What is an Oblate?

by Kevin Chears, oblSB

July 2024 - left to right is outgoing NAABOD leadership: Linda Gilmartin, Secretary; Sr. Antoinette Purcell, Vice President; & Fr. Meinrad Miller, President; with the new team: our oblate Kevin Chears, President, and Julia O'Neil-King, Vice President.

As a Benedictine Oblate, I became part of an international group of everyday people who have promised to live their lives guided by the Rule of St. Benedict. While we are attached to a monastery and meet regularly to pray with and learn from each other,

our lives are lived secularly in homes, schools, and offices. Each Oblate group is a bit different, reflecting the character and charism of its local monastery, but we all look to the life lessons found in the Rule for guidance.

There are over 100 oblate groups in North America, each guided by a leadership team which can include a vowed religious individual as the Oblate Director or by a team of Oblates with the advisory support of a vowed religious individual. In the early 1970s, recognizing the need to develop a community for the leaders of the Oblate groups

across the country, The North American Association of Benedictine Oblate Directors (NAABOD) was founded. Over the years NAABOD created a forum for Oblate Directors to share information about their programs, learning from each other. Providing for the

ongoing spiritual growth of Oblates has been and is a consistent topic. Bi-annual conferences, held at various monasteries, can be a time to explore ideas and methods as well as sharing moments of prayer and reflection.

Oblates at 2025 St. Scholastica Feast Day Mass, below the mural of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica: Pat Sullivan, Fr. Mike Solazzo, Mary Claire Cadieux, Kathlyn Myers, Jacqueline Rickman, Dan Raven, Kate Zilla, Anita Maddali, Barbara Boland, Nancy Labiak, Georgie Ellis, and Kevin Chears.

As the leadership models for the Oblate programs began to change to involve more non-vowed religious, NAABOD also changed to include non-vowed religious Oblate leaders in the conference experience. Discussions at the conferences expanded to include questions regarding models of leadership, in addition to other topics such as community involvement both inside and outside of the monastery. At one of the recent NAABOD conferences, the advisory team that I am part of here at St. Scholastica was part of a panel, discussing various forms of leadership that Oblate groups might want to adopt.

At the most recent NAABOD conference in July of 2024, I was elected president of the association, the first Oblate to hold the position. My election reflects changes both for NAABOD and for some monastic communities, as Oblates continue to take on more active roles. NAABOD continues to create a community for the leaders of Oblate programs to gather together, sharing and reflecting on the ongoing needs of our communities as we together seek God and support each other in love.