Editor's Note

- To Cultivate and to Celebrate
  
  June 25, 2023
  
  It is perhaps trite to speak of how quickly the summer passes, but here we go, once again with feeling. June has indeed brought beautiful moments to the place. The month began in celebration of the dedication of our church and ends with that of the diocesan cathedral. These bookends are particularly fitting for a month in which the Humanitas Symposium brought an array of events including a concert of Sacred Music, a Procession with the Blessed Sacrament, and a Mass celebrated by our retiring Bishop Thomas Tobin, his homily included in this issue. The wider church has also joined us for the PIETAS program, as has the entire English Benedictine Congregation in its gathering of bursars, as noted by Brother Sixtus. With the return of summer camps using the facilities of the School, the summer is blessed with energy and activity, a sense of flourishing amidst the blossoming of this fleeting season. As Brother Sixtus notes, this has only been enhanced by additional visitors joining us as well. The theme of the symposium, “To Cultivate and to Toil,” is well-suited to our summer toil, matched with – perhaps well overmatched by – the celebration that has accompanied these efforts all along the way.
  
  Peace,
  Blake Billings
About
- Blake Billings '77, Ph.D. is a graduate and current faculty member of Portsmouth Abbey School. He received his undergraduate education at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, then joining the Jesuit Volunteer Corps to assist in an inner-city parish in Oakland, California. From Oakland, he went to Leuven, Belgium, receiving degrees in theology and philosophy. He returned to the Abbey in 1987, teaching for three years before getting married and returning to Leuven to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy, which he was awarded in 1995. Having taught in higher education at various schools, including St. John's University, Fairfield University, and Sacred Heart University, he decided his calling was at the secondary level, gratefully returning to Portsmouth in 1996, where he has resided ever since. He became an oblate of the Portsmouth community ten years ago. His four children were all raised on campus and graduated from the school, the youngest in 2020.