Historic Southern Maryland

March 23, 2010

Peace and Good,

This past week I preached a mission at St. Joseph Parish in Pomfret, Maryland. This parish is preparing for its 250th anniversary in a couple of years. (Remember, it was just a few weeks ago when I preached at a parish in Leonardtown which was celebrating its 300th anniversary).

The mission went from Sunday night to Tuesday night. Sunday the theme was the Book of Revelation and the end of the world. Monday the theme was how to live out faith in our families. Tuesday the theme was our traditions and how they help us to live our faith.

This is a small parish, but there was a great turn out. Many good confessions as well.

I finished a book called The Sisters of Henry VIII: Margaret of Scotland and Mary of France by Maria Perry. What information it had about the sisters was very good, but Henry VIII was such a powerful personality that much of the book was about him with a bit thrown it about his sisters when it was appropriate. The difficulty of a book like this is that they throw out names assuming that you can keep a hundred or so of them straight, which is not always all that easy.

I finished two good CD series. The first was the Lazarus Vendetta by John Ludlum. It is about nanotechnology (creating machines that are the size of a couple of atoms). It was based on the idea of an ecological group that had terrorist tendencies (and a subsidiary plot by the CIA and the FBI). Ludlum always knows how to write a book that is exciting and interesting.

The second one was You've Been Warned by James Patterson. Patterson writes a good murder mystery, but this one had spiritual dimensions. What are the consequences of one's bad actions? What would Hell really be like? etc. It was a good spin.

Here is my schedule for the next months.

03/29/10 - Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C. p.o.c. Kathleen Noel (Talk)

03/30/10 - St. Louis Catholic Church, Clarksville, MD p.o.c. Mike Leumas (Knights of Columbus Talk)

04/01/10 - 04/04/10 - Bon Secours Retreat Center, Marriottsville, MD p.o.c. Lynn Lieberman (Triduum Retreat)

04/05/10 - 04/10/10 - Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, Hamburg, NY 14075 p.o.c. Sr. Joyce Kubiniec (Retreat)

04/11/10 - 04/16/10 - Hyatt Regency Hotel, Hamburg, NY (Provincial Retreat)

04/17/10 - 06/12/10 - International House of Franciscan Studies, Canterbury, England, U.K.

06/13/10 - 06/18/10 - Hyatt Regency Hotel, Hamburg, NY (Provincial Retreat)

06/19/10 - 07/01/10 - St. Victor's Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana, West Africa p.o.c. Fr. David Azambawu(Seminarian Retreat)

07/04/10 - 07/10/10 - St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN 46546 p.o.c. Sr. M. Dorothy

07/11/10 - 07/18/10 - Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ 07945 p.o.c. Sr. Teresa Marie (Sisters' Retreat)

God bless and

Shalom,

fr. Jude