Advent 2014 Dear Friends of St Anselm’s, As we come to the end of this year, our entire monastic community wishes you a very blessed Christmas and New Year. Through this newsletter, we hope to strengthen the ties that we already have and welcome some newcomers to a still wider circle of friends. As you read the Chronicler’s Column and the various articles in this issue, you will surely come away appreciating all the more the diverse talents and interests of our monks. Just like all of you reading this, we monks are well aware that our country and many other parts of the world have been going through difficult times. We need think only of the millions of refugees, especially in the Middle East, who are facing a harsh winter in primitive conditions, or of the various signs of dysfunction in our national government. It is tempting to feel that there is little any of us can do in the face of such problems, and we know that some persons, as we read in a recent email, think that monks are rather selfishly engaged in “an overzealous attempt to seek God at the cost of sacrificing the Christian calling to go out and spread the Gospel to the world.” We trust that the many activities in which we are engaged—whether in our school, in local chaplaincies, or for our lay oblates and those coming for short retreats, spiritual direction, or other programs—show that we want and expect our communal and personal prayer to be complemented by many different ways of serving others. We are most grateful for your support in our various endeavors. The Monks of St Anselm’s Abbey The Chronicler’s Column Those members of our community who teach in and leads the discussions on Benedictine spiritual- our abbey school regularly find that however much ity for parents of our students on the first Friday of energy bolstered them at the beginning of the school every month. He also provides pastoral assistance year, that supply is rather depleted by the time the at Holy Redeemer parish in College Park, Maryland year ends in late May, so many of them take some and is the author of two articles in this issue of our well-deserved time visiting family or friends for newsletter. a few weeks in the first part of the summer. What Our former superior, Abbot Aidan Shea, regu- draws all of us back together by mid-August is larly sees many persons who come to him for spir- our annual community retreat, led this year by Fr itual direction. Despite the health problems that Terrence Kardong, a monk of Assumption Abbey come with advancing age, he was able to spend sev- in Richardton, North Dakota. Those of our readers eral weeks in Bermuda with his longtime friends who keep up with things Benedictine will already Rob and Mary Truland in May. After several decades know that Fr Terrence is one of the world’s lead- as director of oblates, he retired from that position in ing scholars on monastic life, for he has authored January of this year and so was honored on June 2 in a lengthy commentary on the Rule of St Benedict, a ceremony on our south lawn, where a handsome a shorter volume titled The Benedictines as part of tree, “Aidan’s Oak,” was planted and blessed. Mary a series on religious orders, and numerous articles Grace Oates has contributed an article about Abbot in both scholarly and popular journals. Fr Terrence Aidan’s years as oblate director in this issue. has also served as editor of The American Benedictine Review for several decades and has rightly given that journal a properly monastic character. His retreat conferences focused on one of the shortest but most important chapters of the Rule, that on “The Good Zeal of Monks,” with its challenging teachings on supporting one another’s weaknesses with the greatest patience and preferring nothing to the love of Christ. We are grateful that he was able to share his reflections with us and also stay at our monastery for a few extra days before returning to the northern plains. Our Prior, Father Michael Hall, continues to be very busy in all sorts of school-related activi- "Aidan's Oak" catches a beam of sunlight at its dedication. ties. In addition to serving as school chaplain and as a teacher in both the religion and social studies Other monks experiencing difficulties with health departments, he supervises the Tuesday-morning are Father Edmund Henkels, who continues to service program for our fifth and sixth formers reside at the nearby Carroll Manor nursing home 3 and is always keen to hear news about the abbey served as president of the society for several years and abbey school, and Father Hilary Hayden, who and has been in charge of hospitality since 1992. suffered a broken hip in early June and, after two Father Philip Simo is now in his fourth year as a months of rehabilitation at Carroll Manor, is now chaplain at nearby Providence Hospital. He recently again residing in our renovated Monmonier wing. hosted some friends from Slovakia who stayed at Like Father Edmund, Father Joseph Jensen cel- the abbey for some days and also had the rather ebrated his ninetieth birthday this fall. Still very novel experience of hearing read in our refectory active, he visited his sister Loretta in southern the narrative part of the dissertation he once wrote California for a week in July, followed that with a for Sant’Anselmo on the way Benedictines in the trip to Providence College in Rhode Island for the United States have met the socio-cultural changes annual meeting of the Catholic Biblical Association, in American life over the past half-century. and more recently enjoyed two weeks in Poland Our Christmas cards now regularly feature an icon with a tour group of which his longtime administra- produced by Father Boniface von Nell, who made tive assistant Maria Nazarczuk was also a member. two trips this year to work with an expert iconog- As vocation director, Father Christopher Wyvill rapher in western Pennsylvania. He took over the arranges several programs for men who are inter- position of director of oblates this past spring and ested in monastic life, including a Come and See week- was a key member of a committee planning for a end once each semester and Saturday Evening with large regional meeting of oblates that was held here the Monks approximately once a month during the at St Anselm’s on October 18. Father Boniface like- school year. He has also begun offering a Latin mass wise serves as the abbey’s sacristan and librarian. using the Novus Ordo once a month at St Matthew’s Cathedral and regularly hears confessions at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. In addition to tending our vegetable garden during the growing season, he also serves as housemaster, tending to needed repairs and, when necessary, hir- ing plasterers or other outside workers to keep the various rooms of the monastery in good condition. The task of being the main public face of the abbey school continues to be one of the major responsibil- ities of Father Peter Weigand, who annually vis- its alumni in many parts of the country. Somewhat less well known is his decades-long association with the National Capital Cactus and Succulent Society, Oblates gather in the abbey church for midday prayer. which meets in our school’s earth-science lab on the third Sunday of every month (except for July and Our very conscientious bursar for some years August, when the 76 members host a plant sale now has been Father Gabriel Myers, who is also at Brookside Gardens or visit off-campus green- our music director and our community’s elected houses). The group celebrated its fortieth birthday delegate to general chapter meetings of the English at its September meeting this year. Father Peter Benedictine Congregation. He has spent countless hours using a new software program to produce open to school parents and their sons. revised sheets for our vespers music on both ferias Three of the newer members of our community and feast days as well as a new booklet for morn- made their simple vows for three years within the ing prayer on Sundays. Like Father Christopher, he past year or so. Since that time, Brother Isaiah Lord offers a Latin mass once a month at the cathedral has assumed the position of guestmaster and also downtown. serves as a security guard for the school each week- Elsewhere in this issue you will find an infor- day morning. Brother Samuel Springuel has begun mative and indeed inspiring article about the a full course of studies in philosophy and theology English educationist Phyllis Wallbank from Brother at The Catholic University of America, and Brother Dunstan Robidoux, who visited her this summer in Bernard Marra has begun working as a special connection with a meeting of the board of an edu- assistant to Father Peter on major gifts and special cational trust whose purpose is to ensure that the initiatives for the school’s permanent scholarship school she founded and her educational philosophy endowment fund. Prior to entering our community, will continue in perpetuity. Brother Dunstan also he worked for thirty-three years in international leads several weekly or biweekly seminars for the investment banking and venture capital finance, a Lonergan Institute, whose headquarters are located background that makes him well-suited for work in here at the abbey.