Boynton Beach - Montreal - Ellicott City - Rome

June 13, 2011

Happy St. Anthony Day,

As you can see above, I headed back to Montreal last Sunday for the second session of the custodial chapter of Canada. The frisrs made a number of decisions concerning their future which I consider to be very wise. I think that they are on the right track. Part of my job as assistant is to offer an outside evaluation of how things are going, but that always has to be done carefully so that it doesn't seem as if the central government of the order is interfering.

The flight up to Montreal and back to Baltimore were adventurous. Given all my travel, I rarely encounter glitches. This time I had them coming and going. On the way up, they pulled me off the plane because the agent had given me the wrong ticket. On the way back, the plane was 4 hours late because they didn't have enough stewardesses. I wrote the company, letting them know of my disappointment in how things were handled. It's bad enough that they charge you for everything (luggage, a pillow, a better seat, etc.), but when something goes wrong, they don't really seem to care.

On Saturday, I gave a couple of talks at our Shrine in Ellicott City for the celebration of the feast of St. Anthony. There was a good turn out, and I was pleased with how the talks went.

Then, that evening, it was back to Rome. I'll only be here until next Sunday when I head back to the States to represent the order at a funeral.

I finished a couple of works this week. One was a series of lectures from openculture.com on the Civil War and Reconstruction by David Blight. He was good, and entertaining, and opiniated. The course gave an alternate view of some of the details of what really happened in those years. I would recommend it.

A second was a novel, Think of a Number by John Verdon. It is a detective novel based on the premise of someone being able to figure out exactly what number you would think of from one to a thousand, tied in with a serial murderer. The portrait of the family life of the detective involved is quite good. It shows how one's talents can be both a blessing and a curse. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude