January 2010
Vol. XXXI, No. 1
Dear Oblates and Friends of Portsmouth,
In his Epistle to the Ephesians Saint Paul refers to God's secret plan, which has finally been made manifest to the people after a long period of gradual revelation through the prophets, ending with the apostles and evangelists who in the time of Paul were engaged in spreading the knowledge of that secret plan throughout the Roman world. At the time it must have seemed a tremendous revelation that salvation was not to be confined to the Jews as God's Chosen People, for whom it was felt to be an expression of God's special favor; in fact, to many, it would have seemed a violation of the pact between God and His people. Now, "the elect" included slaves and free, Jew and Gentile, from every race and nation, from every tribe and people, all considered to be equal in the sight of God , with the added benefit of their becoming heirs of the kingdom of heaven through the Incarnation of Jesus, the Son of God. This secret, revealed by Jesus, proclaimed by Paul in his epistles, and preached by the apostles through the gospel, no longer produces the sensational effect it must have had in the first age of the Christian era. Now the message, formalized in the creeds, no longer has the impact of a fresh revelation of God's favor to the human race. How can we recapture the sense and importance of this mysterious expression of God's love, so that it has a proportionate effect in our lives? The feast of the Epiphany celebrates the manifestation of this gift to the Magi who represent the whole Gentile world in their own time and ever since. The Magi brought precious gifts to the newborn Saviour, each of which symbolized a special attribute of the Messiah. In Pope Gregory's sermon on this feast, the gold represents the child's royalty, the frankincense, his divinity, and the myrrh, his mortality. But the Magi received the infinitely greater gifts of faith confirmed, hope anticipated and love bestowed in their beholding the Messiah they had been seeking from afar.
The Magi themselves are symbols of all of us who look for our salvation in the incarnate Word of God. The story of their journey has been retold by T.S.Eliot in a poem which underlines the theology of the birth of Jesus and its impact on their lives. In "The Coming of the Magi" Eliot describes what the wise men had to forgo when they left their native land, what they had to undergo on their arduous journey, and what they found at the end of their quest - a physical birth that meant their own spiritual death. Long afterward, one of the Magi sums up their experience in the final lines of the poem:
Were we led all that way for Birth or Death?
There was a Birth certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.
It is a truism that death opens the eyes of the living to the meaning of life. At Christmas, just as at Easter, the birth of Jesus should reveal to us the Christian dimension of death, a perfect illustration of the paradoxical nature of our faith in Jesus. Eliot had just made his own tormented journey from a wasteland of doubt and despair to the firm traditions of the church established on the rock which is Christ. The story of the Magi can apply to all of us without our having to experience the struggles, spiritual and physical, of the poet. What all of us must undergo is, in varying degrees, a spiritual transformation or regeneration. This is the point being stressed in the poem, not on the gifts which are never mentioned, even though they are the highlight of any representation of the Wise Men with appropriate symbolic significance. The poem, however, ignores the gifts, but focuses rather on the miraculous event, the intervention of the divine into the created order. And so we should ask ourselves, in what way have we been altered by the miraculous account of the Epiphany? Has the annual reminder of the Incarnation effected any kind of change in us? Has it made any difference in our attitudes and behavior to others? In what ways have we died? Have we been willing to forsake all the diverse gods to which we have become attached? Are we able to let them go, recognizing in them possible obstacles to our spiritual growth? Do we really prefer a God who demands self-sacrifice and the practice of virtues which are alien to the values of "a world which is too much with us"? This is what is demanded of the disciples of Christ; this is what the Star of the Magi, the Star of Bethlehem, will reveal to us, if we permit ourselves to be led by it, as it led the Magi of old.
Monastery Notes
The Oblate Conference given in October by Dom Damian on Saint Francis commemorating the 8th Centenary of the Foundation of the Franciscan Order can now be viewed on the Portsmouth website under "Monastic News." Back issues of the Oblate Newsletter are also posted on the website.
The Portsmouth Institute, which last June featured "The Catholic William Buckley," will again take place in June of 2010. This year the subject will be on "The Intellectual Contribution to the Church of Cardinal John Henry Newman." A number of distinguished scholars have already been procured for the series of talks. In the monastic archives are an autographed picture of Newman in his last years and a letter written by him to a correspondent shortly before his conversion in 1845.
Dom Matthew Stark recently gave a retreat to the senior clergy of the Diocese of New York at Dunwoodie Seminary. In October he celebrated his fortieth anniversary as Abbot, when Portsmouth was elevated to abbatial status.
November marked the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the monastery by Dom Leonard Sargent under the jurisdiction of Downside Abbey.
Despite the downturn in the national economy the School opened last September with a record-breaking enrollment of 374 students, including ten Chinese pupils, the result of the Headmaster's trip to China last year where a reception for parents interested in American education was hosted by the Ambassador from Mexico, an Abbey alumnus.
Word has been received of the imminent departure of the monks from Ramsgate Abbey in Kent, England, owing to a decline in the number of monks, who are unable to cope with such a large structure. The impressive neo-Gothic monastery was built in 1861 and designed by Edward Pugin, son of the celebrated Augustus Pugin, who was largely responsible for the Gothic revival in nineteenth century architecture, both secular and ecclesiastical. A new site is being sought. The community of Ramsgate Abbey belongs to the Congregation of Subiaco.
The annual Community retreat is to be given by Dom Hugh Gilbert, Abbot of Pluscarden, located in Elgin, Scotland. This monastery of the Primitive Observance was originally founded in 1230 and the ruins were purchased in the nineteenth century by the Marquess of Bute, whose family gave the property to the community of Prinknash in Gloucester. In 1948 a group of monks from Prinknash reestablished monastic observance on the original site. Pluscarden belongs to the Subiaco Congregation.
The Rhode Island Historical Preservation and Heritage Commission presented Portsmouth with an Outstanding Achievement award for the restoration of the Abbey Church in 2009. This honor was received by Mr. Paul Jestings and Dom Joseph, who were in charge of the project. The renovation included the transformation of the long-neglected Zen Garden constructed in the early 1960s into an attractive, secluded rock garden.
Liturgical Calendar for January
Cycle of Prayer: Openness to the Word of God; Migrants and
Refugees; Expectant Mothers; Peace on Earth
1 Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God (Holy Day)
2 SS. Basil and Gregory, Bishops & Doctors
3 FEAST OF THE EPIPHANY
5 St. John Neumann, Bishop
10 Baptism of the Lord
12 St. Benet Biscop, Abbot, Patron of EBC
13 St. Hilary, Bishop & Doctor
15 SS. Maurus and Placid, Disciples of St .Benedict
17 SUNDAY II OF THE YEAR
Beginning of Church Unity Octave
(St. Anthony of Egypt, Abbot, Patron of All Monks)
20 SS. Fabian, Pope, & Sebastian, Martyrs
21 St. Agnes, Martyr
24 SUNDAY III OF THE YEAR
(St. Francis de Sales, Bishop & Doctor)
25 Conversion of St. Paul
End of Church Unity Octave
26 Abbots of Citeaux: SS. Robert, Alberic, Stephen)
27 SS. Timothy and Titus, Bishops
28 St. Thomas Aquinas, Doctor, Patron of Schools
31 SUNDAY IV OF THE YEAR
Oblate Day of Recollection: Conference by
Dom Matthew Stark, Abbot Emeritus
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