2019 November From the Editor

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What a day of gratitude. This day of All Saints, it is for me one of the most tender and gentle of holidays. It is a celebration of grace. Abbot Matthew’s story at Mass (see Reflections), of Sister Raimunda’s encounter with Blessed Solanus Casey, continues to shatter my expectations, with grace - tender and gentle grace. Solanus had prophesied to that healthy and active woman that Jesus would ask her to suffer for a long time. And she did, for thirty years of utterly debilitating arthritis, bed-ridden, separated from the life of teaching she had loved. Yet she grew - in faith, in prayer, in love, in gratitude - and most visibly, in joy. The Beatitudes, which we read each year on this day - always devastating, always always a shock to the system. I have thought of an assignment for my young theology students. Let us start by counting our blessings - something many Americans are wont to do at their Thanksgiving table. Let’s compile our list. Let us see what we have chosen to highlight. What made the cut? Was it the times you were poor in spirit? Was it the opportunities you had to mourn? Did the times you were insulted and abused make your top ten? How about the times someone took complete advantage of you, and you did not exact revenge nor even demand justice, opting to be merciful? This road of blessing, of sanctity, of holiness, it has the topography of humility, as St. Benedict sees it - for each step down is an ascent. As the parables so resoundingly turn our world upside down, so too these Beatitudes. Suffering, even unto the cross - this we learn to celebrate at the table of thanksgiving. Blessings, these are all blessings, of the highest order. And what is a blessing? It is way in which our Lord touches us, makes us fruitful, and enables us to grow. These sorrowful mysteries! But how else do we truly learn faith, hope, and love unrelenting?
 
Pax - B. Billings
November 3, 2019

We find in our calendar feast days for saints, for angels, and even for sacred spaces. As I write (November 8), it is the feast of the Basilica of John Lateran, an edifice constructed and reconstructed – even renamed – several times, made by human hands and dedicated to the service of God. Our own monastery is centered on the Oratory of Saint Gregory the Great. “The oratory ought to be what it is called,” Chapter 52 of the Rule of Saint Benedict tells us. As does Christ, in Matthew’s gospel:   “My house shall be a house of prayer.” John Lateran is seen as “the mother of all churches.” So we may see our oratory as one of her offspring, sharing the same DNA, born of the same Spirit – a place of prayer. I am grateful for this oratory, which remains one of my favorite places on earth, and I’ve done some traveling. My own conversion, such as it was, happened during adoration here. My children were all baptized here. I do not come here seven times a day, sorry Saint Benedict, but typically at least two, and sometimes more. The physical beauty of the place, well, that doesn’t hurt. But spiritual vitality: this is what I have found within it, and it continues to draw me and sustain me. The opportunity to pray. So, simply, I express here my gratitude, for this church, and for its mother. And this, just in from Pope Francis: “Prayer always arouses feelings of fraternity, it breaks down barriers, crosses borders, creates invisible but real and effective bridges, and opens horizons of hope.” May you find your oratory, and may it be what it is called!
 
Pax - B. Billings
November 10, 2019

These editorial notes are intended as a kind of personal signature at the end of this newsletter, which to me is basically a kind of weekly greeting card. I sign this week’s greeting with a brief mention of an insight of the moment. The moment is myself now sitting at Divine Adoration, offered weekly on Friday afternoons in the Abbey church. The insight is this: there is no better way to spend time. If time is indeed spendable, this is the place to invest it. It is time I have never regretted. It is time when I have found solace, guidance, inspiration, peace. It is time when I have worked over the Chinese Puzzle, the Rubik’s Cube that is life, my life, and quietly discovered that a piece or two has fallen into place. I could try to explain why, theologically, catechetically, why this should be so. But the testimony of experience seems more readily acceptable to us in our day. There are just five others with me at this moment. Oh, and one Other. Part of me appreciates the intimacy of this small group. Part of me laments that more are not here, in this Presence. Perhaps they are overwhelmed by the Puzzle, perhaps distracted from it, or perhaps just otherwise engaged. They should find some time for this. They really should. Pascal wished we could learn how to spend time being alone. But here I begin to think our deepest problems would be solved when we learn that there truly is One who saves us from it. 

Pax - B. Billings
November 17, 2019

Sorry, this note is longer than I would like.
 
