The Good News Note

Rome - Ellicott City

2012-01-23T05:35:00.000-08:00

January 23, 2012

Peace and Good,

I have been in Rome all of this week for our monthly definitory (gathering of the minister general and his council). As usual, we discussed the situation of friars and friaries all throughout the world.

During the week, we also took a field trip to a community called the Community of St. Egidio (Giles). This community was founded by Catholic young lay people as a reaction to the upheavals of 1968 (which tended to be very violent in Europe - remember, they brought down the presidency of Charles de Galle). These young people decided that there had to be a way that they could live their lives in a more authentic manner, but remaining lay people. This community had long been dedicated to the service of the poor and emarginated in society. They have spread all throughout the world. There are now around 70,000 to 80,000 of them. They have even been involved in diplomacy. Their most famous intervention was in Mozambique, Africa, when they helped to broker a cease fire and peace treaty to end a civil war raging there.

Since 1986, they have been committed to inter-religious dialog under the title of the Spirit of Assisi. This was the name given to a gathering sponsored by Pope John Paul II of religious figures all throughout the world in Assisi. This community has continued this initiative with gatherings of various religious figures each year to commemorate and continue the work.

We met with them to see where we could work together, and what we could learn from each other.

I continued my visitation of Korea in Italy, meeting with a number of Korean friars who are in Rome for their studies. I will be able to finish up the visitation when I get back to Rome in February.

I flew to the States yesterday and will be here for the next three weeks. These week I am getting caught up on medical tests (the normal ones). Next week I have a meeting with the American provincials, and then the week after I will be giving a retreat to our friars at a retreat house in Jacksonville, FL.

These are some books that I have finished.

Lectures on Russian Literature by Ivan Panin

I have really taken a liking to Russian literature, and this is a long lecture on four different authors who represent various tendencies in authorship: Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef and Tolstoy. Pushkin is seen as someone who can only sing the glories of what he sees. Gogol can see and describe the negative. Turgenef attack that which he understands to be unjust. Tolstoy sees the good and bad and transcends them. The lecture certainly shows certain prejudices on how Panin reads these authors, but his evaluation is a good read.

The Mountains of California by John Muir

John Muir is largely responsible for the movement to protect the beauties of nature in the US. I have already read a couple of his books describing the Grand Canon and the glaciers of Alaska. This book covers the mountain ranges in California. His writing is pure poetry, but this one gets a bit too bogged down in description. Sometimes one feels as if one is ready a botany textbook. It is still worth reading, but it is not Muir’s best attempt.

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

Nemirovsky was a Catholic French author (of Russian Jewish heritage) who wrote just before and during World War II. She was eventually arrested and died in Auschwitz. This book was written at the begging of the war (up to the first anniversary of the conquest of Paris by the Nazi’s, which coincided with the German invasion of the Soviet Union). It describes first the panicked response of people as the Nazi’s were arriving, and then their attempt to live under the control of the Nazi’s. There is also a good amount of polemic about the attitude of the various factions in French politics that had torn the country apart before the war and how those divisions continued well into the occupation. There are not a lot of heroes in the story, even as that period was terribly messy in actuality.

Seoul - Ganghwa - Tongjin - Incheon - Yahgpyeong - Seoul - Rome

2012-01-15T23:49:00.000-08:00

January 16, 2012

Peace and Good,

Well, I completed my visitation of the Korean Province and returned to Rome for a week of meetings.

On Monday, I visited Ganghwa, our house of formation, and Tongjin, a center where the friars live with mentally challenged adults. The friars have a tremendous commitment to work with the poor and broken of any form. I have been very impressed with their generosity of spirit.

These two houses are not all that far from the border with North Korea. There are army bases all over the place in this area, and along the highway one starts to notice the barbed wire which is to keep spies from crossing the border at night. Likewise, there is anti-submarine netting hanging from the bridges. In most of South Korea it is easy to forget how close one is to a very treatening country, but in these towns it is very clear.

The next day we went to Incheon. This is a large parish with a ministry to poor elderly people who live at one of their centers. There is also a kitchen there to prepare what amounts to meals on wheels. Finally, one of the friars serves as an undertaker. In Korea, they used to hold wakes in the homes. Now that most people live in appartments in the city, the wakes were held in the hospitals where the people died. They have set up a funeral parlor under the parish church so that people can hold their wakes in an atmosphere of faith. This friar is even called to help out when there are accidents or mass deaths, and he wears his habit to those events.

The last friary to visit was Yahgpyeong. This is a beautiful area around one hour outside of Seoul. It is at confluence of two rivers, and our friary is in the hills. There is a retreat house, a large friary and chapel, and a center where they manifacture a non-alcoholic herbal drink that is very popular in Korea.

Friday I flew back to Rome. With the stop over in Milan on the way, the trip took 15hours. Some of these trips seem as if they will never end, but it makes the transatlantic trip seem short in comparison.

I finished some books.

Gone by Jonathan Kellerman

This is part of a series of detective novels in which a forensic psychologists teams up with a detective (Milo) to solve crimes in California. This novel involves a series of disappearances of actors (and others) over a several year period. The action is well described, at times amusing. The books are well written and a good read.

Discomfort Zone by Jonathan Franzen

I listened to this abridged autobiography of the author Franzen. It deals especially with his teen age years and then with his fascination with bird watching when he was an adult. I have to admit I was thrilled that it was an abridged edition, because I don’t know how much of the author selfish sniveling I could have taken. It is not a book I would ever recommend, and I am not sure that I want to read any of his other books either.

Ralph Waldo Emerson by Oliver Wendell Holmes

This is a biography of the founder of the transcendentalist movement in America (1803-1882). The author is an obvious fan, and he is almost breathless in his description of Emerson’s thought and writings. He posits any mistakes to disciples who misunderstood his teaching. He commends every attack on organized religion as a hallmark of freedom and defense of the rights of the individual. While I agree that Emerson had much to offer, Holmes is not objective enough to help one evaluate Emerson’s worth and contributions to thought.

Please keep one of our ex-friars in your prayers: Mark Thomas Booth. He passed away last week. I studied with him in Rome.

Hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Seoul - Busan - Taegu - Seoul

2012-01-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

January 8, 2012

Peace and Good,

I have been in South Korea all this week doing my visitation of the Korean province. When I do this visitation, I talk with each friar in each community to find out how he is doing, how his community is doing and how the province is doing. Obviously, I am doing this through an interpreter this week. The two friars who are offering this service are Italian friars who arrived here in Korea over 40 years ago. The message goes from an American speaking Italian to an Italian who then translates it into Korean and back.

I visited our big community here in Seoul. The main apostolates here are the international parish (weekly masses in French, Korean, English, German and Italian). They also have a kindergarten for foreigners (over 100 students). There is a retreat house which is used almost every weekend. There are friars who run the province here (the provincial, the secretary, and the treasurer). There are also friars who works as a spiritual assistants with the Secular Franciscans (a group of lay people who vow themselves to live the ideals of St. Francis).

On Monday I travelled south to Busan. This is a port city in the south of the country, the number two city in South Korea (c. 3,000,000 people). We have a friary there and one down the road a bit in a city called Ilgwan. The friars in Pusan run a center for handicapped children (physically and/or mentally). They do great work with this. They also have a center where they refurbish donated goods and sell them. The profits go for a soup kitchen and other works of charity. There is the parish, as well as work among the Secular Franciscans.

Ilgwan has the parish, the seculars, and there is one friar whose apostolate is art, and another who is a brother who makes Seseme seed oil (which sells for around $10 a pint) for sale for the benefit of the friars. They have also built a new friary, and after having refurbished the old friary, they are looking for a good use for it. On the grounds are a few buildings that house lepers. The disease is easily treated nowaday, but some of the older patients suffer from horrible disfigurement from their disease. They live there in peace and worship in the friary chapel.

On Thursday we travelled to Taegu. There we have another parish with a newly built social center. There is also a very active apostolate among the Secular Franciscans. In fact, they and the friars built a center where they can hold meetings, seminars, retreats, etc. It is a beautiful building. As a welcoming center, they established a coffee house on the ground floor.

Friday afternoon we travelled back to Seoul. Yesterday and today are rest days to catch up a bit, and then the next few days will be a series of other visits.

It is very, very cold here. A lady at the train station yelled at me and pointed at my feet when she saw that I was wearing sandals with no socks. The Italian friars said that people think that I am crazy going around like that. My theory is that if you are going to be eccentric, do one thing that is so obvious that everyone will focus on that and miss all of the other smaller eccentricities.

The food is also challenging. I like it a lot, but it is all heavily spiced. If you know what Kimchi is (fermented cabbage heavily seasoned with peppers), it is odd when that is the least spicy thing on the table.

I have finished some books this week. I will change the way I write up this account a bit starting with this week. In the past, I have written what I remember of the book from the backlog of what I have read over these months. Sometimes, though, I do not write it until a couple of months after I finished it. The report was a bit vague. Now, I will write the reports as soon as I finish them and include them as I get time and space.

Mysterious Island by Jules Verne

I never realized that Verne wrote a follow up to his book 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. This is the story of a group of men who flee prison in Richmond, Virginia toward the end of the Civil War and who end up on an unexplored island somewhere in the Pacific when their balloon is carried aloft by a hurricane. They struggle to survive (e.g. the Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, etc.). An engineer serves as an almost godlike figure who helps his companions overcome every obstacle (obviously showing Verne’s immense appreciation for technology). They are assisted by a mysterious figure who serves as a deus ex machine when they are most in difficulty.

The Rose Killer by Pat Gregg

This is a who done it when a series of killings occur in a mid-western town. The main character is mourning the death of her policeman husband and must delve into the fact that he was probably not faithful to her nor was he always honest. The killer turns out to be a surprise, which probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. Unfortunately, not all of the characters are well developed, and it is easy to loose oneself as the drama shifts from one character to another.

Richard I by Jacob Abbott

This is a biography by the prolific 19th century British author who produced a series of hero stories for young people growing up in his era. This deals with King Richard the Lion Hearted. While most of us grew up thinking of him as a hero who defended the rights of the simple folk (a message portrayed in the Robin Hood legend) as opposed to his evil brother King John, he turns out to be a more complex character. He spent almost all of his time in France, the other part of his reign. He considered himself to be first a king of that realm, and then only later a king of England. He almost bankrupted England with all his wars. Yet, with a name like “lion hearted,” how could he not look good. He was a great warrior, but more brave than clever. When compared to Saladin, his rival during the crusades, he comes across looking more like a brute than a noble, chivalric warrior.

Have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Ellicott City - Los Angeles - Seoul

2011-12-31T11:54:00.000-08:00

January 1, 2012

Happy New Year!

I am actually writing this greeting before many of you have even celebrated the New Year. Given the time zone where I am now, we are several hours earlier than Rome, and even though we are several hours after the States, there is the international date line between us so that we are actually a day later than you are. (As I said when I passed the date line in the other direction, this confuses the heck out of me, but since they tell me it is January 1st, I believe it.)

I spent Christmas Day with our friars in Ellicott City. Many of the friars were with their families, so it was a small but very enjoyable gathering. The next day I flew out to Los Angeles to visit a group of Korean friars who live in Torrence.

This is an area at the south of Los Angeles, right by the ocean. The friars serve in a Korean ethnic parish, one of many in the area. The Church had originally belonged to another Catholic community, but when they built a new building, they passed the old complex on to the Koreans. The facility is beautiful, much better situated than I would have thought from an "old" building.

The friars introduced me to Korean cooking the first day. It tends to be quite spicy. If you have ever eaten Kim Chi, the fermented and spiced cabbage, that is a good measure of what much of the diet tastes like. I actually enjoy the food.

After a day visiting the friars and their apostolate, I also visited a group of California friar at our parish in Hermosa Beach. The friars have just finished an extensive remodeling project on the Church and the friary, and the results have been very gratifying.

The next day I took off for Seoul. The check in at Los Angeles for the United flight was the most chaotic I have ever seen. I don't know whether it was the holiday or just misorganization, but I was shuffled from long line to long line. It took well over two hours to check in.

The flight was then delayed due to mechanical difficulties. This part of the trip was handled very well. We were kept informed. We left quite late, and I missed my connection to Seoul from Tokyo. At the Tokyo airport, there was an incredibly good organization of the efforts to help the travelers. My new ticket was already prepared, the hotel arrangements were set, etc. Everyone was so helpful in arranging everything.

I arrrived in Inchon airport. This is Seoul's international airport, about 40 minutes outside of the city. This is the city at which General MacArthur made a surprise landing of troops during the Korean War and changed the courwse of the war.

I have been meeting the friars here in Seoul. There are ten friars in this friary, which has an international parish, a retreat house, the provincial's offices, etc. I am using both Italian and English to communicate with the friars, sometimes depending upon the services of an interpreter (one of the Italian friars who have served in Korea for many, many years.)

Tomorrow I head down to Pusan, a city along the southern coast. There are two friaries in that area, then up to Daegu which is a bit to the north of Pusan, and then back to the Seoul area for there are five friars in this immediate area.

I have finished a few books. The first is by Tom Clancy (actually sponsored by him and written by another author, much as James Patterson writes his series of novels.) It is called Op Center: War of Eagles. It deals with the reprecusions of a plot in China between two rival groups within the government which has become violent and threatens to destroy the peace within China and outside as well. It was OK, but not my favorite book.

The second was A Girl Like You by John Locke. This is part of his Donavan Creed series. It is a detective story told in the style of the detective stories of the 40's and 50's. It was entertaining for a light read.

Finally, there was a book called 1688 by John E Wills. This was an unusual book. It charts the occurances in various countries in the year 1688. It is like reading a global yearbook which has pictures as various as India, Japan, China, Africa, England, France, etc. For a history book, it is quite good to give one a picture of a particular era.

Hope you have a good week and a good New Year.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - Ellicott City

2011-12-26T03:16:00.000-08:00

December 26, 2011

Boxing Day

Peace and Good,

Some of my readers might be familiar with Boxing Day, but for those who are not, in the 19th century, servants were busy on Christmas Day in England. They did not have time to celebrate the holiday. Therefore, the next day was set aside for them to open their Christmas gifts and take the day off. It was the day they received and opened their Christmas boxes.

I finished off my meeting in Rome. It went through to Wednesday evening. As is typical, we covered topics about the friars from all over the world. This past week we also listened to the annual reports of the Justice and Peace coordinator, the director of the office of ecumenism, the head of our web and communications office, and the editor of our official order magazine.

Friday I travelled from Rome to Baltimore via London. I always fly that route because it is on British Air and thus I keep up my frequent flyer privileges, and also it flies in directly to Baltimore and it is easier for the friars to pick me up. For some reason, the flight just seemed endless this time. We were flying against heavy head winds, so it took an hour longer than scheduled. Then, when we arrived, they had a lot of difficulty opening up the cargo doors so the baggage took over an hour to arrive. Yet, I arrived safe and sound so I shouldn't complain.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, and the day before I spent some quiet time to get over some of the jet lag. I will be flying out later today to Los Angeles to visit a community of Korean friars there, and then on Wednesday I head out to Seoul. I am doing a visitation of their province, which means visiting every friary and talking with every friar. Most of this will be through translators, but sometimes what is said is not as important as is the fact that we are present and reminding the friars that we are part of a world wide order.

I finished a few books. The first was called The Strength of the Story by Jack London. It was a series of short stories, some of which were futuristic (at least for when they were written), others were etiological (talking of ancient or pre-historic times and tracing our modern virtues and vices back to situations taking place in those days). I have to admit that I didn't think it was his best work.

A second book was the Dark of the Moon by John Sanford. It is the story of a series of murder that take place in the northern midwest and the state investigator, Virgil Flowers. The book gets the flavor of the places it mentions just right, and the action is quite good. For a detective novel, I thought it was not half bad.

