Newsletter
for alumni of The Abbey School, Mt. St. Benedict, Trinidad and Tobago, W.I.
Caracas, 30 March 2013 No. 595
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Dear
Friends
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From: Joe <bermentmcdowald@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 9:33 PM
Subject: Finalised Obituary Abbot Dom Hildebrand Greene OSB
Dear Brothers,
Please forgive my earlier errors and accept the corrections
offered. In addition, please pass this on to any in your intimate circle. I
don't have everyone in my mailing lists.
Both Fr. Hildebrand Greene and my cousin Fr. Vincent Merrique
(RIP) were instrumental and formative of my spirituality, independent of
institutions, they nurtured my consciousness of the indwelling of the Holy
Spirit and helped launch a lifelong quest for knowledge, learning and the
autonomous development of my personal relationship with God. Fr. Hildebrand was
amongst those monks who aided me to the point of awareness of the Holy ecstasy
and intellectual abandon of prayer and meditation, when a heightened experience
of the presence of the Creator becomes manifest.
I didn’t know him to abuse the privilege that others would have
been willing to grant him because of his ethnicity and social status to
domineer over or invalidate the opinions, sentiments and humanity of others.
At the time that he was my teacher he had an inclination towards
an austere version of monasticism and much admired the Cistercians and
Trappists (Benedictine offshoots) with their deep traditions of manual labour,
critical thinking and robust scholarship.
As young men, he involved us in a critical examination of the
global social and economic order and always emphasised the requirement for
ethical conduct and a reasoned, detached determination of justice. In part, he
inspired my own tendency towards monasticism; my vocation for ethical
spiritually, inspired social activism and my lifelong proclivity to
contemplation and reflection, as a lay person. I have reason to believe that he
tended towards the liberation theologians, reflective of his interpretation of
our history and experience as Caribbean peoples.
Amongst the authors who he admired were contemporary mystics like
himself: the Trappist Thomas Merton - - Contemplation in a World of Action, No
Man is an Island, Sign of Jonas . Merton famously said "The world is full
of great criminals with enormous power, and they are in a death struggle with
each other. It is a huge gang battle, using well-meaning lawyers and policemen
and clergymen as their front, controlling papers, means of communication, and
enrolling everybody in their armies." ; The free thinker, intellectual,
philosopher J. Krishnamurti, Think on These Things and the Jesuit Pierre
Teilhard de Chardin. I have the privilege of owning some of his cast off books
in my library. At the present time I am holding one in my hand - - States and
Morals, T.D. Weldon, A study in Political Conflicts, John Murry, London, 1962.
Always open to the faith of others, I can’t remember him ever
acting out any presumption of religious superiority. In fact, it was because of
his example and instruction that it became progressively easier for me to
accept people of other religious persuasions on equal terms. He was a strong
advocate for tolerance, accommodation, interfaith dialogue and promoted
meditation, and yoga as unifying routes to religious contemplation and
spiritual activism.
One very great sadness for me was that, as the end approached,
the person who inhabited his body no longer remembered me and was unable to
share that probing insight that was his essential nature as a teacher and
guide. I am the way I am in part because of him. When I wanted a recommendation
to help me embark on a career of fortune and fame he had this to say “ I think
that he would make a good teacher or a successful career in any of the helping
professions for which is otherwise found suitable.” At the time I thought it
was a death sentence, today I realise that he knew me then better then than I
knew myself. Dom Hildebrand Greene, O.S.B, RIP.
Joseph Berment-McDowald
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From: Joe <bermentmcdowald@yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 9:51 AM
Subject: Your reflections on Fr. Hildebrand
Greene
Dear Brothers,
Gabriel Faria, a student during my time, is the CEO at Guardian
Media. He has arranged for his organisation to carry a feature on Abbot
Hildebrand in the Trinidad Guardian Newspaper.
Your recollections of his life and works are urgently required,
by the end of the day. Your piece would be either published as an individual
item or used as material for composition.
Kindly send your writings to Michelle Loubon of the Trinidad
Guardian (whose email address is given below) and send me a copy.
I am also suggesting that we all contribute to an offering to aid
the work of some social ministry or service (organisation) fostering inter
faith understanding, dialogue and/or delivering human service without regard
for religious persuasion in his memory. I am certain from my memory of the
causes dear to him that this is what he would have wished. The specific cause
will be decided by the association at our next meeting.
Those who wish to contribute can make their pledge or deposit to
Gabriel Faria's account or contact Peter Sammy or myself as previously. All contributions
shall be robustly and transparently accounted for, as we have in the past. The
abbot will be informed of whatever has been collected and/or pledged by Monday
week.
Yours in service,
Joe
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From: Michelle Loubon <michelleloubon@yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:30:58 -0700 (PDT)
Hi,
Could you send me a bit of info on the late Abbot Greene.
Maybe include what he meant to you and the boys and who were some
of the students and maybe a few prominent people I could talk to.
Thanks
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Subject: Re: OUR BEAUTIFUL WORLD (CONTINUED)
From: nigelboos@eagles-wings.ca
Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:31:21 -0500
This would be a wonderful project, Glen, and I would hope that
Fr. Abbot would cooperate with us in its production, by permitting us the use
of Fr. Benedict's photographs.