I love making New Year’s resolutions - much more than keeping them. I do prefer thinking of them in light of the church calendar, rather than the secular. Christ the King is a good moment to consider them. We finish Year C and look toward Year A. Our eschatological readings and Christ’s sharp warnings direct us to the Advent of the ultimate Kingdom. While at Mass, a prayer was answered for me when I was given not only the inspiration for my resolutions, but the idea of what I should write in this editorial note. We have been learning in Basic Theology of the seven petitions contained in the Lord’s Prayer. These seven presented themselves to me as appropriate resolutions, and ones I could be reminded of each time I make this prayer. If I were to make a daily examen, a big if, I could use this prayer-resolution.
(RB = Rule of Saint Benedict; references at the bottom)

1. Hallowed by Thy name. To seek to actually be holy, not have a reputation for it, as Benedict says. There is one who rightly has the name Holy, Christ says. To meditate and pray on the significance of this Name. RB 4.62
 
2. Thy Kingdom come. To carry the emotion and insight of this year-end throughout the year: to keep our ultimate destiny in mind daily. RB 4.47, 44-45.
 
3. Thy will be done. To consider my will and its yearnings and demands, and to ask if they are inspired and informed by the Spirit. RB 4.60
 
4. Give us our daily bread. To be prepared to recognize and receive the bread, of the finest wheat, that God is providing each day. It may be in the form of labor, of suffering, of having to persevere: how is God nourishing my soul? RB 4.42!
 
5. Forgive us as we forgive. To seek to grow in patience and forbearance. This strikes me as the gateway into the Kingdom. RB 4.29-33.
 
6. Lead us not into temptation. To discern temptation, and to cast it immediately upon the rock of Christ. RB 4.10-11; Prologue 28.
 
7. Deliver us from evil. To seek to realize, to discern, how God is liberating me. What so readily I confuse with restriction and limitation - is this liberation, making possible the conversion, the “metanoia” of repentance and new life? To understand how being bound, even bound to a cross, is deliverance - which even as I write, I kind of resist. RB 4.57-58.
 
May these resolutions, which as I write have led me to Chapter 4 of the Rule of St. Benedict and its more specific list, become the instruments for this year’s work in the workshop of community life.

Notes:
From Resolution #1: RB 4.62: Do not aspire to be called holy before you really are, but first be holy that you may more truly be called so.

From Resolution #2: RB4.47: Day by day remind yourself that you are going to die; 44 Live in fear of judgment day; 45 and have a great horror of hell.

From Resolution #3: RB 4.60: Hate the urgings of self-will.

From Resolution #4: RB 4.42" If you notice something good in yourself, give credit to God, not to yourself,

From Resolution #5: RB 4.29 Do not repay one bad turn with another (1 Thess 5:15; 1 Pet 3:9); 30 Do not injure anyone, but bear injuries patiently; 31 Love your enemies (Matt 5:44; Luke 6:27); 32 If people curse you, do not curse them back but bless them instead; 33 Endure persecution for the sake of justice (Matt 5:10).

From Resolution #6: RB 4.10 Renounce yourself in order to follow Christ (Matt 16:24; Luke 9:23); 11 discipline your body (1 Cor 9:27); Prologue 28: He has foiled the evil one, the devil, at every turn, flinging both him and his promptings far from the sight of his heart. While these temptations were still young, he caught hold of them and dashed them against Christ (Ps 14[15]: 4; 136[137]:9). 

From Resolution #7: RB 4.57 Every day with tears and sighs confess your past sins to God in prayer; 58 and change from these evil ways in the future.

Be me resolved!
 
Pax - B. Billings
November 24, 2019

Year’s end is upon us. Here at Portsmouth, we recreate the Advent wreath, we hang the banner of the Theotokos, we dust off the crèche scenes, we bring out the violet liturgical cloth. But in reading Luke’s gospel this morning (November 29), I noticed that after Jesus has described the terrible signs of the coming of the Kingdom, he compares them to the new growth of spring that we see on the fig tree, that tells us summer is near. This reminded me of the reversals and unexpected conclusions that saturate the gospel: the Beatitudes, parables like that of the poor widow, the cross. As we move to the darkest time of the year, we see its greatest light begin to flicker. Expect the unexpected, it has been said. Never say never; the end is the beginning. Blessed are the poor, he said. Rejoice in persecution. Death is new life.  And, funny, we now turn to a new season of this unexpected, with long standing traditions and practices followed for millennia.  The familiarity of rites and practices intended to recall a gospel that seems forever unfamiliar to our world. We live in an age that fears that things will get worse before (or if at all) they get better. But as we again and ever again try to turn our hearts and minds to the long-awaited unexpected, may we discern and believe: the worse contains the promise of the better, the cursed for now holds the blessing of forever, and even death brings the hope of new birth to life eternal.

 
Pax - B. Billings
November 30, 2019