Finally, there was the Imperial Cruise. This was written by James Bradley, the same author who wrote the book Flags of our Fathers about his father's and other's actions on Iowa Jima during the war. This book is about a cruise taken by Taft, the Secretary of State under President Theodore Roosevelt. It visited Pacific areas including Hawaii, Philippines, China and Japan. It spoke about some of the hidden politics that was going on. For example, President Roosevelt gave Japan the right to invade Korea and Formosa and make them part of their empire, the beginning of the imperialism that led to World War II. It was based on the assumption that because Japan had modernized so rapidly in the past half century, then they must be honorary Whites. There was a tremendous amount of racism in those days, especially seen by the incredibly brutal way that a rebellion was put down in the Philippines after the US conquered it (and had given assurances to the rebels who were our allies in our fight against the Spanish that we would grant them independence). It is a really shameful period in our history that we just don't hear about in our US history classes.

I hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome

2011-12-17T21:51:00.000-08:00

December 18, 2011

Peace and Good,

It is so infrequently that I get to put a title on this blog with only one city. I have been back in Rome for our definitory. This meeting is a bit longer because we are meeting with the secretaries of our various offices.

Let me explain what this means. We have the definitory which is the council that makes the decisions for the order under the guidance of the Minister General, fr. Marco. Then we have a series of offices which deal with certain concerns and initiatives. They include the Assistant General of the Secular Franciscans (a group of lay people who vow themselves to live the ideals of St. Francis), the secretary of the Militia Immaculata (a group founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe for those who wish to consecrate themselves to Mary Immaculate), the secretary of the office of Justice and Peace, the order's archivist, the secretary for formation of friars in the order, the secretary for mission animation, the secretary for the promotion of the causes of beatification and canonization, etc. Each December they report to us concerning what is going on in their field and they consult with us concerning what we would like them to do over the next year.

This has been a rough week for jet lag. I went back and forth over the Atlantic (Chicago to London, London to Louisville, Louisville to Rome) a little too often within a one week period. I am more or less back to normal. I'll still be here until this coming Friday when I begin the next trip (Rome to Baltimore, Baltimore to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Seoul).

Today we celebrate the 50th anniversary of one of our friars, fr. Donald Kos. He is originally from Holyoke, MA, but he has lived in Rome ever since the 50's when he came over here to study. He has two full time jobs. He is our representative with the Vatican, and also he works in the Office of the Penitenzeria. There are some sins that are so serious that only the Pope can absolve them (e.g. desecration of the Eucharist). fr. Donald works in the office that takes care of these matters.

I finished a few books this week.

The first is a book called the Book Thierf by Markus Zusak. It is the story of a young girl in Nazi Germany who is cared for by foster parents. The title of the book is based on the idea that the family is very poor, and so she has to steal books because she learns to love to read. The story is heart breaking, challenging, etc. It is narrated by the Angel of Death. The beginning of the book is a bit difficult to follow, but it is honestly one of the best books I have ever read.

The second book is Mystery at Geneva: An Improbable story of Singular Happenings by Dame Rose Macaulay. The story is about a plot to destroy the proceedings of the League of Nations in Geneva. It is almost a fairy tale detective sort of story. Dame Macaulay pokes fun at the endless discussions that often resulted in no change at the League of Nations. It is not too serious of a book, but it was a fun read.

The third book was Dark Passage by Alan Furst. Furst has become one of my favorite authors. He write about the period of history at the beginning of the Second World War. This story involved a Dutch ship captain and his crew and how they are drafted into the Dutch free navy after their country had been overrun by the Nazis. They are used by the British Secret Service for various missions throughout the Mediteranean and the Baltic. It is well written, and gives just the right mix of action and introspection. Again, a good, good read.

I hope you have a good week in this last week before Christmas. Try not to get too busy.

Shalom
fr. Jude

London - Baltimore - Louisville - Rome

2011-12-10T13:15:00.000-08:00

December 10, 2011

Peace and Good,

I think it finally happened. I ran into myself at the airport, because these past couple of weeks have been incredible for travelling.

I had travelled to London and arrived on December 3rd for the funeral of one of our bishops, Bishop John Jukes. He was the auxiliary bishop of Southwark with responsibility for Kent, the county in which Canterbury is located. He was in his late 80's and suffered from Parkinsons for the past few years. After a very active life, the confinement of the disease was tough on him. We was well cared for by a live in nurse, Mrs. Patricia Murphy. We met his body in the Southwark cathedral Sunday evening and concelebrated Mass. (Southwark is the southern part of London. When it was permitted to re-establish the Catholic Church in the 19th century, one of the provisions was that the dioceses not take the name of Anglican dioceses.) On Monday we had Franciscan Vespers. The Poor Clare Sisters from Arundel came to sing the psalms. This is the first time in their history that they have had an outing outside of their convent together. They did a wonderful job. I was asked to preach. You never know how your style will be accepted in another country, but it went well. Then, on Tuesday, we had his funeral. It was high church, but not pompous. Very dignified! I was quite impressed. I think the days served the friars well for the diocesan clergy were very impressed, and a number of candidates for the order were present and moved by the ceremony.

Wednesday, I flew back to Ellicott City with Fr. James McCurry, the provincial of St. Anthony Province. We then flew out to Louisville on Thursday to be there for a funeral in Columbus, Indiana on Friday of the father of one of our provincials, fr. James Kent. Again, the turn out of the friars was wonderful. There is something about when friars gather together for one of our funerals or one of those of our loved ones that is moving. Friday evening we flew back to Baltimore.

Tonight, I fly back to Rome. I will be there for about ten days while we have a series of meetings.

I finished a few books. The first is Disintegration by Scott Nicholson. This was a very disturbing book in the sense of Alfred Hitchcock. For most of the book one is wondering whether the main character really has a twin or whether he is dissociative. The truth turns out to be much worse. This book is like passing a car wreck, one does not want to, but one feels oneself drawn to look at it.

On a whole different note is The Story of a Soul by St. Therese, her autobiography. I love to read about her spirituality of serving God in the little things, of being patient with those who most bother us, etc. It calls me back to what I know I should be more and more.

The third book was L'Assemoir by Emile Zola. Again, this is a disturbing story but in a whole different way from Disintegration. It is the story of a country woman who comes to Paris with her lover. He abuses and leaves her. She miraculously pulls her life together and marries a roofer. He falls off the roof, is badly hurt, and slowly disintegrates to a life of inaction and drinking. She, too, slowly turns to the wrong path and dies a pathetic death in the novel in which she finds herself. Zola was especially bothered by the plight of the working poor of France and how they often destroyed themselves with their life styles (including drink).

I hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Chicago - Milwaukee - London

2011-12-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

December 4, 2011

Peace and Good,

I was in Chicago and Milwaukee this past week doing an evaluation of the formation program of our Mid-western Chicago province. Every once in a while the administration of the provinces takes a look at what they are doing to form the young friars in our way of life. At those times, it is good to tap an outsider to help in the evaluation so that one gets an objective perspective.

During the trip, I visited out Basilica of St. Josaphat in Milwaukee. It is an incredible church, well worth a visit if you are ever in that city. They have just finished a project to change the lighting of the Basilica (energy saving lighting that is much brighter than before). The whole place sparkles and shines. When you enter, you can see why the local symphony uses the basilica for some of its presentations.

Firday evening I flew to London for the funeral of our Bishop John Jukes. I will be preaching at the Vespers (Evening Prayer) service on Monday. The funeral is Tuesday, and then I will be flying back to the States for the funeral of the father of one of our provincials. My jet lag doesn't know which way to adjust anymore. Yet, it is important to be present for these events, if only to show our support to our brother friars.

I finished some books this week. The first is the Messenger by Daniel Silva. This is the second time that I have read this particular book. It was good enough that it was worth the effort. It involves the Mossad and a plot to kill the pope. There is a good mix of fighting terrorism and infiltrating an organization that funds the terrorists. It is good suspense, and I enjoyed it.

I also finished Yiddish Tales by Helena Frank (the translator). These are a series of tales written in Yiddish in Eastern Europe and the US. I downloaded them from librivox.org. They have a playful spirit even while they cause one to laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time. They speak of the poverty of the Jews of Eastern Europe, of their persecution, of their struggle to be faithful to the faith in a changing world, etc.

A third book was Flutter by Amanda Hocking. She is an author who has become famous through the fact that she self-published her own e books. It is only recently that she has obtained a contract to publish printed books. This is the story of a family of vampires and their struggles, especially against a wild band of vampires from the far north of Scandanavia who have a grudge against them.

Have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Manila - Chicago

2011-11-27T09:45:00.000-08:00

November 26, 2011

Peace and Good,

I finished up my visit in the Philippines. I wasn't feeling all that well at the beginning of the week (a travel stomach thing), but I always carry the right medicine with me and I recovered quite quickly. I finished a series of talks to the candidates at a place called Novaliches. This is a complex run by the friars on the north of Manila including their residence, a church, a retreat house and a clinic for the poor. The deacon there, fr. John, was a civil engineer by trade, and he has done wonders in sprucing the place up.

In these two weeks, I managed to give 28 hours of presentations on Sacred Scripture. It was well worth while, and I think the friars appreciated the fact that someone had come from a distance to offer them assistance.

I flew out of Manila on Friday morning. The first flight was to Tokyo. This was my first time in Japan. It was a four hour flight, and a five hour lay over. Then an eleven hour flight to Chicago.

I always suffer from jet lag, and this is a ten hour difference in time zones. I arrived on Friday evening, and I am writing this on Sunday noon and am still under its effects.

Because I passed the international date line, I actually lost a day in flight. It still freaks me out that I technically arrived in Chicago before I left Tokyo.

I finished a few books this week. The first book was Prior Bad Acts by Tami Hoag. I had seen her name often, but this is the first time I have read one of her books. It is about a judge who takes into account the need to exclude prior bad acts in a trial about a current matter when those acts have nothing to do with the case. There is outrage at her decision, and she is shortly after assaulted and later kidnapped. There is a lot of action, and the writing is good. I would recommend it to others if you like this type of mystery.

A second book is Winter in Tirane by Jiri Kaajane. Tirane is the capitol of Albania, and it describes the lot of a man caught up in the period right after the revolution that removed a Stalinist regime from power and before things began to settle down. Everyone is either trying to continue the past or launch themselves into a future which is totally unknown to them (for they were very restricted in what information they could receive from overseas during the communist times). A lot of the hair brained plans remind me of Romania when I would visit it shortly after the communists fell. Everyone is selling something, whether it be influence or flour stolen from the job or know how.

A third book was Icebound by Dean Koontz. The previous books I read by Koontz were more horror stories. This one is more of an adventure mixed with hunting for an insane murderer story. It was good, but some of the details were a little far fetched.

Have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Tagaytay - Manila

2011-11-20T18:39:00.000-08:00

November 21, 2011

Peace and Good,

Hope I can get this posting in before the internet is lost again. It has been a bit touchy this morning.

I finished my conferences in Tagaytay, our interprovince novitiate. It was great speaking to novices from the Philippines, Vietnam and Sri Lanka. They have such rich experiences.

I came down here to Manila on Wednesday and have been giving conferences to our post-novitiate students (12) and sisters from the area (probably 60) plus secular Franciscans (5). Again, it is wonderful to share things with people who are excited to learn.

I came across a curiosity. The Philippines does not have a standard time zone. Some areas are five minutes before or after. This was the case in the US until they had to start printing train schedules and it got too confusing. They told me that they are working on it here too.

It is hotter here in Manila. I can take it for a while, but I don't think I could ever be a long term missionary in a tropical climate. It takes a toll on me.

I will be speaking with the candidates this week, and then a day of tourism if all goes well. I would like to see Corregador if that works out (where our troops were holed up when the Japanese invaded after Pearl Harbor). Douglas MacArthur had to be rescued from there on a PT boat at night so that he wouldn't be capture. He is still a huge hero here.

I finished a few books this week. The first is Without any Warning by Peggy Edelheit. It wasn't too bad. A lady author renting a beach house is deluged by a group of older ladies from her home town and a long lost friend, all of whom was a free stay at the house. They get involved in a murder mystery along the way.

The second is Augustus by Pat Southern. This is a more academic biography of Augustus Caesar. It is interesting how he turns out in the end. He is at times manipulative and ruthless, but he was probably the best of many bad choices.

The third was another murder mystery: Murder by Proxy. It was by Suzane Yound, and again it wasn't bad, but nothing I would rave over.

I hope you have a good Thanksgiving. I'll be heading to Chicago on Friday. Because of the International Date Line, I lost a day, so I will be arriving before I left.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - Manila -Tagaytay

2011-11-12T23:00:00.000-08:00

November 13, 2011

Peace and Good,

I hope you are well. I am writing you from our novitiate in the Philippines. This is the first time that I have been east of the Holy Land.

This past Monday I flew from Rome to Manila via Dubai. I left Rome at 8:30 PM local time, and arrived in Manila around 10 PM local time the next day. I dreaded this very long trip, but it turned out to be less difficult than I expected. The friars met me at the airport in Manila and I stayed at our parish that evening. The weather is hot and humid, but this is not the hottest it gets. Our parish is right across the street from a grammar school with 4,000 students, so from 5 AM there was a constant background of children's voices.

Later that morning the friars drove me out to Tagaytay. It is about an hour outside of Manila and in the hills, so it is quite a bit cooler. This is where we have our novitiate. The town actually has quite a few houses for religious communities. It is a beautiful area, on the side of an active volcano (which has not exploded now for 120 years.

We have five Philippino novices, three from Vietnam and two from Sri Lanka. They use English as the common language, although it really isn't the mother tongue of any of the friars here. I am presenting a workshop of the Gospels and the Psalms to them. It will be here a week and then in Manila a week.

Being the Assistant General, I realize that I represent the larger order to the friars, and it is good for them to see and hear me to remind them that we are much larger than their local reality. Also, being so far off the beaten path for the friars in this part of the world, my presence basically says that we care about them and want what is best for them.

I finished a few books. The first is a book called A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar. It is a book that had been recommended by a Turkish authors that I read, Orhan Pamuk. The book presents Istanbul as a city which is caught between the east and the west, and which suffers from an identity crisis and a malaise as a result.

The second book is the Great Boer War by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He is the author of the Sherlock Holmes books. This was a history of the war between the British and the Boers (the Dutch settles in South Africa) around the year 1900. Unfortunately, he has the tendency of British authors of his era to name every regiment, every officer killed, etc.

The third book was called Virgin Soil by Ivan Turgenev. It is about a couple of revolutionaries who really don't end up getting much of anything done. They talk a good talk, but they are completely undependable and unrealistic. Their idealistic view of the peasants is sadly crushed when they are rejected and betrayed by them. One of the main characters ends up killing himself rather than go to jail. The book is quite good, and it is viewed as one of Turgenev's best.

I hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Wednesday the friar's

Rome

2011-11-06T08:36:00.000-08:00

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

Atlanta - London - Canterbury - Hantly - Dundee - London - Rome

2011-10-29T00:52:00.000-07:00

October 29, 2011

Peace and Good,

After the episcopal ordination of my confrere fr. Gregory Hartmeyer, I travelled back to Atlanta to fly back the next evening to London.

Our friary is right near Waterloo train station, so it is very easy to get there from the airport. Simply an express train to Paddington and then the underground to Waterloo. I have been there a number of times, so I have a favorite Chinese restaurant and a favorite half price book store.

The next day I took the train out to Canterbury where I gave a two day workshop/weekend of recollection to our friars in formation and a group of Montrebre Sisters also in formation. The theme was the books of Wisdom: Wisdom, Sirach, Psalms, Proverbs, Quoheleth, Job and the Song of Songs. We have three men in simple vows, two in novitiate there (and another two in the States) and one candidate.

Sunday I took the train back to London and took a flight up to Aberdeen the next morning. A friar picked me up and drove me up to the home of Bishop John Jukes. Bishop John is the retired regional bishop of Kent in the diocese of Southwark. He is a wise gentleman, and I had a number of good talks with him. Scotland is so far north that the days are already very short. I can't think of what it is like in the winter with only a few hours of sun.