Good luck to you and to all concerned in this vision of yours.
Nigel
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On 2013-02-28, at 3:05 PM, Glen Mckoy wrote:
My Dear George,
I must thank you for this unique email, a different light to
these photos, like yourself if I must say.
I still treasure my moment at that reunion in Toronto, when I met
for the first time you, Nigel, Cornel, Freddy (Andres) and Trevor, as we all
came from different years.
What a spirit that followed, the boys in our hearts as we shared
stories well some of the best was from Nigel, ha! ha! what a gift of a person,
this Club is so lucky to have, we owe a few brothers so much, how will we ever
repay, I hope they will take I owe U's ha! ha! we do love them.
George, like myself we got on board this ship very late, almost
30 years after, where were we then?
Well we were taking care of business ha! ha! families, careers,
just life and then one day, some of us had some time to reflect, maybe we were
at a more secure point in life, more contented state of mind to rekindle old
ties.
I do understand this. I really think we would have accomplished a
lot more if we had started much earlier.
However we still do have a few thing to finish before the Fat
Lady sings, ha! ha! let’s keep on Trucking.
On my agenda was a digital book, which I suggested I would like
to do.
I got great feed back from Ladislao, Nigel, Don and some
technical assistance from Gabriel & Shaun, on how we can do this.
Now I am frozen, why? Well, we have class photos, but only so
many, which I don't think is enough to justify a proper book of our school.
We have a lot of recent photos of reunions but these are new.
I know we have all the photos on the Mount, as the Abbot did
state that he has All the Photos of Fr. Benedict (Voosh) in his letter to
Nigel.
Now I was reading that our Alumni in Trinidad is registered, this
is good hopefully for the benefit of the group, all over the world.
I would like to suggest to that board of directors that getting
the Abbey School Class Photos should be a #1 mission for us to acquire use of
such, as it only means anything, really to the past students.
Now I don't think we will get this for nothing, and of course we
must be prepared to cover whatever it takes, so we can digitize these documents
before they turn bad from just time.
I have pondered this one for some time because we need them, to
make our little book whole.
If the registered Alumni can take leadership in pursuing this
goal, of course with support from all, I think it is a difficult mission we
cannot escape.
I do hope thru Joe Berment, Winston Ramsahai & others, a
dialogue with the Abbot can be established.
Maybe up front we can pay for the copying of all the photos and
on selling our books, all profits go to the church.
Now this is negotiable, please those on the board of directors of
our Alumni, do study this and give Ladislao your feedback, as he is in contact
with 90 % of the active members.
(Joe, could you please forward this email also to Winston &
Dennis, thanking you in advance, for your time and your attention on this
project).
Best regards to all, wishing us all the best in our endeavours,
cheers mi amigos,
Adios Glen McKoy.
(In time we should do some Skype round table discussions).
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From: calypsobandit@live.com
Subject: RE: Don/2013 Circulars.
Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2013 10:44:10 -0500
HI GUYYS CAN YOU PUT MY WEBSITE ON THE LIST
Thanks "BANDIT"
Our Dear Brother Tony, (Thank you Don, about 2013 Circulars, will
circulate).
It’s good to read your email, so glad to hear you are recovering
so quickly also, Cheers.
Well Tony, when it comes to doing a good job, I too commend
Ladislao, Nigel, Don & Jon, and the Association in Trinidad, they have been
here a long time before me.
I have tried to help out over the pass years in what ever small
ways I can.
Now there are also George, Kazim, and a few others, who are also
helping in so many ways.
We also have a couple of younger brothers, Shaun & Gabriel,
that I am quite impressed by, and do hope we can see them in our Club's future.
Thanking you for your kind words and support, this is what it’s
all about, making a brother feel good to reconnect with long lost friends,
Welcome to the Club Mi Amigo,
Adios- Glen.
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Subject: Re: 2013 Circulars
From: vcl28@aol.com
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:11:16 -0500
Don, Ladislao, Nigel, Glen,
You guys are doing a lot of great work on behalf of all of us,
and in case we did not do so before and if i may, on behalf of the others, Thanks.
Tony
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Dear all,
I have been preparing the layout of the Blog for the 2013
Circulars from Ladislao.
It occurs to me that some of you may have personal webpages that
are missing from the Links.
Or, you may have another one to the one I have given for you, let
me know, please.
Note that, if you like, you can enter your email address in the
appropriate place in the right-hand column to get automatic email updates from
the Blog when a new Circular is posted.
If you have any suggestions for improving the layout or content
of the Blog, please feel free to let me know.
It can be seen at: http://abbeyschoolmtstbenedict2013circulars.blogspot.com/ You will note that it does not yet contain
any Circulars. We are finishing off 2012: http://abbeyschoolmtstbenedict2012circulars.blogspot.com/
Don
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Ladislao Kertesz at kertesz11@yahoo.com,
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Photos:
13LK0010LKEKM0, My foot on the O km marker
in Madrid.
56CJ0010CJAGRP, Please place names on the
faces.
313973LK1212FACEBOOK, Ajax reunion
224898LK12FACEBOOK, Remember the church?
