited from these our predecessors.

Portrait of Dom Benedict Lang, by oblate Joe Soares.
Dom Benedict served as Director of Oblates for four decades.