Rome

November 6, 2011

Peace and Good,

It is so rare that I get to write only one city under the title. I have been home at Santi Apostoli all week for our definitory meeting.

The first few days of the week I hosted one of the friars from my province. I still don't know Rome well enough, but it is great to walk someone through that which I can share. Then, beginning Wednesday, we held our definitory. We have one new Assisitant General, fr. Benedict Baek from Korea. He takes the place of fr. Vincent Long who was made a bishop. There is so much for fr. Benedict to learn. I know what he is going through because I was there only a year ago.

The meeting went well. The Minister General uses a true system of collegiality. It takes longer to discuss things, but it works out much better in the long run because all of us can embrace the final decision.

We finished yesterday, and I am using today to catch up on daily reflections, etc. before I head out on my next journey: Manila, Chicago, Hartford, New York, Baltimore and Rome. I leave tomorrow evening for that round the world trip.

I finished a few books. The first is the Book of the Dead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. This is the second book that they wrote which I have read. The hero is a detective named Pendergast who comes from New Orleans. The villian in this book is his brother Diogenes. The writing is good and the story is exciting. I would recommend any of their books.

I read some more short stories by Joshua Scribner. One of them was quite strange about a series of women who are involved in some sort of quest and each of the women except one dies in the course of the story. It turns out to be a phychological parable of a woman shedding the various personalities she has acquired in his dissociative state. The title of this story is Tortured Spirit. The other stories are called Three Mindful Experiements (all dealing in some way with electricity and emotions).

I also read Mudfog and other Sketches by Charles Dickens. These stories have an almost Mark Twain spirit to them. They are clever.

Have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude