July 2007
Vol. XXVIII No. 7
Dear Oblates and Friends of Portsmouth,
Midway in July the Sunday liturgy focuses on the most familiar of the parables Jesus used in his teaching, that of the Good Samaritan, a story so well known that the hero seems as real as one of Jesus' closest disciples. It is also easy to miss some of the less obvious lessons touched upon through concentrating on the main point of the parable. First, the context is important. A lawyer has asked Jesus what one must do to gain eternal life, and then when Jesus throws the question back to him, What is written in the Law?, he rightly responds with demonstrating in one's life love of God and love of neighbor, showing his knowledge of the Law expounded in Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The further question, Who is my neighbor? is what prompts the parable.
Again, the lawyer already knows the answer, or rather thinks he does, since rabbinic teaching held that only a fellow Israelite was a Jew's neighbor, as stated in Leviticus. This is the crux of the question and the point of the parable, the one that needs clarifying, and Jesus neatly outwits the clever lawyer by making him agree with the expanded concept of neighbor that Jesus insisted on: that everyone is one's neighbor. Love does not admit the impediment of the exclusiveness and narrowness of the lawyer's interpretation of the Decalogue. The common bond of humanity makes the whole world kin, and hence, we are all neighbors. The parable underlines the lesson for the lawyer: that the Kingdom of God is open to all, even one's foes, and that we, in order to enter that Kingdom, must help those in need, even if in doing so, we go against the legal code. It is a question of the higher law, the Natural or Divine Law taking precedence over civil or man-made law, the same appeal to a higher law that Sophocles illustrated so eloquently in his tragedy of Antigone. Helping others in serious need is also a duty that we cannot shirk because of personal inconvenience or what we consider more important concerns.
The recently published book, The Breaking Point, recalls the famous case of Kitty Genovese, the young girl in Brooklyn who was assaulted in the night, screamed for help, and was finally killed on the doorstep of an apartment building. Thirty-eight spectators watched from their windows as she struggled for help and did nothing about it. The author explores the reason for their apparent indifference, bordering on the inhuman, and offers a plausible clue to such a wanton disregard to someone in distress. Each thought another would respond by calling the police or going to the girl's assistance, and so no one did anything. The author's point is that perhaps we would have rationalized in exactly the same way. The almost criminal lack of concern remains, but we are not in a position to judge. Our model should always be the generous Samaritan, a Jesus figure, despised by the law-abiding priest and Levite who passed by the stranger lest they be contaminated and become ritually unclean. Too often we also may ignore the needy, excusing ourselves by appeals to reason or even religion.
Blessed Juniper Serra (1713 - 1784) Feast Day: July 1
In l931 a statue of Fray Junipero Serra was placed in the Hall of Statues in the Capitol in Washington, D.C., to represent California for his contribution in founding and nurturing a civilization among a people whose way of life was hardly different from that of their ancestors in the stone age. Born in Majorca in 1713, his training as a Franciscan friar teaching theology in the renowned University of Padua was hardly the background to be expected of a man who would undergo the dangers and hardships of missionary life at the farthest rim of the Spanish Empire in the New World. When the Society of Jesus was suppressed in 1768, the Franciscans were appointed to take over the Jesuit missions in Lower California. As President of the Missions Father Juniper gained valuable administrative experience and was exposed to the rigors and the practical day to day life of a missionary. To solidify the Spanish claim to Upper California, the government requested the Franciscan Order to send Father Juniper with military protection to establish a series of missions to convert the native population and establish cultural centers in order to attract colonists for the settlement of the new territory.
At the time of his beatification by Pope John Paul in 1988, the protestors were quick to surface, charging that Father Juniper had enslaved the indigenous Indian population in order to build the beautiful missions and enrich the church by their labor, forcing them to renounce their native religion and adopt Christianity. What Father Juniper and his friars encountered was a primitive people, friendly and docile for the most part, who were eager to learn elementary crafts, basic principles of agriculture and animal husbandry as well as the building techniques which would transform their domestic dwellings and eventually produce the Spanish mission style of architecture characteristic of California.