On Wednesday I took the train down to Dundee. I was supposed to baptize someone there, but it didn't work out. Nevertheless, I got to visit some friends. Then I took the flight down to London from Edinburgh the next day, and then back to Rome yesterday.

There were a lot of moves in these two weeks, and I got to visit a good number of people.

I finished a few books. There is the Empire of Liberty: A history of the early Republic by Gordan Wood. It is part of an Oxford Unmiversity Press series on American History. The book was well written and a must for those who enjoy reading American History.

I finished Wolf the Saxon: A Story of the Norman Conquest by GA Henty. Henty wrote a whole series of books for young Englishmen around the turn of the century. This one deals with the Norman conquest from the point of view of a young Englishman. With his books, you never have to wonder who is the hero and who is the villian. But the books are a good read.

I also finished Gobseck the Usurer by Honore de Balzac. It is the story of a money lender in Paris during the 18th century who hoards his riches so much that much of it is ruined by the time he dies.

I hope you have a good week. I will be in Rome for our monthly meeting, then it is off to Manila.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - Atlanta - Savannah

2011-10-19T06:02:00.001-07:00

Peace and Good,

October 19, 2011

This past week I have been with some of my relatives who were visiting Rome. I have not had too much of an opportunity to see the city, so this week was great. I got to learn the connection between some of the streets that I had wanted to visit. One of my favorite surprises is the Church of St. Louis. It is the French national church in Rome, and it has two Caravaggio paintings in one of thee side chapels. I have always loved the art of Caravaggio. He was famous for his use of shadow and light. But for as good an artist as he was, he lived a horrible life style, including being accused of murder (which he did, in fact, commit).

There were demonstrations all week in Rome similar to the Wall Street demonstrations. Unfortunately, on Saturday, they became violent. By then, my brother and his family had moved on to Naples. In Rome, as long as you know there are difficulties, you simply remain indoors and you are safe. Yet, the whole financial thing is becoming very, very messy.

On Sunday I flew out to Atlanta to attend the episcopal ordination of one of our friars, fr. Gregory John Hartmeyer, as the new bishop of Savannah. I got stuck in London because of fog, and missed connections in Atlanta to get to Savannah. I ended up bumming a ride with some parishioners from one of our parishes in the Atlanta area. They were wonderfully hospitable, but I did feel a little as if I were in the home alone film when the mother rides home in the back of a truck with a polka band.

The ordination was incredibly beautiful. This is the first episcopal ordination I have ever attended. (Remember, there are three levels of ordination: to the diaconate, the priesthood, and the episcopacy.) The pastoral team of Savannah had planned it so well and the music was tremendously moving, including a special composition which featured the motto of the new bishop: Pax et Bonum (which means Peace and Good).

I finished a few books.

The first was Spies in the Balkans. It is about a police detective in Salonika, Greece, just before the Nazi invasion in World War II. He sets up a network of police officers throughout Eastern Europe to save threatened Jewish refugees. It is by Alan Furst. He is a very, very good author, and he sets the scene perfectly. I was very impressed by his style and will read books by him in the future.

There was a series of short stories by James Scribner such as the Broken Rule, the Pause Ghost, Under the Bed and Replaced. He, too, is very good. There are low key horror stories, but often with a twist. For example, Under the bed is about the monster under the bed who frightens a little girl. The only thing is that the monster is real, and when the father is tied up by a maniac who threatens to harm his daughter and wife, it is the monster who sets him free.

Then there was Flight Fall by Andy Straka. It is a detective story about the killing of a hunting Peregrin Falcon. It is much better than it sounds, and has a lot of twists and turns.

Hope you have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - La Verna - Rome

2011-10-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

October 11, 2011

Peace and Good,

The weather in Rome is beautiful. It has been cool the last couple of days, but today promises to be a warm fall day.

This past week I spent several days with the rest of the General Definitory at La Verna in north central Italy. This is the mountain upon which St. Francis received the stigmata, the wounds that Jesus bore. He is the first documented case of the stigmata in the history of the Church. (When St. Paul says he bore the wounds of Christ, we believe he is referring to the scars from the beatings that he has received.) St. Francis has gone up to mountain to pray for the 40 days before the feast of St. Michael. (He always had a special devotion to the angels.) During his prayer, he saw a Seraph angel upon a cross descend and, when the vision was over, he had the wounds of Christ.

Like any authentic mystic, he was more embarassed by this phenomenon than proud. Most of the friars did not even know about it until two years later when he died. Francis had always tried to follow the example of Christ, and Christ let him follow that example to his very death.

Our retreat was preached by Fr. Giacomo Bini, an ex general of the OFM friars (the ones who wear brown habits). He is always excellent and challenging. We were there together with the other general definitories of the OFM's, the Capuchins, and the TOR's (Third Order Regular). It was good to talk about our common difficulties and joys. Sometimes you get so caught up in your own problems that you fail to realize that everyone else is going through the exact same thing.

I am back in Rome for the week. My brother and his family and some cousins are visiting, starting later today.

I finished a few books.

There is Code to Zero by Ken Follett. It is the story of Russian spies who try to destroy the first American rocket to fly into space. It is a spy/mystery sort of book, including a case of amnesia. It is actually quite a good read.

The second was a series of lectures from the teaching company (36) on the Era of the Crusader by Kenneth Harl. The Crusades is such a messy and confusing era. This series clearly outlines the historic and social factors in play which led to the launcing and the ultimate failure of the crusades.

Finally, there is The Cat who dropped a bombshell by Lilian Jackson Braun. This is a murder mystery in the style of Garrison Keeler along with two siamese cats, one of which is instrumental in solving the mystery. It is a cute short account, worth a read.

Hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Vienna - Croatia - Rome

2011-10-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

October 3, 2011

Peace and Good,

This past week has been a week of meetings and celebrations in Slovenia and Croatia. On last Sunday we drove down from Vienna and stopped for lunch in Ptuj, Slovenia. We had asked the friars there if we might stop for some lunch on our way down to Croatia. We were very surprised when almost all of the friars in the province showed up to greet us. It was a wonderful sign of our fraternity.

That evening we arrived at our friary on the island of Cherso. This is not all that large an island. It is rocky and dry, but there is a natural beauty to it. We have a large friary there where there is a formation house for the candidates to the order are trained. Even though this is a small island, four of our ministers general over history were born there.

We had a week of meetings. This was our first definitory (counsel) meeting since the summer began (even if we had a few hours of meetings here and there). We had a lot of material to cover. We did have an afternoon off to enjoy the sea (the Adriatic). Then, Friday afternoon, we had a celebration for the feast of St. Jerome, the patron saint of the province of Croatia.

Then, on Saturday, we drove back to Rome.

I have finished a few books.

The first was a short book called Stickteen by John Muir. This is a beautiful story of the explorer of glaciers and mountains out west and a dog who travelled with him one winter.

The second was a book by Agatha Christie called The Murder at the Vicarage. I had never read any of her books, and now I see why so many people enjoy her murder mysteries. The hero of the story is a Miss Marple, a nosey but wise older lady who is able to put the pieces of the story together and find a solution that others can't see.

The third book was Through Russian Snow by G.K. Henty. This is another of Henty's books about Englishmen and their adventures. In this one, two brothers at the time of Napoleon miraculously become heroes and meet in Russia during Napoleon's invasion and defeat (although they are fighting on opposite sides).

Have a good week. Tomorrow is the feast of St. Francis, so please say a prayer for us friars, sisters and lay Franciscans.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Castro Valley - Ellicott City - Brooklyn - Clifton, NJ - Vienna

2011-09-23T22:20:00.000-07:00

September 24, 2011

Peace and Good,

Our semi-annual meeting of the provincials of the North American, British and Irish Conference went quite well. We discussed a number of topics that deal with the life of the order (e.g. what we did in Kenya at the Congress of Nairobi talking about solidarity of resources in the order and our multiculturality), the future (the coming General Chapter in 2013), and our own projects (e.g. how we can encourage the friars to continue in their scholarship.

Saturday we celebrated the solemn profession of two of our friars in Baltimore. fr. Nader is studying for the priesthood in San Antonio and fr. Nick is teaching at our high school in Athol Springs, NY.

Sunday, I was in Brooklyn for a commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the martyrdom of two of our friars in Peru. They were from Poland, and their "crime" was that they were feeding the poor. The communist rebels of the time, the Sendero Luminoso, killed them and another diocescan priest from the States. They are all up for beatification.

On Monday, I visited my publisher, Catholic Book. With my travel schedule, it is tough to keep up with my daily reflections and other projects, but I hope to be able to do some smaller projects for them over the next couple of months.

Tuesday evening I flew out to Vienna, Austria. We have a meeting here today with the General Delegates of Austria, Switzerland and Belgium. It is a beautiful city. It reminds me of a city that was built as a capitol of an empire (the Austro-Hungarian Empire), but which has lost its empire. Austria is a country of only about 7 million people, and the capitol of Vienna is almost too grandiose for such a small country.

I finished a few books. One was Retribution by Max Hastings. It was a book on the Pacific war during the Second World War. Hastings is a good writer, and the book offered great insights into what actually happened, especially the tension among the US military leaders (the army vs. the navy).

A second book was Botchan by Soseke Natsume. It is the story of a school teacher in a small Japanese village and the pety politics among the faculty of the school. There are no real heroes in the story, and the style is very different from many of the short stories written by Japanese authors of the era.

The third book was Vendetta by Honore de Balzac. It is a Romeo and Juliet story set in the period right after the fall of Napoleon in France. A Corsican family who made out well during the reign of Napoleon is torn apart when the daughter falls in love with the son of their sworn enemy.

Hope you have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Mishawaka - Mount St. Francis (Louisville) - Chicago - Castro Valley (Oakland)

2011-09-14T07:01:00.000-07:00

September 14, 2011

Peace and Good,

Sorry that I have not written in a bit. I have been on the road and it has been difficult to obtain an internet connection at times.

The last time I wrote I was in Mishawaka (South Bend, IN)giving a workshop on the Gospels and the Psalms to our novices. There are seven of them from our US provinces and England. The week went well. Friars love Sacred Scripture, and it always helps to ask why things were written the way they were and what the meaning of them is for us today.

I drove with another friar down to Mount St. Francis, Indiana. On Labor Day we had a couple of meetings. One of them was to decide to build another friary for the friars working at our retreat house in New Mexico. The way things are set up in the order, there are various limits to how much can be spent by each level of government. Building a friary required the permission of the provincial chapter, a gathering of over 30 friars.

The day after Labor Day I flew to Chicago to spend the week with out friars who live close to Loyola University on the north side of the city. I have to admit that I was very tired from all the travel I have been doing this summer, so this stay was more of a rest than anything else. I visited the Art Institute a couple of times, especially spending time in the Impressionists section and the room dedicated to El Greco. It was a good, relaxing week and I feel ready to start the journeys again.

This week I am meeting with the provincials of all the US and Canada jurisdictions at our friary in Castro Valley. We meet every six months to discuss joint projects that we are committing ourselves to. This is a wonderful group of men who are really dedicated to the good of the friars. They are the ones who chose me for my responsibility as Assistant General (one year ago next week) and I feel humbled that they trust me so much, which is evident in our group and one on one meetings.

Over this week I also finished editing the next edition of the Lectors' Wookbook, a book that outlines and explains the readings for Sunday throughout the Church Year. This one that I edited is not for this coming year but rather for the year after that.

I finished reading a few books. The first was a biography of Cleopatra by Jacob Abbott. He is the author who wrote a series of short biographies on historic figures for students in England around the turn of the 19th century. It was good, but one day I would like to read the new biography on her that has recently been published.

I finished a mystery called the Incumbant by Alton Gansky, a novel based on the idea of a political prank gone wrong. It was not a bad read.

I finished a collection of short stories by Nathanael Hawthorne called the Great Stone Face. The title is based on the prediction that a great man would be born who resembled a face in the side of one of the White Mountains in northern New England. The great man turns out to be a humble, wise man who by his simplicity bring joy and wisdom to others. The other short stories were entertaining as well.

I hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Madrid - Ellicott City - Mishawaka

2011-08-30T06:01:00.000-07:00

August 30, 2011

Peace and Good,

Last Sunday was the last day of World Youth Day in Madrid. I flew out the next morning, and considering that there were hundreds of thousands of young people flying out, the airport wasn't really as chaotic as I would have thought.

I flew right into Ellicott City (Baltimore) where I spent the next few days catching up on doctor's appointments and other little projects. I always set aside mindless projects for the days after I travel when the jet lag keeps me from being able to think all that well.

I was on the east coast during the earthquake. I have been in earthquakes in a number of countries, and right away realized that this was at least a moderate one. I wasn't all that surprised when it measured 5.8.

I also just got out of Baltimore before the hurricane closed the airport. It was a bit bumpy on the way up, but once we got past the storm, things were radically different.

I am in Mishawaka (South Bend, Indiana) this week to give a workshop to the novices on the gospels and the psalms. There are seven of them from England, Nigeria, and the US. St. Francis told us that the style of life that we were to live was to live the Gospels, so it is good to know them well. Likewise, we pray the psalms several times a day when we pray our Divine Office, so it good to know that the symbolism means for they were written over 2,000 years ago in a primitive language (Biblical Hebrew).

I finished a few works. The first was a set of CD's called Shanghai Girls by Lisa See. It is about two sisters who start out in Shanghai just before World War II and who emigrate to the States where they face innumerable difficulties because of their being Chinese. The book is good both for knowing another culture and realizing how prejudiced we as a nation were against east Asians.

A second work was Callista: A Tale of the 3rd Century by John Henry Newman (Blessed Cardinal John Newman). He writes about a martyr for the faith in North Africa. His style of writing in ponderous, with long, meaningful speeches. Sometimes, it is better to imply things without having to say it out loud over and over again.

The third work was the Death of Ivan Ilich by Leo Tolstoy. This was a masterpiece of literature in which he recounts the thoughts of a man who is dying and the reactions of his friends and family. They cannot really understand, they blame him for his illness, etc. He feels all alone and confused and angry. He slowly longs for the death that will set him free from his terrible suffering. It is truly worth reading.

Hope you have a good week and a great Labor Day Weekend.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Cracow - Ostrowiec - Warsaw - Madrid

2011-08-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

August 22, 2011

The Queenship of Mary

Peace and Good,

Hope you are all well as the summer quickly draws to an end. This has been a busy couple of weeks for me.

Last Saturday, nine days ago, I was in southern Poland for the 70th anniversary of the death of St. Maximillian Kolbe in the concentration camp in Auschwitz. We had a Mass right outside of the building where he died, giving his life for the sake of another prisoner.

The next day, one the friars drove me to see a bit of Cracow. This was my first time in Poland, and the city is famous for its beauty. We have the oldest church in the city. We walked around a bit, and then he drove me to Warsaw for the next part of our visit, via Ostrowiec. Ostrowiec is the home city of my mom´s parents. They left there for the States 97 years ago. It is not a big city, but rather a big town. Some day I will go back to visit a bit and see if here are any records in the Churches of my grandparent's baptism.

In Warsaw, we went to Niepicolanow, the community that St. Maximillian founded. There are still 150 friars there. We celebrated the Assumption in the Church there with thousands of people. The cardinal/archbishop of Warsaw was the main celebrant.

The next morning we all flew out to Madrid for World Youth Day. It is actually closer to say World Youth Week. We stayed at the high school run by our friars in Madrid. They were incredible hosts. Some of the events saw over a million young people gathered for Mass and adoration. The only problem was that it was hot, hot, hot. About 100 degrees each day.

I read a lot in the papers about the protests against the pope's visit, but I have to say I saw only two cardboard signs in windows thoughout the whole visit. This is a time of the year that there are very few tourists in town because of the heat, but the streets were packed all day long and even most of the night. (They eat supper late here, at the friary at 9 PM.)

Here at the high school we had sudents from Spain, Italy, the States, Poland, Croatia, Russia, etc.

I finished a few books this week. The first is a book called the Gospel of Matthew, part of the Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture. The book was by Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri. It was a great commentary with some insights that I had never seen before. I would recommend it and probably the other books in that series.

