Boston Mission

November 17, 2009

The Feast of St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Peace and Good,

All goes well on the western front. This week I am in San Diego giving a parish mission, but last week I was in Lynnfield, MA, giving a mission at our Lady's Parish.

The morning and the evening talks were different, which I actually like a little better. I used the themes that I had developed for Fredericksburg for the morning: St. Paul in Scripture, St. Peter in Scripture, the Blessed Virgin Mary in Scripture, and Abraham and Sarah in Scripture.

The evenings were an overview of the themes in the Book of Revelation. Both morning and evening we had a great turn out. I was very pleased with the way it went.

I am working on the psalms classes CD's. The first one should be done shortly. It can take about three hours of editing for each hour of tape, so this is a long and drawn out process.

I am also back to the translating project. So far, so good.

I finished a series of lectures entitled Masters of Greek Thought: Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle by Robert Bartlett. These were CD's prepared by the teaching company. I did my philosophy courses so many years ago that it was about time that I review some of the ideas in this CD's.

I also finished a book entitles the Renaissance Popes by Gerard Noel. If this book didn't make me lose my faith, then nothing ever will. The real purpose of the book was to present Alexander VI, the Borgia Pope (as in the father of Caesare and Lucricia Borgia) as not as bad as some would say. The problem is that he was plenty bad. (Not that most of the popes in his era were that much better.) Even Catholic authors considered him to be so bad that they called him the antichrist (which, of course, the Protestant reformers immediately picked up upon and used against him and the other popes down to the present days). This book reminded me of the writings of Boccacio who spoke of a Jewish gentleman who wanted to travel from Florence to Rome of convert during the Middle Ages. His friends all tried to talk him out of it because they knew the terrible things he would encounter in Rome. Yet, he went and then returned. He told them he went through with the conversion. They asked him if he had not seen all of those terrible things, and he responded that he had. Now, they were mystified and asked him why he had still converted. His answer is that if all those things could be going on and still the Church continues, then the Holy Spirit must be behind it.

God bless and

Shalom

fr. Jude