May, 2010
Vol. XXXI, No. 5
Dear Oblates and Friends of Portsmouth,
During the season of Paschaltide the Scriptural readings are taken from The Acts of the Apostles and the The Apocalypse or Revelation. In both books the writers describe utopian societies to depict the ideal worlds of Christianity, the first looking backward to an idealized primitive church and the latter portraying the end of the present world with the Second Coming of the Messiah in order to create a New Jerusalem.
The first chapters of The Book of Acts describe a model community, sharing their possessions with one another, spending their time in prayer and breaking bread together in Eucharistic celebrations, expressing their fraternal love in such a way as to excite the admiration of their pagan neighbors, "See how the Christians love one another." This love was the hall mark, the badge of the first generation of converts to The Way of Jesus. But it was not to last long before persecution caused the small bands of Christians to practice their religion in secret, going underground while they awaited the Second Coming, convinced at first that it would happen in their own time. The Book of Acts opens with a golden age among the first Christians of peace and harmony, a nostalgic look at a past that could never be repeated, but could provide inspiration for the next generation to face the trials and persecution by the Jews and the Romans with faith and courage. A delayed effect of this experiment in communal living would take place in Egypt where monasticism in the West originated in the third and fourth centuries.
For the Jews their concept of utopia lay in the future, when the Messiah would come to conquer their oppressors, make their nation supreme and inaugurate an era of unparalleled prosperity, universal peace, and acceptance by all nations of the One God, Yahweh. This was still in the future, but messianic fever gripped the people during the time of Jesus, and they were convinced that the coming of the Messiah was about to take place. The Romans too felt that the ideal age was about to happen, with Virgil predicting in his Fourth Eclogue the birth of a child soon to be born who would bring peace and harmony to all peoples under the leadership of Rome with the benefits of a world without war and violence. Ironically, the Augustan Age did provide a world in which Jesus, the Messianic child, was born during a brief spell of peace, although the pax Romana was criticized not without some truth by Tacitus, who noted that Rome made a desert and called it peace.
The Book of Revelation contains a twofold look at the future, prophesying through fantastic imagery the end of the world, a time of universal destruction of the present order employing the familiar horrors described in the past by Ezekiel and other literary prophets. This was to be a punishment by a wrathful and terrifying God of justice, destroying the present order so that a new creation could be established, one in which there would be no darkness of night but everlasting day, with God who is the temple shedding light on all, a world in which there would be neither sorrow nor death, neither want nor war. The trumpets will sound, the seals of the militant angels will be opened, every apocalyptic sign will be present, in preparation for the Second Coming, when the Messiah will appear in triumph to claim his own. The Book ends on the hopeful note that the arrival of Jesus is imminent, with the repetition of the words, "Come, Lord Jesus," "Behold, I am coming soon; I will give to each according to his deeds."
These utopian readings, whether pagan, Judaic or Christian, all refer to the past or the future, entirely remote from our present experience. We may well ask, What about the here and now? What can we expect for our own time, our own world in the way of a stable order with a measure of happiness available to many, if not to most people? The vast majority of the world's inhabitants exist in a sorry state, full of insoluble problems against a background of fear, anxiety and misery. What is the Christian response to this situation, very often not of man's making? Can anything be done to alleviate the suffering of the masses? Disasters come in every shape, many of them stemming from natural, uncontrollable and unpredictable forces with agonizing consequences. The "new commandment" that Jesus brought at first seems as if it had always been around: the need to love one's neighbor What makes it new is the addition of the phrase, as I have loved you; that is, the divine-human love of Jesus for his fellow creatures. The wretched victim in the parable of the Good Samaritan is the same neighbor as the one for whom the bell tolls in John Donne's eloquent meditation. Whenever someone is affected by disease or disaster or death, each of us is touched to some extent and we are bound to do whatever is in our power to come to his assistance, just as we hope for God's help as often as we make our prayer to Him: O God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me.
The Right Reverend Notker Wolf, Abbot Primate of the Order of Saint Benedict
The principal speaker at the Commencement Exercises of the School on May 30 will be the Abbot Primate, Dom Notker Wolf, head of the 21 Congregations of the Order of Saint Benedict. Based at Sant' Anselmo Abbey in Rome, the Benedictine House of Studies, he serves as a liaison for the Benedictine monasteries with the Congregation of Religious and presides over the quadrennial meetings of monastic superiors in Rome. Among his many duties, he visits Benedictine houses throughout the world. Most recently he attended the celebration held at Saint Anslem's Abbey in New Hampshire in honor of the ninth centenary of Saint Anselm's birth in 2009, and soon after, presided at the celebration of the second centenary of the birth of Dom Boniface Wimmer, founder of the Archabbey of Saint Vincent in Latrobe, Pa. Before his election as Abbot Primate, Dom Notker was Abbot of St. Ottilien in Germany, an abbey founded in 1884 with a ministry for Foreign Missions. This is the Mother Abbey of a number of foundations established in Africa, Korea and South America and has become a separate Congregation. Plans are under way to found monasteries in the Ukraine, China and Cuba. In his spare time Dom Notker is an accomplished flautist and has recorded chamber music selections for a compact disk of such composers as Bizet, Debussy and other works of French musicians from the past three hundred years.
Liturgical Calendar for May
1 St. Joseph the Worker
2 SUNDAY V OF EASTER
3 SS Philip and James, Apostles
4 All Martyrs of England & Wales
9 SUNDAY VI OF EASTER
10 SS. Odo, Maieul, Odilo, Hugh,
Peter Venerable, Abbots of Cluny
13 FEAST OF THE ASCENSION
14 St. Matthias, Apostle
15 St. Pachomius, Abbot
16 SUNDAY VII OF EASTER
19 St. Celestine, Pope & Hermit
23 SUNDAY OF PENTECOST
25 St. Bede the Venerable, Doctor
26 St. Gregory VII, Pope (Hildebrand)
27 St. Augustine of Canterbury, Bishop
Patron of the English Congregation
30 MOST HOLY TRINITY
31 Visitation of Our Lady
(June 6: Oblate Day of Recollection: Abbot Caedmon)
Corrigendum: In March issue on Aelred: read annual meetings at Citeaux, not Clairvaux.
Monastery Notes
Recent visitors to the Abbey have included three members of the Coptic Church of Egypt, one a priest at present caring for a Coptic community in Connecticut.
Also visiting the Abbey were three young men from a lay Benedictine group from Chile, en route to Santiago, after spending several months at the abbeys of Ampleforth and Saint Louis. They are members of a lay group called the Manquehue Apostolic Movement begun in Chile in 1979, founding two coeducational high schools, taking their inspiration from the Rule of Saint Benedict in the structure of their program. From the start, the movement has been closely associated with Ampleforth, with much back and forth by monks and the Chilean "oblates," the core members. There is also an interchange of students from both countries. An important element in the school day is time spent in lectio divina, a meditative reading of Scripture in small groups, a practice which has been highly successful in engaging the interest of young people in the spiritual side of their educational development. Last year Abbot Caedmon and Dr. DeVecchi, the Headmaster, traveled to Chile to see the schools in operation, and how they are able to cultivate a Benedictine character despite being entirely operated by laity.
A number of gifts have been kindly donated to the monastery in the past few months which will enhance its collection of art objects and benefit the academic program of the School: an early Etruscan vase, a terra cotta horse from the T'ang Dynasty, a collection of North African flint artifacts from the Saharan Neolithic Period, an American Impressionist painting, a collection of books and classical compact discs and a massive Cistercian Choir Antiphonale, published in 1949, but soon rendered obsolete by the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