For 15 years Father Juniper labored under the harsh conditions of pioneer life, often in conflict with government or military officials, establishing nine missions connected by the road that was to become the Camino Real. His first foundation was nearest to Lower California, named San Diego in honor of St. Didacus, going on to Carmel, naming the mission for San Carlo Borromeo, which became his headquarters, and as far north as San Francisco de Asis. Our Lady, Queen of the Angels, from which the city of Los Angeles takes its name, also owes its foundation to Father Juniper. Some of the missions were patterned on the quadrangle used in Benedictine monastic architecture, which utilized one side for the church and friary, with shops, classrooms, hospice, kitchen and housing for the neophytes (native converts) or guests, occupying the remaining sides. Close by would be the presidio for housing the militia, necessary at first to suppress possible Indian insurrections and to protect Spain's claim to this territory against encroachments by Russian imperialist explorers. During the course of his ministry, Father Juniper supervised the development of his missions (economic as well as spiritual centers) and increased the number of Indian converts to about 6000 by the end of his life.. In this way he paved the way for future settlements, aided immeasurably by his successor, Fray Fermin Lasuen, who added nine more missions before his death in 1803. He it is who was chiefly responsible for the picturesque mission churches we see today, since Father Juniper only had the time to plant the seeds, watch over the initial growth, and make sure that his rustic missions would endure. The Indians needed to learn the new ways of survival before they could begin the more ambitious work of building for posterity.
But the missionary period of the Franciscans was to come to an abrupt end with the collapse of the Spanish Empire and the establishment of a republican, anti-clerical form of government in Mexico. The lands of the missions were secularized in the 1830s and 1840s by the Mexican government. Half the confiscated property was allocated to the Indians, but they were not yet ready to assume control, with the result that they squandered what they were given and reverted back to their primitive state, undoing much of the civilizing work of the friars. The mission churches themselves fell into neglect, once the friars were withdrawn, and only in the late 1800s or the early part of the twentieth century were efforts made to save the ruined churches and rehabilitate what were finally recognized as treasures unique to California. Today the restored mission churches are precious reminders of the paramount place of God in the original Franciscan settlement of the state of California, but the complex part the friars played in establishing the dignity of the Indian population through education and indoctrination is no longer apparent. Father Juniper and Father Fermin symbolize the holiness, altruism and heroic endurance in the face of almost insuperable difficulties, natural, physical and human, that did much to give to the state of California a sense of its Catholic and specifically Franciscan origins, rooted in the culture of Spain and enriched by the contribution of the Indian neophytes.
Liturgical Calendar for July
1 SUNDAY XIII OF THE YEAR
Bl. Juniper Serra, Missionary
3 St. Thomas, Apostle
4 St. Elizabeth of Portugal, Queen
8 SUNDAY XIV OF THE YEAR
11 SAINT BENEDICT, PATRON OF EUROPE
14 Bl. Kateri Tekakwitha; The Lily of the Mohawks
15 SUNDAY XV OF THE YEAR
16 Our Lady of Mount Carmel
17 Bl. Therese of St. Augustine and Companions
(The Martyrs of Compiegne)
22 SUNDAY XVI OF THE YEAR
23 St. Bridget of Sweden, Religious
Patron of Europe
25 St. James of Compostela, Apostle
26 SS. Joachim and Anne, Parents of Our Lady
29 SUNDAY XVII OF THE YEAR
30 St. Peter Chrysologus, Bishop & Doctor
31 St. Ignatius of Loyola, Founder of Jesuits
Monastery Notes
On May 27 the 65th commencement was held under a tent holding a capacity audience of 600 parents and friends of the graduating class, which this year, with 100 students receiving diplomas, was the largest in the school's history. Added to this number was Dom Edmund Adams, whose 50th class reunion falls this year. His time at Portsmouth had been interrupted, preventing his receiving a diploma in his final year. The speaker was the Reverend F.W. Jarvis, Headmaster Emeritus of the Roxbury Latin School in Massachusetts and currently Priest Associate at All Saints Episcopal Church in Dorchester. His message to the seniors was serious, memorable and especially apt, as he reminded them to make the most of the unique life each has been given, citing examples of five students who had failed to make use of their opportunities and ending with three persons who had seized the occasion for heroic action when it was offered, demonstrating their love of neighbor to the ultimate degree.
Earlier in the month an award was presented to the Abbey at a luncheon held at the Carnegie Golf Club by the Newport Chapter of the Garden Club of America for "its significant contribution to conservation" through its erection of the first wind turbine in Rhode Island. The citation reads: Because of your foresight, talent and dedication, a Portsmouth Abbey Wind Turbine stands as a proud beacon for all who are committed to renewable energy and conservation. Dom Damian, who received the award in place of Dom Joseph, who has fostered the project since its inception, spoke briefly on how the monastery has acted as a responsible steward from its foundation in 1918 as a Priory. For many years it operated a farm, it acquired land crucial to the protection of the environment, especially the bay, from threats by two oil refineries, and most recently has provided over 300 acres of open space through its 99 year lease to the Carnegie Abbey Golf Club.