The second was a short story called Strong as Death. It was written by Guy de Maupassant and dealt with a man who fell in love with a married woman and then her daughter in Paris during the 19th century.

Finally, there was a free book from Kindle (my e reader) called the Potluck Club by Linda Evans Shepherd and Ev Marie Everson. It was a Christian mystery book. The Christian part is always present but really not pushy. The mystery part is good. It deals with a group of ladies from a Church who gather once a month for a pot luck supper and prayer (along with a good dose of gossip). The characters are believable and engaging. It was well worth reading.

Hope you have a good week. It's back to the States for me today.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Ellicott City - Rome - Harmesh

2011-08-13T10:47:00.000-07:00

August 13, 2011

Peace and Good,

I am writing this blog from southern Poland. The entire General Definitory is here for the 70th anniversary of the martyrdom of St. Maximillian Kolbe. We arrived here yesterday, and today we went to Auschwitz for a tour of the camp where our brother franciscan died in the starvation bunker. Remember, Kolbe was already famous for his work in promoting devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He had begun a magazine that had over a million copies a month. He had a daily newspaper with 300,000 copies a month. He had a radio station. He began a mission in Japan (Nagasaki). He was arrested by the Nazi's because he was a leader of culture in Poland.

One day a prisoner escaped and the rule was ten prisoners had to die in the starvation bunker when that happened. He was not chosen, but one man who was chosen cried out that he would never see his wife or children again. St. Maximillian broke ranks and offered himself in place of that man. He survived in the bunker (although he was very ill most of his life) and killed on the vigil of the Assumption. Tomorrow we will be walking from the friary to the camp to celebrate Mass where he died.

St. Maximillian is the patron saint of intervenous drug addicts (for he was eventually killed with an injection of carbolic acid).

From Poland, we will be going to Spain for World Youth Day.

I finished a couple of books. One was a book called Hallowland by Amanda Hocking. She is interesting. She could never get published, so she published her own books on Kindle e books and she is now a millionaire. The story is a standard Zombie story, but not all that bad.

A second book was the Other Bolyn Girl by Philippa Gregory. This is the story of Ann Bolyn's sister, who also had an affair with King Henry VIII. It is written as a bit of a scandal sheet, but nevertheless was still good.

Have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Ellicott City - Halifax - Ellicott City

2011-08-07T06:27:00.000-07:00

August 7, 2011

This past week I was visiting a new Franciscan foundation in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were founded by a former friar, and for the past few years they have had a loose connection with the Conventual Franciscans. Yet, in Rome, we didn't know much about them. I went and offered to give a retreat on the Gospel of John.

There are three groups: brothers (some of whom are priests or studying for the priesthood), active sisters and contemplative sisters. I didn't know what to expect, because some of the new Franciscan movements can be a bit extreme. They were balanced and filled with joy and charity. They are doing everything right as they start off their communities, and I really think God will bless them abundantly.
They are growing nicely, but they are cautious not to grow too quickly lest they loose track of what they are all about.

The weather in Halifax was a bit challenging (it has been a bad summer and quite cool), but the countryside was spectacular (

I finished a number of books with all of the travel I have been doing. The Jensen Directive and the Prometheus Deception, both by Robert Ludlum. Both of these a typical Ludlum novels in which you don't really know who is on which side until near the end. The are turns and twists all the way through. The Jensen Directive is about an agent who has become a private contractor. He attempts to save a world figure who seems to be promoting peace. The man is killed and Jensen is blamed. The Prometheus Deception involves a plot created by a secret organization which claims to be working for the government but which is actually opposing it.

I also read Travels in Alaska by John Muir. You might remember that I read another Muir book. He helped found our national parks. His descriptions of the glaciers and rivers and wild life show what a mystical experience nature was to him.

Finally, I listened to Our of Egypt: Christ the Lord by Anne Rice. I was very hesitant to listen to it, because in the past I had read a number of her vampire novels and I didn't know how she would handle the story of Christ. I was pleasantly surprised. She did very good research, and while I might not agree with everything she wrote, I have to admit that she wrote it in a very appealing way. It is a good meditation on the time from when Jesus came back from exile in Egypt until he was lost in the temple. It is well worth a read.

I hope you have a good week.

Nairobi - Rome - Ellicott City

2011-07-28T03:14:00.000-07:00

July 28, 2011

Peace and Good,

Well, I finished off the second week of meetings in Nairobi. If you remember, the first week waa a congress with about 60 friars from all over the world speaking about interculturality and solidarity. The second week was a series of meetings at different levels.

The first meeting which went from Monday to Wednesday was with the presidents of the various conferences. The order is divided up into seven geographic divisions. Each area or conference has a president who serves as a representative to the central government and a coordinator in his own area in collaboration with the assistant general of that area. We met to discuss plans for the next few years, especially getting ready for our next general chapter which will take place in January of 2013.

The second meeting was with all of the major superiors of the conference that is situated in Africa. We are present in seven countries right now: Zambia, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burkino Faso and Malawi. A big challenge right now it to provide for the education of the students. The vocations are coming in so fast now that we can barely keep up with additions to the houses of study. It is exciting to see the Church growing and vibrant.

The third meeting was with the general definitory. We had to take care of urgent business because the next time we will be meeting is September.

The friars of Kenya took us out to dinner to a restaurant called the Carnevoir. Need I say what they served. There were the usuals: pork, chicken, beef and turkey. We also had camel, ostrich and crocadile. I liked everything but the crocadile which tasted very, very fishy.

Our flight back from Nairobi was interesting. About ten minutes after take off we must have hit an air pocket because the plane jolted and there was a booming noise. Everybody in the plane sat up very straight and alert for the next ten minutes or so.

I just stayed in Rome for a day, and then I flew back to the States. Saturday I will fly up to Halifax to give a retreat to a new religious community of Franciscans. I have been getting many, many requests to give retreats lately. Next year I will be flying all over the world to do this, and it fits in very well with my job description of helping in the initial and continuing formation of the friars. I think that will be my gift to the order. I am not all that great at writing documents, but I have a gift for preaching.

I finished a number of books.

A first was the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. This is one of those books that one always hears about, but until now, I had never read it. There was a controversy about a new edition in which, instead of using the "n" work for African-Americans, they softened the text. It really is jarring to listen to it and hear a very, very frequent use of that word. I am not sure I really liked it, but it was good to have listened to it.

A second work was Louisa of Prussia and her times by Louisa Muhlbach. This is a typical historical romance from the 19th century. It is a little overblown in terms of rhetoric, although the author goes out of her way to quote from the letters of the characters involved. Louisa was a key figure in the Prussian resistance to Napoleon. I was a bit disappointed because I thought it would be a biography of her. She is said to have been an incredibly heroic woman. It was more an overview of the era, but worth reading nevertheless.

A third work was a long series of lectures from the Teaching Company on Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World by Glenn Holland. There were 72 lectures, and he goes through the religions of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Israel, Greece, Rome and Christianity. There were some very good insights, although the style of the professor was not all that engaging.

Hope you have a good week. By the way, this past week I had my 30th anniversary of the priesthood.

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - Nairobi

2011-07-18T01:30:00.001-07:00

July 18, 2011

Peace and Good,

As you can see in the title, I am now in Kenya. I was supposed to travel here on Saturday morning, but at the last minute the flight was rescheduled to the evening. With flights to Africa, you always have to watch out because this often happens.

I am going to be here for two weeks. The first week we had a congress to speak about the fact that our order is changing rapidly. We are about the same size we were at the Second Vatican Council, but now many more vocations are coming from the southern hemisphere (Latin America, Africa and Asia). We talked about interculturality. How different cultures can learn to live with each other and respect their gifts. We also talked about the sharing of finances. The jurisdictions that are older tend to have more finances but fewer vocations, while those that are young have many vocations but little money to finance their education. As friars, we always have to remember that what we have was given to us by God, and if we have in excess, it is to be shared with those who don’t have enough.

I was asked to give a homily each morning to explain the readings and apply them to the themes of each day. This was in Italian and English. Each was only a few minutes long, but preaching in front of one’s confreres is challenging. The response, though, was very affirming.

We ended up with a nice document that is very practical (which isn’t always the case with international meetings). We had about 57 friars from 25 countries. What an incredible mix of ideas. The official languages of the congress were Italian and English. Because I know both, I found myself going back and forth to help with translations and by the end of the week I was not quite sure what language I was using at any particular time.

We spent one afternoon visiting two animal centers. One was a giraffe center. They are incredibly beautiful animals. Then we visited a conservancy center where animal orphans are displayed to help the various conservation projects in the land.

We finished the congress with a Mass at one of our local parishes with the cardinal of Nairobi. It was a truly intercultural experience. Mass lasted a little over three hours. Part of it was that there were 25 young people being confirmed, but also the cardinal more or less preached seven different homilies during the course of the Mass. He was an incredibly engaging speaker, though, and he had the people in the palm of his hand. We were very impressed.

This morning we moved from the retreat center where we held the congress to our seminary which was just down the road. We have another series of meetings this week to program activities for the next few years.

I finished a couple of books. The first is EM Forster's book A Room with a View. It was an excellent story of different understandings of the meaning of life and how they collide. One of my favorite sayings in it is "Life is like playing a violen in front of an audience and learning how to play it as one goes along." People make choices, mistakes, and yet they seem to muddle on.

A second book was A Sicilian Romance. This was by Ann Radcliffe. She was a novelist from the 18th century, and this was the beginning of actual novel writing in English literature. The chacterizations were not all that good, and the novel was packed with very improbably coincidences, but it was worth reading to see what was written in the generation before Charles Dickens.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Ellicott City - Rome - Nairobi

2011-07-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

July 10, 2011

Peace and Good,

I returned to Rome on Wednesday, arriving on Thursday. That gave me a day to rest before I set out on the next trip. Saturday, I and a number of the friars flew to Nairobi, Kenya, for an international congress on interculturality and solidarity.

My order is about the same size as it was 30 years ago. What has changed is where you find the friars. Whereas the majority of the friars used to be in the northern hemisphere (Europe and North America), now, by far, the most of the vocations are coming from the southern hemisphere (South America, Africa and Asia). What does mean for how we live our Franciscan life?

Furthermore, the friars of the northern hemisphere have quite a bit of resources that have accumulated over the centuries, but they have very few vocations. The friars of the southern hemisphere have many, many vocations, but not enough money to feed and train them. How can we share the resources.

We will be here a week for the congress. Next week we have another series of meetings: with the presidents of the conferences (the groupings of provinces arranged geographically), the friars serving in Africa, and then our own general definitory.

I finished a few books. The first was a long podcast on the Religious Roots of America: The Politics of Faith in America by Ray Suarez. It points out that far from being greatly religious men, most of the founding fathers, and especially Jefferson, were at best deists (believing that there was a God who had little to do with out everyday lives).

The second book was a biography of King Richard III by Jacob Abbott. Shakespeare portrays this king as some kind of monster. He was not the nicest man, probably having killed his two young nephews in the Tower of London so that he could become king. But this presentation is more balanced, showing that, given the rough politics of the day, he wasn't the worst person who ever lived.

Finally, there was A Life of General Robert E Lee by John Esten Cooke. Unfortunately, this biography was written by a southener shortly after the civil war, so Lee is presented as a secular saint. Cooke loves General McClellan, a disaster of a general, but one whom the southerners liked because he wasn't concerning with the freedom of the slaves and didn't want to fight the south. At the very least, it's good once in a while to read an unbalanced biography to see how it should not be done.

Hope you have a good week.
Shalom
Fr. Jude

Ellicott City - Cincinnati - Buffalo - Pittsburgh - Ellicott City

2011-07-05T06:51:00.001-07:00

July 5, 2011

Peace and Good,

I hope you all had a good 4th of July weekend.

This past week I was in Cincinnati, at Xavier University, for our Chapter of Mats. This title comes from a meeting of the friars in 1221 when Francis asked all of the friars to gather in Assisi for a chapter. There were between 3,000 of them and 5,000. In fact, there were so many that there was no room in the homes and the friars had to sleep outdoors upon mats (hence, the chapter of mats).

This gathering was of 260 friars from the States, Canada, England, Ireland, and representatives from Mexico, Costa Rica, India, Honduras, Russia, etc. We gathered for a week of talks and discussion on how to be friars in today's world. The gathering was very fraternal, and the weather cooperated enormously (low hunidity, which is a bit of a miracle in southern Ohio in late June). We spoke about trends in the world and the Church over these coming years, and also how we can look back at our tradition in order to find ways to respond to these trends.

On Friday I traveled to Buffalo for the funeral of the oldest friar in my province. Fr. Aurelian was 93 years old. He was a bit of a character, but also a humble, obedient friar. He taught Latin for many decades in the high schools of the province, and he was also novice master for a time.

On Saturday I traveled down to Pittsburgh to baptize my great nephew and great niece. Much of the extended family gathered for the weekend, and it was great seeing all the in-laws.

On Monday I came back to Ellicott City for a series of dentist appointments, and then tomorrow it is off to Rome.

I finished a few books.

The first is the Life of St. Francis by Paul Sabatier. He is a Protestant who loved St. Francis and wrote about him during the 19th century. He has many insights as an outsider, although at times he pushes the image of Francis as rebel a bit too much (given his non-Catholic background). Still, today, his biography is considered to be a classic.

The second was a short work called Creatures that once were Men by Maxim Gorky. I have written about Gorky before. He has an incredible ability to present a whole picture, especially of the poor in Russia around the time of the revolution. He turned out to be a communist stooge in later years, but his earlier writings are incredibly good, including this story which tells of a group of men who live in a poor men's hostle (more of a hovel than a true building).

The third book is the Memoirs of Shirlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle. Talk about classics. Yet, for all that I have seen in movies about Shirlock Holmes, I had never read the original. He is a bit darker of a figure than one sees in some of the movies. It is well worth reading.

Hope you have a good week. I will be in Kenya for the next couple of weeks, so I don't know how much acccess I will have to the internet, so you might not hear from me for a couple of weeks.

Take care and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - Baltimore - Louisville - Baltimore

2011-06-24T06:08:00.000-07:00

June 24, 2011

The Feast of the Birth of John the Baptist

Peace and Good,

Sorry I'm a bit late this week. It has been hectic again. I was in Rome for a week for our definitory. This is a meeting every six weeks in which we take stock of what is happening in the order. This time of year things tend to quiet down a bit which I don't mind.

The mother of our guardian, Fr. Peter Damian Masengill, passed away, and I was to be the order's representative at the funeral. I was to fly from Rome on Sunday and arrive in Baltimore Sunday evening, and then fly out the Louisville the next evening to be there for the funeral Tuesday morning. Thank goodness I checked my e mail account Saturday afternoon after I had checked in for the flight from Rome, because the flight was cancelled. Of course, my travel agent in Rome was closed, as was the British Air office in Rome. Finally, I figured out to call the US office on Skype. I was on the phone for about an hour, but they were able to get me out on Monday. I was able to change my flight from Baltimore from Monday evening to Tuesday without a penalty (I love Southwest). All worked out well. I flew back to Baltimore Tuesday evening, and have been using the past couple of days to catch up a bit.

I finished a few books these weeks. The first was the Fourth of July be James Patterson and Maxine Petro. Patterson has created an industry of writing books along with other authors. This one was quite good. It was about a mass murderer and a policewoman who solves the mystery while on administrative leave for a shooting. The plot was good, the action believable.

A second book was a biography by Jacob Abbott on Cyrus the Great. He was the Persian emperor who conquered the Babylonians and let the Jewish people return to Israel after having lived in exile in Babylon. Abbott's biographies are always informative. They are not exactly scholarly, but they give enough information to make the plot interesting.

The third book was an Op Center book by Tom Clancy called Call to Treason. This is part of a series sponsored by Clancy. Op Center is a type of CIA but on a smaller basis. This involves a plot by a senator who is running for president who is a rabid isolationist. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either.

I'll be in Ellicott City (Baltimore) until this coming Monday, and then off to Cincinnati for a meeting of many of the friars in the States called the Chapter of Mats.

Hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Boynton Beach - Montreal - Ellicott City - Rome

2011-06-13T03:46:00.000-07:00

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

Montreal - West Palm Beach - Montreal

2011-06-06T10:30:00.000-07:00

June 6, 2011

Peace and Good,

So far, so good. This past week I was in Montreal for the chapter of the custody of the Polish speaking friars who are working in the Montreal area. A custody is like a baby province. There are 15 friars here from Poland, and most of them work in Polish (although two now serve in French and one in English). The language things is a bit difficult. The chapter is in Polish, with one of the friars translating it for the General and myself in Italian. I am hearing two languages at the same time, neither of which is my mother tongue. Fortunately, my Italian is good enough that the translation in my mind is pretty automatic, but I can still feel the wear and tear of it.

A chapter is held every four years to decide the future of the jurisdiction. We first discuss how things have been going, positive and negative. We then elect our leaders for the next four years. Then, we talk about the future plans. This week we are on the last element, planning for the future.

Thursday, the General and I flew down to Florida for a meeting. We had to meet with the head of a foundation down there to see if we could establish a relationship between our order and them. The meeting went very well. There is a woman, Sandy, who serves as a go-between to establish these relationships, which is very useful given that most of us friars would not even know where to begin in all of this.

While we were down there, we went to one of the mega-churches and ate in the dining room there. The General and I wore our habits. What a great experience. People were genuinely interested in who we were and asked us to tell them about being Franciscans.

I flew back to Montreal yesterday for the second session which will last through Wednesday evening.

I finished a few works. The first was the last volumes of the work of Suetonius, the Lives of the Caesars. These volumes were on the authors of that era. Unfortunately, there was not a lot of information in these that was useful to someone in our age.

The second was a series of short stories by a Russian author named Leonid Andreyev. He tends to write about biblical themes, but always from another point of view (e.g. a man who had a toothache the day that Jesus passed by on the way to his cross, the story of Judas). He also experimented with his literature, presenting what a serpent might say or the life of a prisoner who was released and only wanted to create his own prison because it was safe that way.

Finally, there was Isaac's story. Isaac was the main meteorologist in Galveston, Texas when a hurricane came in and killed over 8,000 people at the turn of the century. It was a good story in which everyone tries to blame everyone for the tragedy.

Hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Ellicott City - El Paso - Carlsbad - Mesilla Park - Montreal

2011-05-30T05:34:00.000-07:00

May 30, 2011

Peace and Good,

I hope you are well and are enjoying the Memorial Day weekend.

I finished off my visitation of Our Lady of Consolation Province (the friars in one of the mid-western provinces). I visited the friars in Western Texas and New Mexico.

Our parish in El Paso. This community has three different ethnic groups. There are the Hispanic (Mexican) members of the parish and they are the most numerous. Then there are the members of the Tigua tribe, native Americans. Finally, there are the Anglos. When one enters the Mission Church, one of the things one sees is images of corn all over the place. Corn is considered to be a sacred gift, and in fact, when members of the tribe bless objects (statues, caskets, etc.), they pour corn flour on it.

I then went to Carlsbad, New Mexico, about a three hour ride from El Paso. The countryside is beautiful but desolate. There are three friars in Carlsbad taking care of two parishes. The area is quite stable because of discoveries of energy sources, especially oil and gas, in the area.

Finally, I went to the retreat house in Mesilla Park, which is next door to Las Cruces. Las Cruces got its name from the many crosses that dotted the hill sides from the friars and native Catholics who were martyred for their faith. There was a retreat group from El Paso there and they are past of a program to help people grow in their faith. They prayed and attended conferences from early in the morning til late in the evening.

On Saturday I began my trip from El Paso to Montreal, and arrived on Sunday afternoon. This air connection is difficult to make, having to fly from El Paso to Houston where I overnighted, then to Atlanta and finally to Montreal. I am here with fr. Marco, the Minister General, for the chapter of the custody of Polish friars who are working in the Montreal area. The custos took us around to see a bit of the city yesterday evening, including the Basilica of St. Joseph which is a beautiful shrine built be St. Andre, a brother of the Holy Cross who had a dream to build a shrine to honor St. Joseph.

I finished a few books.

The first is the next volumes by Suetonius on the Roman emperors, specifically Vespasian (the emperor who followed the civil war between three different generals after the death of Nero), his son Titus (who conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the temple and the city), and his brother Domitian (who might have assassinated his brother Titus and who persecuted Christians - the Book of Revelation was written during his reign).

A second book was the Longest Journey by EM Forster. It was a strange book that spoke about how the English upper class, university educated people treat others. In this case, there was a young, privileged man and how he treated his half brother who was his mother's son by an illicit union. The whole question of treating people with respect, loss of honor, etc. is the major topic.

A third work was La Grenadiere by Honore de Balzac, a French author from the 19th century. It is about a woman who is dying and how she cares for her two young sons and tries to prepare them for her passing. This short novel is quite good, showing the shifting of emotion and the confusion of this sort of situation.

Hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Valetta - Rome - Vatican City - Baltimore

2011-05-23T03:15:00.001-07:00

May 23, 2011
Peace and Good,

Well, I finally got out of Malta on Sunday evening. It is only an hour or so from Rome by flight.

In Rome we had a week long definitory. Monday we received a surprise announcement. One of the Assistant Generals, fr. Vincent Long Nguyen, from Australia, has been named the auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese of Melbourne. It is a very large diocese, and he will be responsible for the Western sector of the city. He has been the assistant general for the past three years, himself having taken the place of a friar from Japan who resigned because of illness. He will be greatly missed.

The rest of the week was non-eventful. I have been reflecting on my final report for the visitation to Malta, but I don't want to write it until I finish visiting a couple of friars who are serving outside of the country. I had already spoken with a Maltese friar who is serving in London, and Saturday I went to the Vatican to meet with a friar who is a confessor at St. Peter's. (Actually, we have a large friary just for those friars who are involved in that ministry - I think that there are 16 of them in all).

Sunday I flew out to Ellicott City, and stayed overnight, with a trip to El Paso scheduled for this afternoon to continue my visitation of the mid-western province.

I finished a few books.

The first was the Wheel of Darkness by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. It was a suspense novel about the theft of an ancient artifact from a Buddhist monastery in the mountains of Nepal and how a CIA agent and his protegee recover it.

The second work was Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad. The more I read of Conrad, the more I like his writing. He was a Polish author who settled in England and wrote in French and English. This is about a young man who leaves the mountains of Poland to emigrate to the States, but who is shipwrecked on the shore of Kent in England. Because he speaks no English, he is first treated as someone who is insane and dangerous. Even when he marries a local woman who took mercy on him, he is ultimately rejected by her which leads to his death. It is a wonderful reflection on the difficulty of understanding people of other cultures, one of Conrad's major themes.

Finally, I listened to a book called Assegai by Wilber Smith. It is a British swashbuckler set just before the outbreak of World War I in East Africa. It is simplistic and demeaning at times to locals, but overall it is a good read. Nothing serious, just an enjoyable book.

Hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Gozo - Quara - Birkikara - Valetta - Rome

2011-05-16T23:14:00.000-07:00

Peace and Good,
When I last wrote the blog, I was on the island of Gozo, which is a smaller island near the island of Malta. The population is only about 40,000 on the entire island, and they are very religious. The churches are always packed.

I took the ferry back to the mainland and visited the parish at Quara. This is not that far from St. Paul's Bay, but it has a very different population. There are many immigrants, troubled families, etc. in the parish. The pastor and the friars there are trying to reach out to a population which is not all that church going (which is most unusual in Malta). One of the friars is a former DJ and he is working with a team to produce a song to present to the Holy Father for World Youth Day in Madrid this summer.

The next stop was Birkikara. There is a friary church there (which is not an official parish). There is also an apostolate for printing religious materials in Maltese called CAK (pronounced Chuck). It is a relatively new apostolate, and is doing wonderful work.

Finally, back to Valetta to meet the provincial and his definitory for a preliminary after visitation report. That went very well. They were very receptive to my observations, and responded that many of the things I noticed have been themes which they have been addressing over the years.

Saturday evening I was to fly back to Rome, but when I got to the airport, I had a sinking feeling when I looked at the flight board. There was no flight to Rome. They had changed the flight from the evening to the morning, and I had never received a notice. Fortunately, it was relativly easy to rebook the next day.

I am back in Rome for the week for a series of meetings. Then, on Sunday, back to the States, and on Monday off to Texas.

One of the things that I noted in Malta is that on May 28th, there is a referundum on divorce. They do not have it. Coming from the States, that is such a foreign concept. The whole question being asked is whether allowing it will weaken the fabric of society and the family. It is a very, very Catholic country.

I finished a few books. The first was an abridged version of the Front by Patricia Cornwell. Usually, abridged books handle the story rather well, but this particular version seemed jumpy. The story itself was OK, but I have noticed in Cornwell's books a tendency to make a manipulative woman the villian of the story.

A second work was a continuation of Suetonius' biographies of the emperors of Rome: Nero, Galba, Otho and Vitellius. Nero is portrayed as a monster, which is the accepted version of the story. The only difficulty is that Suetonius is writing after the event in the company of those who opposed the Caesars, so is this a true version of the political spin put out by the opposing faction? The other three were three generals who tried to take the throne over a period of eighteen months of civil war. None of them come across as that praiseworthy.

The third work was a biography of Daniel Boone by John SC Abbott. This was a librivox version (a free download from the internet done by volunteers). Both the content of the book (which was racist against native Americans to say the least) and the reading (which was done by one narrator) were poor. What was good was to get a picture of how much Boone did for his people, and how little he was compensated for his efforts.

Have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Rabat - St. Paul's Bay - Burmarrad - Vittoria, Gozo

2011-05-07T23:30:00.000-07:00

May 8, 2011

Peace and Good,

I began the week in the city of Rabat. You might notice that this name might sound familiar. It literally means fortress, so many cities in the Middle East received that name. Technically, Malta is not part of the Middle East, but it was under the Arabs for some 150 years. Next door to Rabat is another city named Mdina, which likewise is a name that should sound familiar (there is a Medina in Saudi Arabia).

All of the towns in this part of Malta are fortresses. In the 1560's, Malta was invaded by the Turks who, after a seige of a few months, went home. The Knights of St. John (which eventually became the Knights of Malta) protected it against the Muslims until the days of Napoleon. It was occupied by French troops for a little over a year, and then the Britist took over and governed it as a protectorate until the 1960's.

From Rabat, I travelled to St. Paul's Bay. This is a beautiful bay on the northern part of the island. It is a tourist area. A town of some 12,000 people during the winter explodes to over 60,000 during the summer. There are no very nice beaches right there, but in the bays not far away are some beautiful beaches with fine white sand.

The friars in St. Paul's Bay are very busy between the parish and other responsibilities that they take care of (e.g. Fr. George works on the diocesan tribunal).

While I was there, we had the funeral of one of the friar's grandmother. The island is small enough that most of the friars in the province can be there for those events. This was already the fourth time in two weeks that we had gathered together. It is so different from the States where our friars are often hundreds of miles away.

Nearby is a smaller parish called Burmarrad which is staffed by three friars. I visited there on Wednesday.

Then, on Friday morning, I took the ferry over to the neighboring island (which is still part of the republic of Malta) called Gozo. It is one third the size of the island of Malta with about 1/10th the population.

I will hear back to the main island this evening. I will continue to be in Malta until Saturday when I fly back to Rome.

The churches all throughout the island are incredible. They are heavily boroque with little angels and gold leaf everywhere. Many of them have a number of tombs under the Church floor (the tombs are not raised, they are flush with the level of the floor, decorated with beautiful colors of marble).

I finished a few works this week. The first is called Ethan From by Edith Wharton. This was one of the first novels which did not try to have a happy ending. It is about a farmer who does not really love his wife and she does not love him. A young cousin of his wife comes to his farm to help his wife who suffers from psycosomatic illnesses. He slowly falls in love with her, but the wife knows and makes life miserable for the two of them. The farmer and his young love even try to kill themselves by crashing their sled into a tree, but only end up broken and disabled, which leaves everybody miserable.

A second work was a short work by Nathanael Hawthorne called a Select Party. It is the story of heaven in an almost Mark Twain approach. It is nice, but not all that serious.

A third work was a biography of Peter the Great by Jacob Abbott. He has written a number of short biographies that I have read on major historic figures. They were written for school children in Britain around the year 1900, and so they are simplified, but informative.

Peter comes across as modern in his attempt to modernize his country, and yet medieval in his cruelty and capricious decisions. It is hard to get a read for him. You have to admire the city he built, St. Petersburg, but then you have to realize that thousands of people died building it. He is a very complicated figure.

I hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - Valetta - Rabat

2011-05-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

May 1, 2011

Peace and Good,

Before anyone asks, no, I was not in Rome for the beatification of Pope John Paul II. Like many of you, I watches it on TV. I am in Malta now for a visitation of the province.

Malta is a small island (30 miles by 50 miles) to the south of Sicily. It is an independent republic. The population is 400,000, with over 1,000,000 people of Maltese descendance living throughout the world.

In ancient times, it was settled by people from Phoenicia (modern day Lebanon). The people still speak a Semitic language related to Hebrew and Arabic, although almost everyone also speaks either Italian or English or both.

From around 1500, it was taken care of by the Knights of St. John. This became a fortress against the Turks throughout the 1500's, and also against Nazi Germany during the Second World War. It was called an unsinkable aircraft carrier because there were seven air fields that would intercept ships bring supplies to Rommel in North Africa.

In 1565, Sulaiman the Magnificent of Turkey invaded Malta but could not conquer it. This is called the great seige. It was said afterward that whenever the island of Malta was referred to in the future, he would day that Malta doesn't exist anymore.

Valetta, the capital, was built by the knights on high ground. It is incredible how they built a small but very modern city from the sandstone quarried right on the spot. The co-cathedral of St. John in Valetta is one of the most magnificent baroque churches in the world. The museum also contains two paintings by the famous artist Carrevagio.

Now I am in the small city of Rabat (40,000) in the center of the island. Right alongside is a fortress and the Arab city of Mdina (notice how close the name is to the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia).

The good is very similar to that in Italy. There are a lot of tourists from England and Germany. They use the euro like they do in much of Europe.

I have finished a couple of books. The first is the Queen's Necklace by Alexandre Dumas. He is the author of the count of Monte Cristo. This is the complex story of the intrigues in the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. There was an episode of fraud and intrigue that became a scandal so serious that some say it was one of the reasons for the French Revolution.

The second book was the volume on Augustus Caesar by Gaius Seutonius. This is volume two of a long work on the emperors of Rome. I also finished volume three on the emperor Tiberius. Augustus is presented as a basically decent person, while Tiberias comes across as a miserable cus of a man who takes out his anger on the people of Rome. He even showed how much he disliked people by making sure that Caligula would succeed him.

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Haooy Easter

2011-04-24T07:57:00.000-07:00

April 24, 2011

Happy Easter

I have been in Padua all this past week, up in the Basilica of St. Anthony. I went there to help out with confessions. There are tons of people who go up there from the entire region. I am able to listen to confessions in both Italian and English. Actually, the majority of the confessions were in a version of the local dialect. I had to place close attention, but I was able to follow what they were saying.

It was good to be able to sit in the confessional again. This is one of the favorite parts of my priesthood. Sometimes, you get to offer a good piece of advice. Sometimes, you just listen and commiserate. All the time, you can say at the end that their sins are forgiven.

I also met with the editors of the Messenger of St. Anthony, the magazine for which I write, to speak about some projects. I have been writing for them since 1982, and their magazine sends out 60,000 copies all around the world.

It is strange to be in a part of Italy where pasta is not part of every meal. They eat a lot more rice and other dishes for the first plate than in other parts of Italy.

I finished a couple of books. The first was Herodias by Gustave Flaubert, a French author from the 19th century. Herodias is the mother of Salome, the one who asked for John the Baptist's head on a platter. Authors of the 19th century were fascinated by Biblical themes (at least Freanch and Russian authors) and they would not only tell the story as it is told in the Bible, they would complete it with more detail that they had made up. Often, if you read between the lines, you can tell what was going on in that author's society.

