This past week I spent it visiting friends at Portsmouth Abbey. Savoring the graces of Easter was an important part of my desire to be away from that which is "normal" plus visiting friends who I haven't seen in a while was refreshing. There are 13 monks resident.
Portsmouth is a monastery of Benedictine monks under the patronage of Saint Gregory the Great. The abbey has been in Portsmouth, Rhode Island since 1926 located 7 miles north of Newport and 20 minutes south of Fall River on Narragansett Bay. The location is beautiful and for me, quintessentially "New England." Among many things the abbey is famous for historically being populated by monks who converted to Catholicism and for the school the monks run, Portsmouth Abbey School.
Curious, a small abbey with a good school (c. 450 students) also has two Scottish Highland cows. Nice characters to have around but they're not the cuddle type of pets. I hear they're a little annoyed at the monks because some of their grass was turned over for a
garden. Not used to a smaller plot of land for grazing, the cows make it known that they're bigger than the people keeping them at bay.One missing set of workers on the abbey farm are the bees. The monks need a bee hive!
Recently, members of the faculty and staff of the abbey school founded the Portsmouth Institute. The Institute is hoping to provide the "greater Portsmouth-Newport-Fall River (tri-state area?) with some solid theological, philosophical and cultural thinking. They're starting off with a June conference called The Catholic William F. Buckley."
My time at the abbey included an afternoon spent with a dear and longtime friend Chorbishop Joseph Kaddo, the pastor of the Maronite Catholics at Saint Anthony of the Desert Church in Fall River. Msgr. Kaddo is happy in his vocation and thriving nicely where he is.
OK, back to "normal" life....
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