Dom Francis
I love being a monk. The organic wholeness of life at Portsmouth Abbey continuously enthralls me.
As a lay person, my life was divided mostly into family and work. I was married for twenty five years and have two daughters: Lisa and Michaela. In 1970, I earned a PhD in Chemistry from Providence College and worked at Ciba-Geigy Corporation, an international chemical/pharmaceutical firm. Over the next twenty years, I held a variety of positions until retirement as a Corporate Director of Environmental Technology in 1991.
I entered the monastery forty minutes after I left work on that last day.
As a monk, life unfolds daily in a natural rhythm beginning with communal prayer, spiritual reading, Mass, and teaching. The best part about being a teacher at Portsmouth Abbey School is that I finally realized my job here is simply to love the students and let them share their joy of discovery of science with me. I love the students like a grandparent; I love to see them come, and I love to see them go… and when they are away, I miss them.
Here are some quotations that best describe my philosophy of life:
“Lord Jesus, call me to your service, and give me the grace to say yes.”
My daily Prayer at the Elevation of the Body and Blood at Mass
“The Audacity of Humility is being the first to say, ‘I Love You’.”
Theophane the Monk, O.C.S.O.
Dom Damian
Having retired from teaching in the school, I’m often asked how I spend the time I now have at my disposal. Will you travel? Stay at Portsmouth? Go to another monastery? How do you keep busy or prevent yourself from becoming bored? Most of those who ask questions like these have no concept of the monastic life.
There are the daily routines of the Divine Office, prayer, reading and recreation. Reading aloud at table or in choir, preparing weekly sermons, responding to inquiries for spiritual direction and taking care of the archives. Some of the monks tend to gardens, keep the church decorated with flowers or supervise the Wind Turbine.
There are articles, newsletters and books to write. Monks travel to different areas of the country for school-related events and research for the Board of Regents who promote the school’s interests.
I also listen to books on tape, music and even Shakespeare while skating in the hockey rink or walking.
Free from the pressure of meeting deadlines for grades and endless stacks of papers to correct, I can devote more time to the joy of reading. Some years ago I was presented with three fat volumes of Harold Bloom’s literary criticism: SHAKESPEARE: THE INVENTION OF THE HUMAN, THE WESTERN CANON, AND GENIUS. These I plan to attack in the near future and begin a task too long postponed, too often neglected, and too easily forgotten.
Abbot Matthew
I was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1937, attended both Catholic and public schools as well as Towson State University.
In 1956, I entered Portsmouth Priory, took simple vows a year later and finished college at St. Louis University. While living at St. Louis Priory, I took final vows at Portsmouth and was ordained priest in 1963.
Until 1967, I taught Latin in the school. I was then elected Prior of Portsmouth Priory and not long afterward became the first Abbot of the newly erected Portsmouth Abbey. From 1970 to 1990 I taught Christian Doctrine.
Since retiring as Abbot in 1991, I have held a variety of positions in the monastery and the school.
At present I am reading the Diaries of Dorothy Day, Virgil’s Eclogues and the Gospel of St. John.
Allow me to sign off with a couple of my favorite quotes:
Prefer nothing whatever to Christ.
–St. Benedict
The Mass is the adorable sacrifice in which God himself is at the same time Victim, Priest and the divine Majesty to whom the sacrifice is offered, not merely the symbol of the sacrifice of the Cross but the sacrifice itself, mysteriously renewed and re-enacted for ever, without the shedding of blood. It is an infinite sacrifice, the efficacy of which is restricted only by our own lack of fervor and devotion. All Light in this world streams from the sacrifice of the Mass. It is impossible to find or imagine a closer bond between Man and God.
–Blessed Pope John XXIII
Dom Gregory
On my first visit to a Benedictine monastery, many years before becoming a monk myself, I recall being absolutely overjoyed with the Divine Office.
Until that visit, I had no idea that such a thing existed.
It was to me of immense significance. Religious men and women, monks and nuns, could give themselves to praying the Psalms in the Divine Office and the Work of God, seven times a day, as their primary mission in life. And from this prime work, all else flowed.
St. Benedict says in his Rule: “Let nothing be preferred to the Work of God.”
This miracle of grace continues to be the center of my joy in the monastic life.
Dom Christopher
After graduating from the University of Toronto, I came back to Portsmouth where I had previously been a student to try my vocation as a monk. We were a Priory at that time and Prior Dom Aelred Graham was also my Novice Master. I have always been grateful for all he taught me.
My early years in the monastery were hard. The later years have been tranquil and very happy.
When I was a young monk, I supervised our sailing program in the school, which made the most of my love of the water. People often ask me about what subjects I taught. “Religion and sailing,” I reply. Which always delights my listeners, because of the unexpected combination.
Monastic life suits me for many reasons. I love poetry, and monks live with the Book of Psalms on a daily basis. I grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, but the large monastery grounds feel more like being in the country. I loved teaching when I was young, and I loved being a chaplain when I was in middle age. I love being outdoors at all times.
I find that when I was young, I had all the preferences I would have for life. But now that I am older, I am grateful I have had the chance to live with the things I love most for the longest.
Friends have told me that I would have made a good father of a family. I believe they are right. But I made the sacrifice, and I have tried to be a spiritual father to all the people I have met and worked with in my life. For me, my many friends have been the hundred-fold we are promised by the Gospel.
Abbot Caedmon
I was born in the early 1940’s in New York City to Irish working-class parents who sent me to Catholic elementary and secondary schools. My education continued at Western Reserve University where I majored in English, Greek and Latin Classics. I also earned a master’s degree from Harvard and taught Classics at the former Portsmouth Priory School. Four years later, I was asked to join the monastic community. I made solemn profession in 1975, and was ordained priest in 1997.
During the novitiate I learned Hebrew from Bishop Ansgar Nelson, a monk of Portsmouth. Later I studied under his own Hebrew teacher, Rabbi William Braude in Providence, a renowned scholar and translator of classic rabbinic texts.
At the School in the late 1970’s, I was simultaneously teaching Genesis, the Iliad, and the Aeneid; which made me reflect with pleasure that it was my job to teach all the very best books. Through the reading and discussions I learned at least as much as my students.
In 1999, I became Chairman of the Classics Department until I was appointed Administrator of the Monastery in 2005. Two years later, the community elected me abbot.
During this past decade, to my delight, I discovered Don Quixote and the novels of Dickens. At the moment I am re-reading Shakespeare in preparation for this year’s Portsmouth Institute. I enjoy movies, some favorites being “Moonstruck”, “Help!”, and “Babette’s Feast”. One piece of monastic literature which I like to return to again and again is the Sayings and Anecdotes of the Desert Fathers.