A second book was the Grand Canyon by John Muir. He was a naturalist who visited the natural wonders in the Western States and Alaska during the 19th century. His writing is excellent, and you can see how much he saw the face of God in whatever he encountered. He was largely responsible for the development of the national park system.

I am off to Malta tomorrow to begin a province visitation (like the one I did in the mid-western province in the States). This time, though, the distances are much smaller. Malta is a relatively small island with a population of 400,000 in all. Interestingly, they are descendants of the Phoenician people who came from Lebanon, so their native language is Semitic, like Hebrew and Arabic. Nowadays, almost all of them speak either English or Italian, so I should not have too much difficulty getting around.

Have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Brunswick - San Antonio - Baltimore - Rome

2011-04-14T23:48:00.000-07:00

April 15, 2011

Peace and Good,

I finished off the first part of my canonical visitation by visiting San Antonio. I was there with the Minister General in January. It is a formation house with a few friars in residence who work outside the house in parishes, libraries, etc.

The spirit of the house is very good. There is an older friar in residence there whose health has become tenuous. I am so impressed by his spirit of joy, and by the care that the friars give him. That is one thing that I have seen all throughout this province, that they care well for their older friars. The goal is to keep them home in their friaries as long as is possible. I think it gives great witness to our world today.

My stop in Baltimore was really just to unpack and repack for my trip back to Rome. I arrived here on Saturday night and on Monday morning we began one of our marathon definitory meetings.

Sunday afternoon I got to meet Sr. Denise Boyle who is the director of Franciscans International. That is a group that lobbies at the United Nations for causes that are important to Franciscans all throughout the world.

The definitory is proceeding as normal. I am very impressed at the collaborative spirit of the friars on the definitory. There are no ego's trying to take over, no one defensive. When we confront difficult situations, there is only a spirit of "what is the best that we can do." There is even a realization that there are situations in which nothing can be done right now, so we have to leave it in the hands of God and hope when the time comes to act, we will recognize it.

We finish our definitory tomorrow, and I am going to scoot up to Padua to be at the Basilica of St. Anthony for Holy Week. I wanted to go there to be available for confessions during Holy Week.

I finished a couple of books. The first is Innocent as Sin by Elizabeth Lowell. It is an international detective/spy sort of book concerning an international arms merchant. It is not bad, but probably not the first on my list of recommendations.

A much better book, if you like vampire stories, is The Passage by Justin Cronin. Rather than calling it a book, it should really be called a saga. It goes on forever, and really entails three separate stories, all of which are good in their own right. This is one that I have no difficulty recommending, in fact, I highly recommend it (Again, as long as you don't mind the vampire motif),ì.

Hope you have a good Holy Week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Carey - Mt. St. Francis - Brunswick, GA - San Antonio

2011-04-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

April 6, 2011

I hope that all is well and that your Lent is proving to be a very spiritual time. I'm still on my visitation of Our Lady of Consolation Province.

I visited Carey, Ohio. Those who have read this blog for a while remember that I preached a novena there this summer in honor of the Assumption. There are ten friars there, and they have a varied series of apostolates. There is the shrine ministry with pilgrimages of people arriving from all over the mid-west. There is the local parish. There is a retreat house, especially for teens and for self-help groups. One friar is working with the Mission Association to gather funds for the missions. One friar is in a rest home run by the sisters. Even though the friars are running in many different directions at once, they have a good sense of community and a joyful spirit that is heartening.

I drove back from there to Mount St. Francis to drop off the car that they had lent me, and then I flew to Brunswick, Georgia (actually flying in to Jacksonville and then driving north for an hour). There are six friars in the area. There is the main parish in Brunswick (with English and Spanish ministry), a chapel on Jekyl Island, a parish in Darien, GA, a federal training center for homeland security where the friars have mass, and the ships that come in from around the world upon which they occasionaly have mass. In addition to all of this, one friar is in full time prison ministry, and one works for the marriage tribunal in Atlanta. You would think I was talking about twenty friars and not just six. They do a great amount of service. They are also working at forming a closer community. I was impressed.

The city of Brunswick is beautiful, a smaller Savanah. There are the beautiful tree lined streets, hanging with Spanish Moss. There are parks all throughout the town. It is not very big, and I would worry about evacuating during a hurricane (for there are lowlands for many miles around), but it really is a nice place to visit or live. Walking down the street, no one passed me without greeting me.

I am now in San Antonio visiting our house of formation here. The students go to Oblate School of Theology down here. There are a few older friars who reside there and form a stable community, and then there is the formation community which comes and goes depending on the season.

From here I will fly back to Ellicott City and then off to Rome.

I finished a book entitled Catch a Falling Knife by Alan Cook. The "detective" is a retired university professor who lives in an elderly housing development. The story is good, and the characters are likable.

A second work was American Notes by Rudyard Kipling. This is the Kipling of India fame. This particular work is about a visit to the States. Typrical of Kipling, he is racist and demeaning, and he is particularly scathing to many of the peculiar American customs that he encounters. This book was never published in wide distribution because of fear concerning the reaction of the American reading public. Given all of that, he is still quite funny at times and the book was overall enjoyable.

Have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Rockford - Minnesota - Mishawaka - Angola - Carey

2011-03-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

March 30, 2011

Peace and Good,

Sorry I'm a few days late, but being on the road, it is hard to keep up with things. I am still visiting friaries across the Mid West.

I was in Rockford, arriving on Sunday the 20th to visit of friary of our Polish friars. There are five friars from our Cracow province who are living there and serving in three parishes. One is a Polish parish, one Hispanic, and the third is non-ethnic. The friars are doing great work, and have really tried to learn English. The friar working at the Hispanic parish must know three languages (his native Polish, English, and the Spanish that he learned as a missionary in Peru).

From there, I drove to Minnesota on Tuesday. Of course, there was snow along the way. I passed any number of accidents and cars off the road because they were trying to pass in the passing lane that had not yet been plowed.

I first visited a parish in Bloomington, St. Bonaventure. There are three friars there, one retired, one pastor of St. Bonaventure, and the third the pastor of the parish down the street. This is happening more and more, where parishes can only have one priest and the friar-priests live in a central location and serve in more than one place.

I could tell I was in Minnesota. When I opened up the fridge in the rec room, there was a whole assortment of pickled herring.

In the parish boundaries is the Mall of America, the second largest mall in the world (at least it was a few years ago). There are over 400 stores. I went there to do my daily walk because walking in the snow while you are wearing sandals is not a great idea (even I know that). It is a remarkable place. They have more submarines in the pools along the way than the Canadian navy. There is a roller coaster in the central atrium, etc.

The next day I visited the retreat house at Prior Lake. This is one of four retreat houses in the province. It is very busy on the weekends, not so much during the week. There are five friars there (one of whom is in a nursing home). The friar in the nursing home is named Jude, so the two Judes finally got a chance to meet after hearing about each other for many years. Jude R. is a real talker. When I mentioned that I had to be going, it was like a challenge for him to talk more so that I couldn't get out of the room.

I then drove to our novitiate in Mishawaka, Indiana. This was a long ride, about nine hours. Thank God that I love driving and that I had a CD player going the whole way.

On Sunday I drove out to our friary in Angola, Indiana. This is right near the border with Ohio. I celebrated Mass in one of our parishes along the way. The parish in Angola had a tragedy. There was an accident in Alabama in which four local students from the high school were killed on their way back from spring break in Florida. One of those killed was a server at St. Anthony Parish, our parish. Everyone was quite shaken. Please keep their families in your prayers. They will be buried Friday and Saturday of this week.

I will leave off the travelogue here and pick up with Sunday in the next blog.

I finished another book by EM Forster (the author of A Passage to India). This one was titled Where Angels Fear to Tread. It is about a young widow who travels to Italy, falls in love with a local and marries him, and all the difficulties she endures and how her in laws react. Like A Passage to India, it has a lot to do with the difficulties of the British to understand and appreciate other cultures. The Brits come off as judgmental prigs. (This is something we Americans can certainly take into account at times when we judge how other people live throughout the world.)

A second book was the History of Charles the Second by Jacob Abbott. This is part of Abbott's series of biographies of historical figures. Charles the Second is not exactly an exemplary figure, and his reign helped lead to the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty in England. These were the years of the great plague and also of the great fire of London.

Hope you have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Louisville - Terre Haute - St. Louis - Rockford

2011-03-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

March 21, 2011

Peace and Good,

Well, the journey continues. I finished up my visitation at Mount St. Francis, the provincialate/shrine/retreat house for Our Lady of Consolation Province. I saw about 30 friars in the Louisville area, so almost a third of those whom I will be visiting in the next couple of months.

I went up to Terre Haute, Indiana. There is a friary there with friars who take care of two parishes. It is not really a city, only a big town. The churches are quite beautiful, and it is obvious that the people love the friars. As one of the friars was showing me St. Benedict's Church, an old timer passed through and told me the history of the Church. It is so great to see how proud the people are of the place where they worship. The stained glass windows are from Innsbruck, and they are magnificent.

From there I travelled to St. Louis. This is the first time that I have really seen any of the city. The cathedral has magnificent mosaics that take your breath away. One of our friars, fr. Wayne Hellmann, is the head of the theology department at St. Louis University there. He is a great Franciscan scholar, and he has mentored a number of students in Franciscan studies over the years. We also visited a couple of our older friars who are in care facilities in the area.

I then drove to Rockford, Illinois. There is a lot of corn fields between St. Louis and Rockford. I am visiting a friary of Polish friars from our Cracow province. One of the other assistant generals is visiting their province, but it is a lot of time and money to fly over here to see one friary. They are taking care of three parishes in the area, serving people in English, Polish and Spanish.

I have finished a couple of books this week. One is Seven Japanese Tales by Junichiro Tanizaki. I have been reading a series of short stories by authors from different nations. It is fascinating to see what those authors consider to be important. These tales were completely different from much of what I am used to reading. There is a different pace to the story and the topics are things that I might not consider to be important. There is a great variety in these tales (from a man who is afraid to take a train and gets drunk to get on it to a long tale of the warfare of a series of feudal lords in the Samurai period).

The other is The Centreville Ghost by Oscar Wilde. This is a short novella about a ghost who haunts and terrifies a house but which is tamed by the antics of an oblivious American family who refuse to be frightened by it. It is eventually released from its torment by the love of one of the family members. It is Wilde at his best.

Take care and have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - Ellicott City - Louisville

2011-03-14T12:19:00.000-07:00

March 14, 2011

Peace and Good,

I have travelled to Louisville (actually right across the river to a town called Mount St. Francis) to begin my visitation of Our Lady of Consolation Province. OLC province extends from Ohio to Minnesota and then friaries in Texas and New Mexico. There are around 110 friars in it.

we have a visitation in a province every six years or so. The idea is just to take stock of how the friars are doing individually and as a group. I am not really looking for problems, but more letting the friars tell their story and to encourage them to do what they are doing, but maybe with more enthusiasm. The Minister General speaks of how we were so enthused when we first entered the friars, but how over the years we might have grown a little complacent. Hopefully, this visitation will get a couple of the friars to ask the important questions of themselves again.

I have started out in the friars in southern Indiana and northern Kentucky, an area that they call Kentuckiana. There are probably 25 friars right in this region. There is the retreat house where I am staying, and three other major friaries within a 25 minute drive of here.

It is great to hear the friars' stories. Often, as friars, we get so busy with what we are doing (which is all good) that we forget to slow down and simply let the other friars tell us what is going on in their lives.

I have finished a couple of works. The first was a series of lectures on Ancient Greek History by Donald Kagan. I believe that he lectures at Yale, and he wrote a very successful book on the Peloponesian War between Athens and Sparta. He is good as a lecturer, although sometimes he pushes his own theories a bit much.

The second was the Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyesvski. This is one of those long, long Russian novels. I think I enjoyed Anna Kerenina by Tolstoy more than this book. There are some very unlikely jumps in the action. The most famous section is called the Grand Inquisitor. It presents Jesus coming back to earth and the Grand Inquisitor putting him to death again because his presence would prove to be disruptive. The last thing that the institution wanted was for people to be truly free.

Take care and have a good, safe St. Patrick's Day.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Back in the States

2011-03-07T14:12:00.000-08:00

March 7, 2011

Peace and Good,

I'm a day late in posting this because I was traveling from Rome to Ellicott City yesterday. I will be in the States now for about a month.

Last week was all meetings in Rome. We meet every six weeks, and our meetings go from Monday morning until Saturday noon. We speak about the friars over the whole globe, from China and India to Canada and Argentina. Much of what we hear is simply information, but at times we are asked to make decisions that will have life changing consequences. I feel a sacred responsibility as we try to discern where the Spirit is calling our order to go over these next few years. What is good is that the council (there are ten of us) work as a team and there is a great amount of respect for the other members.

During the week we spent an afternoon at a new community of friars (OFM's, the friars who wear the brown habit) outside of Rome at a place called Palestrina. They are attempting to live a simpler life style. They are very down to earth, not doing anything which I would call strange. But they are simply taking more time for prayer and dialogue within the community and with people who visit them. I was very impressed with their joyful spirit.

I finished a couple of books this week. The first is the first volume (of many) of the Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius. This volume was on Julius Caesar. It is interesting to read sources that were written not that long after the lives of these historic figures. Even then, though, much of the portrait is based upon who is ruling when the author wrote (lest he get in trouble with the powers that be). Each volume is relatively short, and it is concluded with a section on the writers and artists of that particular era (I think these were added by the editor).

The second book was the Call of the Wild by Jack London. It was fascinating how he wrote the whole story from the viewpoint of the dog. It is about a dog that is dognapped in California during the Yukon gold rush and the series of owners who either care for or do not care for it. Some of the owners are wise in the ways of the wild, while others are foolish and pay the price for their lack of preparation and forethought.

I will be flying to Louisville tomorrow for the beginning of a trip to the various friaries of one of our provinces.

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Aberdeen - Manchester - Dublin - Rome

2011-02-27T10:10:00.000-08:00

February 27, 2011

Peace and Good,

I started the week visiting Bishop John Jukes, one of our bishops, up at his home in Huntley. He is retired and lately in ill health. Please keep him in your prayers. His insights, though, were invaluable. I enjoyed my time with him.

I then flew to Manchester for our second friars' day. The friars came from Liverpool, Manchester and Barton. The presentations went very well. Fr. Steve King, who is in charge of formation for the young vocations, did such a great job at this and the London presentation that he was asked to join us in Dublin so that the friars there could hear about the positive developments as well.

In the house where I was staying is an apostolate dedicated to the printed word. They produce a magazine called the Crusader. It is distributed free of charge throughout the British Isles, 60,000 copies. The readers are very generous and pay for the magazine and help enormously in the costs of formation for the younger friars. Giving the magazine away free is a real sign of trust in the providence of God.

I flew to Dublin for the third of our friars' days. In Dublin were the friars from our parish in Dublin and from our Shrine Church in Wexford (on the southeast coast of Ireland). I got to see our oldest friar in this jurisdiction, fr. Pat Griffin, who is 92. He is still filled with humor and there is a twinkle in his eye.

Thursday was a free day so I set off for downtown Dublin to see a couple of sites. One of the friars suggested that I visit the memorial to the victims of the Potato famine. It is right in front of the old Customs House. There are a number of emaciated figures depicted in statue form trudging toward their waiting ship to carry them off to America. Their faces are so gaunt, and they have a look I have seen in the pictures of people starving from all over the world. I sat for a long time just meditating on the representation. I was deeply moved by it.

Friday I flew back to Rome and am here this week for one of our definitories. That will go from Monday through Saturday.

I finished a couple of works. One is a very old play called Sejanus: His Fall by Ben Jonson. He is a contemporary of Shakespeare. Sejanus was a Roman who was a type of chief of staff under Tiberias. He was known for his cruelty and corruption. When Tiberias retired to the island of Capri, Sejanus all but took over the government of Rome. Yet, his fall came in an instant, and for ancient peoples, it was a parable of how quickly the mighty can fall.

