Mural at the movement’s San Anselmo School, Chile (photo by Br. Sixtus during 2019 visit)

We have been blessed with repeated visits from our Manquehue friends for over ten years now. These visits have largely been happening in our school’s winter term, though Cata Quiroga and Alvaro Gazmuri stayed with us for two years. Still, many of our readers may have had only tangential contact with this movement and may be wondering about our Manquehue connection.

Our own website notes that, “Since 2011, Manquehue members have been coming to Portsmouth during the winter term, in order to help out on retreats and lead lectio divina groups for the students and faculty. Manquehue has a long-standing friendship with the English Benedictine Congrega­tion (EBC), that started back in the 1980's.” The founder of the movement, Jose Manuel Equiguren, found himself on a spiritual journey in the 1970’s that led him to a Benedictine monk in Santiago, into the practice of lectio divina, and later to England, where he encountered the English Benedictine Congregation, first through his contact with Ampleforth Abbey. His identification with monastic wisdom and his absorption of the Rule of Saint Benedict were fundamental in shaping the inspiration that still guides this movement. Manquehue remains a lay movement: there are no “Manquehue priests.” It also remains vitally and obediently Roman Catholic, officially recognized and identified by the Vatican as a “Private Association of Lay Faithful.”  

Founder Jose Manuel Eguiguren welcomes Portsmouth students in Chile (2015)

Portsmouth Abbey was in fact one of the latest of the EBC houses to develop ties with Manquehue, which had already been developing its relationship with Ampleforth as with Ampleforth’s daughter house in Saint Louis. Graduates of their school’s had undertaken “gap year” experiences in Santiago, had been visiting the beautiful retreat center in Patagonia, and Manquehue members had been visiting their communities as well, developing the practice of lectio. Over the past ten years, the consistent presence of Manquehue groups at Portsmouth, usually during our winter term, has nurtured the practice here and helped it to grow into an important dimension of our school’s spiritual life. This missionary service to our own community, and the Manquehue embrace and embodiment of Benedict’s Rule, have helped create and strengthen the bond of fellowship with our monastic community. 

Br. Benedict hosts 2021 Manquehue visitors

Abbot Michael Brunner has himself journeyed to Chile on several occasions, and served as headmaster in Saint Louis during its reception of Manquehue guests. He has been a central liaison, together with Br. Sixtus Roslevich, who also has made the journey to Chile, encouraging our latest groups and connecting them to our school and its spiritual life. Br. Sixtus who has made four trips to Chile, describes the movement as a “major influence on my vocation and on my life.” Our website summarizes some of the spirituality of the movement, whose core, promised members are identified as “Oblates”:

Portsmouth group on “trabajos” service trip in Chile, 2014

As we bid farewell to James Rudge and Francisca Berger who begin their journey home to Santiago this weekend, we again think of our gratitude for their efforts and their witness among us, again inspired by this vibrant community so solidly rooted in Benedictine life.