It’s about that time of year when families who have sent their offspring literally “springing off” to school, perhaps at some distance from the feathered nest, begin to feel the pangs of emptiness. Certainly, parents of Portsmouth Abbey School students, parents around the world, around the U.S., even around Rhode Island, experience the sense of absence of their offspring from the home, and the same might also hold true for the siblings. In a very similar way, the monks are missing Br. Benedict Maria’s energetic domestic presence. Even within the family of the monastery, among this band of brothers as it were, the prolonged absence of one family member is keenly felt. It’s perfectly natural for the students, too, to admit to some emotions and feelings of homesickness and I suppose that’s one reason why the School celebrates Parents’ Weekend this month (October 27-29).

For Br. Benedict, his time away from Portsmouth Abbey began with the last academic year of 2021-22 when, having completed his in-house studies and his online philosophy requirements, he was admitted to the St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida. There, under the guidance of the highly qualified religious and lay faculty and staff, he began the theology component of his priestly formation. Brother is in a unique position among his class, and perhaps in the entire seminary, in that he is already a solemnly professed religious, having made his Solemn Vows at Portsmouth Abbey on November 1, 2021, The Solemnity of All Saints, which was appropriately a School Mass. His seminary classmates are still considered laymen until they are ordained as deacons at the completion of their third year.

During what turned out to be a very busy summer for him back on campus, he orchestrated almost single-handedly an intensive 10-week course for the children of the School’s faculty in the history, the design and implementation of medieval-style illuminated manuscripts (see The Current, Sept. 4-10). Sadly, Brother soon departed via Amtrak on August 4 for his old stomping grounds in Philadelphia to visit friends and to take part in some activities there, before flying to Florida to begin his second year of studies for 2022-23. Typically, the progression through a seminary program involves four distinct steps: institution as a Lector, institution as an Acolyte, ordination as a Temporary Deacon, and finally ordination as a priest. In some seminaries around the world, this traditional progression was upended by restrictions brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition, the sixth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation was promulgated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on June 24, 2022, with an effective date of August 4. During the summer months, the Rector/President of the Florida seminary, the Very Rev. Alfredo I. Hernandez, worked with an ad hoc committee to consider different possibilities for implementation at St. Vincent’s, which were then presented to his faculty for further consideration. The National Religious Vocation Conference (NRVC) explains that the previous (5th) edition of the PPF, “used an academic language of college seminary, pre-theology, and major seminary. The 6th edition shifts to a language of relationship using four stages of initial formation: Propaedeutic, Discipleship, Configuration, and Vocational Synthesis.”

Eventually, input from the bishops of the seven dioceses of southern Florida, plus that of the vocation directors involved, was sought by St. Vincent’s. A copy of their plan reached my desk in time for a September 21 Zoom meeting led by Fr. Alfredo, in which I participated as the Vocation Director at Portsmouth Abbey.

Later that very afternoon, Br. Benedict arrived at the T.F. Green Airport in Providence in order to participate in our Conventual Chapter on September 22. He departed from Boston Logan that night, two hours later than scheduled, which of course caused him to miss his connection at JFK and landing him back, finally, in Florida several days late. Nevertheless, he was present on Sunday, September 25, when he was instituted both as a Lector and as an Acolyte by Bishop Silvio Jose Baez Ortega, O.C.D., Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, Nicaragua, at the seminary’s Family Weekend Mass. Within the Mass was celebrated the “Rites of Institution of the Ministries of Lector and Acolyte.” Br. Benedict plans to return home to Portsmouth for Christmas, just as most of our students here will be returning to their far-flung or close-by homes.

In a recent issue of the St. Vincent magazine called Seeds of Hope, Fr. Alfredo wrote in his Rector’s Welcome, “Many Reasons for Hope,” that so many people (including us monks, by the way), look to the administrators at the seminary, and “especially to the seminarians, as beacons of hope.” He adds, “There is nothing quite so edifying to hope as a well-lived example.” And anyone who has spent even a short amount of time around Br. Benedict, in India, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Portsmouth, and now Florida, knows what a well-lived example his life is as a role model for others seeking to get closer to God. We pray for his continued growth and blessings as he prepares for ordination.