The second work is a series of CD's called the Classics of British Literature by John Sutherland. This is a very long (48) lectures course on British literature all the way from the time of the Anglo Saxons to the modern day. The professor is excellent, and he gives one a panorama of what the major themes were throughout the centuries.

I hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

My 100th Posting

2011-02-20T04:26:00.001-08:00

February 20, 2011

Peace and Good,

I can't believe that this is already my 100th posting of this blog. This week has been pretty much like most of my others: San Antonio, Baltimore, London and Aberdeen. I was visiting my friary in Baltimore (Ellicott City) watching a program when a commercial came on of a bank being advertised by the Baltimore quarterback, Joe Flaco. I asked the friar alongside of my why they would be using the Baltimore quarterback in that commercial. His answer was, "Jude, where do you think you are?" I honestly thought I was in Buffalo at the time. Time to get a label for my clothes, "If lost, please return to..."

We are having a series of meetings in Great Britain and Ireland so that the friars there can meet the new Delegate, the representative of our provincial there. His name is Fr. Paul Miskiewicz. He gave a beautiful talk at the gathering in London.

I got my walk in by walking along the Thames River. Our friary is only a few blocks from the huge circus wheel that has become a great tourist attraction here in London. I love this city. It is a great place to walk and there is so much to see. The weather is cold and rainy here.

It was so good for the older friars to see the young vocations. There has been a rebirth of this jurisdiction and there is now a lot of hope for the future. Our provincial Fr. James has a lot to do with that. He is gentle and hopeful, and that is contagious.

I am up in Aberdeen diocese, the town of Huntley, to visit one of our retired bishops, Bishop John Jukes. He is the retired bishop of Kent in England. He is a wise man, and I just wanted both to pay my respects and learn anything I can from him.

I have finished a couple of books. The first is Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose. Ambrose writes extensively about war. He has a good style, honest and forthright. The book is about the soldiers of World War II from the United States. Unlike the armies of most European powers, ours was not really a professional army. They were mostly normal citizens who were drafted into the army and who responded mostly with generosity and courage.

The second book was the Sheen on the Silk by Anne Perry. She writes period historical novels. This one takes place in the city of Constantinople in the middle of the 13th century. She gives an enormous amount of detail in her story and I think most of the general picture is accurate. This was a traumatic period in the history of Europe, with Western Christian fighting against Eastern Christian. It is well worth reading.

Have a good week and
Shalom
fr. Jude

A meeting of the conference

2011-02-14T06:35:00.000-08:00

February 14, 2011

Peace and Good,

I am back in Ellicott City after a week down in Texas and New Mexico. I flew down there last Sunday. It was an interesting trip. I got to the airport and my flight to Houston had been cancelled. I was supposed to fly through there to get to El Paso. I had to fly through Milwaukee, then Phoenix, to finally get to El Paso. The friary is about an hour from there, in Mesilla Park, New Mexico. This is a retreat house run by the mid-western province, Our Lady of Consolation.

This was a meeting of all of the provincials and custos of the CFC, the conference of North America, England, and Ireland. The Minister General, fr. Marco, was also present (he had flown in from Columbia and was flying out to Chile after the meeting.

On Monday we discussed the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition in the order. We have a heritage of great scholars, but now that many of our institutions of higher education have been closed, there is a tendency not to train men and women to take over that responsibility. We discussed various ways to address the problem.

Tuesday we spoke of Mission animation. Our provinces have missions or connections with missions on six of the continents. Our latest commitment was by the California Province which has a mission in Vietnam. We were especially speaking about how to let the friars know what is going on and to interest them in making a commitment to go to the missions. (In our order, the minister provincial cannot send someone to the mission, the friar must volunteer.)

We also had a number of discussions concerning other projects and we set the calendar for meetings and chapters (gatherings of all of the friars in the provinces) for the next couple of years.

On Thursday fr. Marco and I flew to San Antonio to visit one of our houses of formation. It is a beautiful site, a former Carmelite Monastery. Our friars study at Oblate School of Theology. fr. Marco and I spoke to the friars in initial formation on Friday and then on Saturday I filled the other friars in on what is going on in the world.

I flew back to Baltimore for a few days rest here (and working on my daily reflections). Wednesday I will fly off to London for a series of meetings there (London, Aberdeen, Manchester, and Dublin.

I finished a couple of books this week. The first is the third book in a series on the Third Reich by Richard Evans. Each of the volumes is a masterpiece of research. These books are not for the light reader, but they are a wealth of information. The third volume, the Third Reich at War, deals with Nazi Germany from 1939 until 1945.

The second book was Cardinal John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua. This was a book where he defended his decision to become a Catholic and also the path which took him in that direction. I was not impressed at all with the writing style. It is a polemic aimed at the attacks of an author who wrote criticizing Newman. I had always heard of Newman's excellence as an author, but that is not what I experienced in this book.

Have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Assisi, Rome, Baltimore, Boston and El Paso

2011-02-08T05:01:00.000-08:00

Peace and Good,

February 8, 2011

As you can see, this past week has been quite busy.

It started with my trip to Assisi to speak with the Custos of the Sacro Convento. A custos is the man in charge. With larger jurisdictions, he is called a provincial. With smaller jurisdictions, he is called a custos. The Sacro Convento is the friary and basilica where St. Francis is buried.

Late on Sunday I headed back to Rome. This was a trick, because there was a train strike going on. The only thing is that this does not necessarily mean that all of the trains are not running. In fact, a good number were running, but the people who could answer the phone and tell you which ones were running were not at work. So it is a guessing game. I guessed right and got home on Sunday evening.

Tuesday I headed out to the States. It was an uneventful trip, and I arrived in Baltimore that evening.

Wednesday morning was a doctor's appointment and that afternoon I went to see the optometrist. You have to take care of these things while you can. Everything seems to be in order.

Thursday morning I met with one of our friars who is working for a NGO (non-governmental organization) that represents Franciscans at the UN. His organization tries to give a voice to the powerless of the world. He and the group are doing great work. We Franciscans are somewhere between a quarter of a million and three quarters of a million worldwide. We have networks that can often pick up news of bad situations, and fr. Mike brings these problems to the attention of those who can make a difference. I was inspired by what he is doing. You might want to check out the website of his organization. I am not sure of its address, but if you google Franciscans International, you will find it. If you wish, they have a program where you could donate $5 a month to help their expenses from your credit card.

Friday morning I headed off to Boston to make a canonical visitation of one of our parishes. This parish is run by friars from Poland (it is made up of Poles who have just arrived from Poland). My province used to run the parish, but we have very few friars who speak Polish well enough. Most of the friars who do speak some Polish speak the version spoken by their grandparents when they came over from Poland in 1890, so it sounds very old fashioned to the new Poles.

On the way, the stewardess noticed my sandals without socks. She jokingly asked me if I was a Polar Bear (those who jump in freezing water during the winter). I told her I was a Franciscan. She was thrilled. St. Francis is her favorite saint, and she is going to Assisi next month. I gave her the name of one our friars in the Sacro Convento whom she can look up while she is there.

Sunday I flew down to El Paso for a meeting of the North American Provincials and our Minister General. I was supposed to fly to Houston and then on to El Paso, but the weather played havoc with the flight and I ended up going to Milwaukee, then Phoenix, and then finally El Paso. That was a long way around.

I finished a couple of books this week. The first was a two volume work on the Life of Napoleon by John Holland. It was a good work, but a little too English in its viewpoint for my taste.

The second was the Secret Sharer by Joseph Conrad. I am always amazed at how well Conrad writes in English, given that he was born in Poland and English was not even his second language, French was. This is a novella about a man who escaped from his ship where he was being held for the murder of one of his shipmates. He is taken aboard another ship and finds safety in the room of the captain. The captain and he form a strange relationship until the man finally escapes to an island. Conrad always gives you the flavor of Asia or Africa in the 19th century. I enjoyed the story.

Have a good week and
Shalom
fr. Jude

The meetings are finished

2011-01-31T02:04:00.000-08:00

January 31, 2011

We have finally finished out three week marathon of meetings. They were all productive and worthwhile, but they went on, and on, and on. The guardian announced Friday night that we would have private prayers for Saturday so people could sleep in a bit. (We usually have prayers and Mass at 7:15.) Everyone broke out in applause.

Saturday I took a quick trip up to Assisi for another meeting (what else). It went very well. It concerns the American friars who are serving there and the hope that we can get one or two more to volunteer to work there. It is a wonderful apostolate, but you have to learn Italian (that is the common langauge in the friary) and you have to be flexible. Living in Italy, there are always surprises. For example, getting up to and back from Assisi was a bit of a trick because there was a 24 hour train strike. It turns out that only certain trains were on strike, but it was almost impossible to find out which ones because the offices were all closed.

Tomorrow I fly out to the States and I will be there for a couple of weeks. On my way back to Rome, I will stop off in England, Scotland and Ireland.

I finished a couple of books. One was Beautiful Lies by Lisa Unger. It is a mystery novel about a young woman who finds out that her parents are not really her biological parents. It turns out that she and a number of other babies were kidnapped from their parents because the kidnappers thought that the parents were incapable of raising the children (because of violence, drugs, drink, etc.) It has quite a few surprises along the way. I enjoyed it.

A second book was Forever Odd by Dean Koontz. This is the third of the odd books that I have read. They are incredibly good, and I actually listen to them and the narrator is excellent. I think he has one more in the series so far, and I am going to try to find it in the States when I am over there.

We have had cold weather, but nothing compared with the east coast of the States. Here, 45 during the day is considered very cold.

Take care and
Shalom
fr. Jude

The Relics of St. Peter

2011-01-23T09:50:00.001-08:00

January 23, 2011

Peace and Good,

I finished the second and last week of "finishing school" for the new provincials and secretaries of the order. This was a smaller group than the first. Most of them were Italian, but we also had a couple from the US, a couple from Honduras, one from Mexico, one from the Philippines, and one from Lebanon. You can really tell how international the order is when we all come together for things like this. Talking with the friar from Lebanon (his jurisdiction is Lebanon and Turkey), he spoke of trying to witness to the Christian faith in a predominantly Muslim part of the world. Every Tuesday, our Church in Istambul is packed with Muslims who want to light candles to St. Anthony. (Tuesday is traditionally St. Anthony day.) When they are in the church, the friars make themselves available to talk. They are not there to convert anyone, just give witness. Certainly, if someone wants to convert, that is great, but it is difficult for they are always disowned by their Muslim families. The friars can share the faith within the church, but they cannot prostelytize in any way outside of the church.

One of the highlights of the week was the pilgrimage we made to St. Peter's Basilica. We visited the "scavi," which means the excavations. In 1940, Pope Pius XII ordered excavations to the made under the main altar to see if they could find the tomb of St. Peter. What they found amazed the archaeologists. They found an entire cemetary that dated back to the first century AD. St. Peter had been buried near the top of a hill. When Constantine wanted to build the basilica, he cut off the top of the hill and filled in the valley to level it out. Then he built a massive basilica over the site of the tomb. When Pope Julius II tore down that basilica and built the present basilica, he had the main altar placed over the spot of the main altar of the original basilica. The actual burial site of Peter was lost for centuries. In 1941, the archaeologists found a burial site and a modest monument. As they checked it out, it was surrounded by other tombs of Christians (they can tell they are Christians because of the Christian symbols on the tombstone and the fact that there is a death date. Pagans would write how long the person lived, the Christians would put when the person was born to heaven.) They also found grafiti around the site that pointed to this being Peter's tomb. They found a few bones that had not disintegrated. They were covered with clay (for tradition was that Peter had been buried in the earth first and only later were his relics placed in the monument that was built over his tomb). They were of a man who was between 60 and 70 when he died, robust, etc. Pope Paul VI had the relics placed in a simple plastic box and put back in their original site. The simplicity of it all is very moving.

On the way out we passed by Pope John Paul II's tomb. I asked when his body is going to be moved (for they are moving him upstairs for the beatification on May 1st), but the guide did not know.

This week I will be in Rome for another set of meetings. Then, Sunday I scoot up to Assisi for a one day meeting. A week from Tuesday I head over to the States for a number of assignments.

I finished a couple of books. One was a short story be Honore de Balzac called Farewell. It is the story of a woman and a French officer who took part in the retreat from Moscow with Napoleon. It gives an incredibly good picture of the horror of the experience. We often hear of the events in history, but this story helps one remember that those events involved individuals.

A second book was the story of Hannibal by Jacob Abbott. I have read a few of Abbott's biographies. He has done a whole series of them on historic figures. This was not his best. It is interesting to see how he tries to defend British colonial policy in his depiction of Hannibal. He wrote this at the end of the 19th century when the sun really did not set on the British empire. Abbott always shows Hannibal as wrong and the Roman as simply defending themselves when the story is much more complex than that.

Hope you have a good week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome: Week Two

2011-01-16T11:48:00.000-08:00

January 16, 2011

Peace and Good,

This has been a pleasant change, to spend a week home in Rome. I'll be here for another two weeks now. Last week and this week are taken up in a workshop that is presented to new provincials and the secretaries of the provinces to help them in their new job. We had quite a large group of them last week (I think over 30), and this week we have a much smaller group. We English speakers call it "finishing school." I don't think the non-English speakers understand the running joke.

This reminds one of how extensive the order is. 30 years ago, we were in 35 different nations. Now we are in 67. We are about the same number of friars as we were at the beginning of the Second Vatican Council (which is extraordinary because most orders have shrunk enormously). What has changed is that we have gone from a European/North American order to one that is truly international.

This week I also learned quite a bit of an initiative called Franciscans International. It is a lobbying body of all of the Franciscans throughout the world (First, Second and Third Orders) before the United Nations. We have representatives in every country upon the earth, and we often see things from the ground up while officials see them from above down. We call to the attention of the UN situations where there is blatant injustice ocurring. One of our Friars, fr. Michael Laskey, is the representative of the Franciscans International in New York City.

My own provincial, fr. James, and our province secretary, fr. Richard Jacob were here for the week. There are three of us from my province stationed here, and another at one of the other houses in Rome. It was good to be all together and share the news.

This was also a good week for writing. I wrote a series of articles for the Messenger of St. Anthony (not to be confused with the St. Anthony Messenger). I am now way ahead of the game. I have a backlog of 27 articles, which is two and a half years worth. I turned my attention to the daily reflections, and finished the rought draft of the rest of February. I just have to edit them on my computer. It usually takes about 3 to 4 minutes editing for each minute of play.

I finished a couple of works. One was a set of tapes called April 1865: The Month that saved America by Jay Winik. It deals with the closing events of the Civil War. Winik argues some of his own theories which are not always common belief, but it is always great to see it from a different perspective.

The second work was a set of CD's call the Ruins by Scott Smith. Actually, this was made into a movie this past year. It starts out as a college spring vacation story, and ends up as a horror story. It unfolds slowly, and one is never quite sure how it will work out. It is messy (in terms of deaths) and surprising, without descending into some of the cliches used in science fiction.

I hope you ahve a good week.

God bless and

Shalom
fr. Jude

Minster Abbey, Kent, England

2011-01-09T02:53:00.000-08:00

January 9, 2011

Peace and Good,

This past week was spent in southern England giving a retreat at Minster Abbey. There were two postulants for the English/Irish delegation of our order, and I preached to them about the Gospel of John and the call to be the beloved disciple. (The reason that the beloved disciple is never named in the Gospel of John is that we are supposed to become beloved of the Lord.) Matthew is a former Anglican Franciscan who became Catholic a couple of years ago. He is a talented artist. Benedict is a young man from Nigeria who is joining the delegation. He would truly love for our friars to open a foundation in his homeland. We are talking about it, but the time is not yet right.

