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Since 2011, Manquehue members have been coming to Portsmouth during the winter term, in order to help out on retreats and lead lectio divina groups for the students and faculty. Manquehue has a long standing friendship with the English Benedictine Congregation (EBC), that started back in the 1980's. This relationship started with Ampleforth Abbey (EBC), when Manquehue's founder, Jose Manuel Eguiguren, a married layman, started visiting Ampleforth every year in the 1980's in order to seek ideas on how to apply the Rule of St. Benedict to the lay community he had founded in Chile. Since then a strong friendship developed between Manquehue and some of the EBC monasteries in England and the U.S. (i.e. St. Louis Priory and Portsmouth Abbey)
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The Manquehue Apostolic Movement is one of the many new movements and communities that have sprung up in the Catholic Church over the last fifty years since the Second Vatican Council. It began in Chile in the 1970’s and the word Manquehue means ‘place of the condor’ in the indigenous Chilean Mapuche language. Manquehue is also the name of the mountain on the outskirts of the country’s capital, Santiago, at whose foot the movement first started and from which it takes its name. Its members are all lay people. The main inspiration for their lives is the prayerful reading of Holy Scripture, or lectio divina, and the teaching and spirituality of St. Benedict. Their main apostolate is focused in Santiago, where they run three large schools for over 4,000 pupils, as well as 150 weekly lectio divina groups and a hostel for homeless women. They also have a community and retreat centre in Patagonia, in the south of Chile.
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Group from Manquehue in 2016
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Spirituality
As disciples of St. Benedict, the Oblates build their lives upon four pillars: the encounter with the Risen Christ in Scripture through lectio divina; the Divine Office; community life according to the Rule; and working together in community. They celebrate the Eucharist on Sundays in their local parishes and, whenever possible, as a community on major Feast Days and Solemnities. Friendship is an essential part of building community. St. John the Apostle is an important figure for them, as the beloved disciple who recorded Jesus's words "No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends." (Jn 15, 12). The teaching of St. Aelred of Riveaulx on charity and friendship has been hugely influential for the Oblates. Their principal purpose in life is to live out their Baptism, which they received as a seed as infants, and let the power of the Risen Lord to whom they were united and consecrated in this great Sacrament, bear fruit in a life of love, humility and service. The need to share the joy and peace which spring from this deep awareness of Christ's presence and love in their lives is what has taken the Oblates into schools and education. This same need has pushed them to develop ways of enabling young people to listen to God's Word, support each other in community and serve others around them and society at large. The Oblates value greatly communion with and loyalty to the local Catholic Bishop.
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LECTIO DIVINA & TUTORIA
Lectio Divina has been very present in Manquehue since its beginnings. The founder, Jose Manuel Eguiguren, in the middle of a deep existential crisis in the 1970's, sought guidance in a Benedictine community, in Santiago. He developed a strong friendship with Fr. Gabriel Guarda, who listened to him and taught him Lectio Divina. This experience of encountering Christ in His Word, changed his life.
What is Lectio Divina? It is an old Benedictine tradition that consists of reading the Holy Scripture in a prayerful way. Quoting Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: "I would like in particular to recall and recommend the ancient tradition of Lectio Divina that brings about that intimate dialogue in which the person reading hears God who is speaking, and in praying, responds to him with trusting openness of heart. If it is effectively promoted, this practice will bring to the Church - I am convinced of it- a new spiritual springtime."
What is Tutoria? It is a Spanish word used in Manquehue for the way in which senior pupils take on pastoral responsibility and seek to convey their faith to younger boys and girls through the Holy Scriptures. As Saint Paul VI said: "for young people there are no better apostles than other young people".
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OFFICIAL RECOGNITION
The Manquehue Apostolic Movement is officially recognized by the Catholic Church as a "Private Association of Lay Faithful." It enjoys the support and official recognition of the Pontifical Council for the Laity in Rome, as well as a special relationship with the thirteen monasteries of the English Benedictine Congregation: in 2009 the General Chapter of the EBC and the Manquehue Apostolic Movement established a reciprocal commitment of spiritual communion and juridical consociation, committing one another to mutual support through collaboration, hospitality and prayer.
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