Minster Abbey dates back to 670. It was an abbey of Benedictine Sisters until the suppresion of the monasteries under King Henry VIII. It was for sale in the late 1930's, and the Benedictines were able to buy it and reestablish religious life on the site. The sisters who came there were from Nazi Germany, one of them being a converted Jew who was therefore in great danger. They came from the monastery of Eichstatt, which was founded by missionaries from the Minster Abbey long ago.

The sisters sing the entire divine office in Gregorian Chant (most in English, but evening Vespers in Latin). It is most beautiful and prayerful. Yet, I know that this is not how I could pray regularly. I very much like how the friars pray the divine office in community.

While I was passing through, I was able to visit the head of the Franciscan Institute in Canterbury. Just up the hill from the city, we have an international center for Franciscan studies. I have taught there a couple of times. I would love to go back and teach, but with my new responsibilities, the best I could ever do would be to give retreats or short courses every now and then.

The weather was miserable. England is so far north that the days are short. The whole week was cloudy and rainy. It was great to get back to sunny Italy where each day is in the high 50's.

I finished a couple of books. The first if Forests of the Night by James Hall. It is the story of a police woman who goes from Miami to North Carolina to investigate a plot against her husband's family. It involves the Cherokee community there and their traditions. The story is complicated by the fact that their daughter suffers from scitzophrenia. It was quite good.

The second book was The Carnevoir's Inquiry by Salana Murray. This was a truly strange book about a young woman who turns out to be a mass murderer and carnevoir. It made you question as to what was true and what was her own delusion. In this sense, it succeeded. Yet, it was very strange.

Hope you have a great week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

A Few Days in Assisi

2011-01-02T09:28:00.000-08:00

January 2, 2011

Peace and Good,

Well, the meetings are over for the holidays, so I spent the past week in Assisi for some prayer and relaxation. I had not had a chance to have a retreat this year, so this time served as a bit of that. Assisi is beautiful at any time of the year. I arrived there on December 26th, and was able to visit with Fr. Lanfranco Sierini who is one of our previous ministers general. He is showing his age, but he is still vitally interested in what the friars are doing. I visited the Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Assisi whose mother house is there. Over the years, I have given conferences and retreats to them on three different continents.

Friday, a few of us took a trip up to La Verna where St. Francis received the Stigmata, the wounds that Jesus had. This happened two years before his death, and typical of authentic revelations, he didn't quite know to make of it. He hid it from others, and most of the friars only found out about it after he died. He is the first knows saint to have had the stigmata.

Yesterday I returned to Rome and had some surpise business to take care of. Two of our benefactors were visiting from the States, and they wanted to talk about the friars applying for grants to help finance their missionary and charitable efforts. They are very generous in time and talent and have already helped us enormously in Zambia. We are hoping to get something more going over the next year.

Tomorrow I will be heading to Canterbury, England, to give a retreat to a group of men in formation there.

As usual, I finished a couple of books. One was a Robert Ludlum book called the Moscor Vector. He is usually good, but this book only really measured OK on the scale. It was about a new president of Russia who hatches a plot to take over the old soviet republics that once formed the Soviet Union. His secret weapon is a virus that kills only the person for whom it is specifically genetically designed.

A second book was The Treasure of the Incas by GA Henty. I have read a couple of other books by Henty. They were written around 1900 for British young people showing the heroism of the British and the failure to measure up of anyone else. Some of the expressions would certainly be considered to be racist today, but in his time he was probably thought of as enlightened. The plot in general is good and there is always pleanty of action.

Keep well and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Boxing Day

2010-12-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

December 26, 2010

Peace and Good,

I entitled this blog boxing day because that is what it is called in countriesk that were ruled by Great Britain. The servants of the family had to serve them Christmas Day,and they didn't get a chance to celebrate until the day after when they could finally open their Christmas boxes.

Well, I finished out series of meetings on Tuesday morning. They went for seven days, and we didn't quite finish the agenda. That is OK, though, because the important things were finished, and in Italy there is usually not the sense of urgency you can find in the States to get things done. Here, if they get done, then they get done. If they don't, then maybe they weren't supposed to get done.

The last few days I have been spending just getting caught up. There are a lot of e mails coming in to take care of, and then I am still moving in to my office (mostly going through old files and reading what is necessary and shreding a lot of out of date material.

I concelebrated noon Mass on Christmas Day in our Basilica with about 20 other friars. What was odd is that there were only about 25 people in the congregation. We live in the historic district of Rome where not a lot of people live. Inner Rome has a ton of Churches and very few people, while the suburbs have tons of people and very few Churches. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it. The only problem in Rome is that these churches can't be closed because they are historic.)

I got to visit one of the suburban churches one evening, St. Mark's Church, where I was ordained a deacon. I was supposed to be ordained a deacon in another parish with my class, but a couple of days before it my appendix ruptured and I came down with peritonitus. When I got out of the hospital (ten days later and probably 30 pounds lighter), they decided to ordain me before my parents left (for they had been visiting for the ordination). I had been working in St. Mark's, and they decided to have the ordination there. The Church was packed for a Monday evening Mass. It was great.

I have travelled to Assisi for a few days of quiet and prayer. There is something about this city for a Franciscan that makes one feel at home immediately. It is so beautiful, so peaceful.

I finished a couple of books. The first is Jerusalem 1913: The Origin of the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Amy Dockser Marcus. 1913, just before the First World War, was probably the last opportunity for the Arabs and Jews to come to some form of agreement concerning the establishment of the state of Israel. It came close, but some sad incidents and some stubborn personalities on both sides interferred and led to what seems to be the never-ending conflict that we now see.

The second book was an essay on Cardinal Newman as a Musician by Edward Bellasio. I wanted to read it because he was recently beatified. Unfortunately, the book is horrible. I would not recommend it in any way!

Hope you have a good Boxing Day. Be safe.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome for meetings

2010-12-19T09:50:00.000-08:00

December 19, 2010

Peace and Good,

I have been in Rome for meetings all week. I am part of tthe general counsel of our order (which we call a definitory). Throughout this week (and Monday and Tuesday of this coming week) we were meeting to talk about what is going on in the order and make plans for the future.

This week we met a series of friars who are responsible for various dimensions of what we do.

There was friar Martin who is from Argentina and is the Assistant general who is the spiritual assistant for the Secular Franciscans throughout the world. The seculars are lay people who live in the spirit of St. Francis in their everyday lives. There are actually many more of them than of the friars. When St. Francis founded his movement, it was originally a lay movement and only became a religious order as time went on.

There was friar Edoardo from Padua in Italy who assists the Poor Clare sisters. They are considered the second order of the Franciscans. (The frist order is the male religious belonging to the OFM, the OFM Conv and the OFM Capuchin, the second order is the Poor Clares who are a cloistered order, and the Third Order are lay people, a group of religious men who follow the Third Order Rule knows as the TOR's, and the Franciscan Sisters other than the Poor Clares.) There are 26 convents of the Poor Clares here in Italy and three in other countries (those Clares joined to our order, there are others joined to the OFM's and the Capuchins). Like many communties, those in Italy have become older and are joining communities together. The communities in Poland are doing much better.

There was friar Francisco from Columbia. He is the director of the office that speaks about Peace and Justice and the Safeguarding of the Environment.

There was friar Sebastian from Romania who works in the office that fosters interreligious dialog from Assisi.

There was friar Rafaele from Italy who works in the office of the Militia Immacolata, a movement founded by St. Maximillian Koble in which one consecrates one's life to accepting God's will in the same way that the Blessed Virgin Mary did.

There was friar Alcides from Argentian who works in the office for formation of the friars (those who are just entering and those who have been in for a while and need a time of renewal).

There was friar Fermino from Italy who is working on a rewriting of our constitutions (a very long and complicated process). The constitutions are the basic rules of how we are to live as friars both individually and in community.

There was friar Andreas from Germany who takes care of our archives and is working to catalog many of the important artifacts that we as an order possess.

There was friar Ryszard who is developing a new internet site for us. (By the way, if you are interested, the present site is ofmconv.org.)

There was friar Angelo from Italy who works on preparing the causes for beatification and canonization for our order (and for people who are somehow related to our order).

It was fascinating to listen to the work they are doing.

Last night the definitory went to see a movie together. It is called Men of God, a French film about a community of Trappists who lived in Algeria during the recent civil war. They were caught between the Islamist extremists and the army. It is excellent. It is one of the most honest portrayals of religious life and discerning God's will that I have ever seen.

Finally, I finished two books.

The first is Jeanne D'Arc: her life and death by Margaret Oliphant. Oliphant is English, and it shows in the descritions given, but there are also some good insights into the inner life of this saint. I still struggle with the idea, though, that God would root for the French against the English. In a case like this, why would God care who won the war. They were all miserable rulers who exploited their people horribly. I sometimes don't know what to make of it.

The other work was a collection of Best Russian Short Stories, including stories by Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Checkov and Gorky. It was really a good selection and it was interesting to see the tenor of the story and the forms used change as time went on. I still think that Gorky's descriptions are some of the best I have ever read, even he did some very despicable things toward the end of his life by buying into the Stalinist persecution of many of his fellow writters.

Have a great week preparing for Christmas.

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Baltimore - Rome

2010-12-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

December 12, 2010

Our Lady of Guadalupe / Gaudete Sunday

Peace and Good,

Well, I travelled back to Rome and will be here for three weeks. (What a joy, sleeping in the same bed for three whole weeks.) This week, after I got over some of the worst jet lag, I have been taking care of some projects. I edited a number of reflections for the daily reflections, wrote a new article for the Messenger magazine from Padua, wrote a report for our next definitory meeting which begins tomorrow, etc. I was so busy with the projects that when I went outside Saturday for something, I realized that I had not been outside the front door since I arrived on Wednesday. I'll have to watch that, it's so easy to get caught up in what you're doing.

The various Assistant Generals have been out on the road since the last meeting. They have been coming back home one by one, and it is great to see the joy on the friars faces to see them home again. It reminds me of the scenes when the disciples were sent out by Jesus and when the first friars were sent out by St. Francis and then came home. We have stories to share with each other from Paraguay, Poland, Kenya, Tanzania, Vietnam, Australia, the States, etc.

This coming week and a half are filled with meetings. I will be here at home (Santi Apostoli) for Christmas day, and then the day after I will head up to Assisi for a private retreat.

I finished a couple of books. The first was Alexander of Russia by Henri Troyat. Alexander was the czar who defeated Napoleon when he invaded Russia. He is a complex figure. He wanted to be liberal in his ideas, as long as it didnàt have to be applied to real life, e.g. the fact he did not liberate the serfs in his own country. He was the grandson of Catherine the Great. She wanted him to succeed her, but died before that could be made public. He allowed for some army friends to assisinate his father (who was definitely a loser), and he suffered from guilt for this for the rest of his life. This is not the first book I have read by Troyat. He is an excellent author, but one has to be willing to invest a lot of time because none of his books are short.

The other book I finished was called Cod by Mark Kurlansky. As an author, Kurlansky has cornered an interesting section of the market: food. In this book, he shows how cod fed massive portions of the population in Europe from the Middle Ages. It was considered to be a source of weaalth from the new world alongside silver and gold. He speaks of how it became a cheap source of protein for the slaves on the sugar plantations in the Carribean, indirectly supporting that horrific institution. He also speaks about the collapse of the fishing stock and how desparate life is now for cod fishermen. He even include a number of recepees for cod from earlier days and the present. It was a good read.

I hope you have a good week.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Buffalo - Albany - Montreal - Ellicott City

2010-12-06T06:52:00.000-08:00

December 6, 2010

Happy St. Nicholas Day

Peace and Good,

Hope you are all well. This week I finished off my visits to the provincials of the US and Canada. On Sunday I drove from my brother's house to Rensselaer (across the river from Albany). There I met with Fr. Justin Biasi, the provincial of Immaculate Conception Province. This is the other eastern province (my own province of St. Anthony being the other one). The two eastern provinces are in the process of joining. The schedule has the approval coming in 2013 and the actual joining coming in 2014.

Immaculate Conception is also responsible for two other jurisdictions: a custody (a baby province) in Brazil and a delegation (smaller than a custody) in Costa Rica. We spoke about the province in the US and these two entities. There are about 100 friars in all. Like St. Anthony, they have parishes, shrines, and retreat house ministries as well as college campus ministers.

On Wednesday I drove up to Montreal to visit the custody there. There are 16 friars, all from Poland, serving the needs to Polish immigrants and recently French speaking Catholics there. In the past, this custody did not belong to our conference because the friars minister to and in Polish, but now they are a part of the North American and English/Irish conference.

From there back to Rensselaer for the night. I got to meet with one of our friars who is ministering in Assisi. We shared some information and a number of stories about the joys and confusion of life in Italy.

Then on to Ellicott City. Friday night there was a reception to say goodbye to me as I get ready to head off to Rome today for my permanent stay.

I finished a few books and tapes. The first was Brother Odd by Dead Koontz. This is part of the "odd" series. This is the third in the series that I have read. It was excellent. Odd (his name was supposed to be Todd but they made a mistake at the registry) can see ghosts and his mission is to help them find peace. In this book he is staying at a monastery of monks and nuns in the Cascades. The nuns care for mentally challenged children. There is a warmth and gentleness in the description that, in spite of the fact that this is a ghost book, is firmly pro-life. It was a joy to see a book that respected the defenseless so well.

A second book was the Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. This is one of those classics I always wanted to read. It is written in a decadent late Victorian style. It has much more to do with moral degeneracy than with age.

The third was the Broken Window by Jeffrey Deaver. This is a Lincoln Rhyme book. He is a paralyzed investigator who solves cases for the police (or at times in spite of the police). This one has to do with a mass murderer who is drawing his information from an internet company that mines information and sells it to customers. It speaks of the danger of Big Brother watching our purchases, our moves, etc. I wouldn't classify it as great, but it was good.

Tonight I fly out to Rome and will be there for the vigil of the Immaculate Conception. Our Basilica of Santi Apostoli has a big celebration for the feast. People also bring bouquets of flowers to the statue of Mary in the Piazza di Spagna.

Take care and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Chicago - Carey, Ohio - Buffalo

2010-11-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

November 28, 2010

Peace and Good,

This past Sunday began with liturgy at our friary at Marytown in Chicago. We had solemn morning prayer followed by a beautiful Mass. It was an appropriate way to celebrate the feast of Christ the King.

That afternoon, I travelled to the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation in Carey, Ohio. You might remember that I was there a couple of times this past summer, preaching a retreat to our new novices and then preaching a novena for the Feast of the Assumption. I spent Monday doing some homework. Every year the Minister General sends a letter to the friars of the order throughout the world, and I was asked to translate it from Italian into English. It was a little difficult, because even though my Italian is not bad, I am not yet used to thinking in Italian (and Italians have a different way of expressing ideas, e.g. never say in ten words what can be said in twenty).

Tuesday I headed out to Buffalo where I spent the Thanksgiving holiday. Wednesday I was the celebrant at the funeral of my Godfather. He passed away Saturday morning. This was a real miracle, because I am on the road so often. What were the chances that this would coincide with one of my few visits to Buffalo. At the wake, I noticed that there was a display of his military medals, which included the silver star. Like many of his generation, Steve rarely spoke of his experience of war. One of the things that most impressed me about him was that when his wife, Eleanor, came down with Alzheimer's, he had her taken care of at home. He couldn't think of institutionalizing her. What an example! Please keep him, Steve Mayer, and his family in your prayers.

Thanksgiving was a great time to visit family here in Buffalo and then yesterday in Pittsburgh. My family is so supportive of me in so many ways.

I finished a few books this week. The first was A Passage to India by E.M. Foster. I had seen the movie made from this book years ago (it was a Merchant Ivory production). It was great, but the book was even better. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. It dealt with the theme of two cultures meeting and how difficult it can be for one to understand the other. Actually, for India, it was more than two cultures (the British, the Hindus, the Muslims, etc.).

The second book was the Gracchi, Marius and Sulla by A.H. Beesley. It deals with the period just before the rise of Julius Caesar. One can understand what happened to Caesar when one understands the social turmoil that was going on in Rome at that time.

The third book was a set of CD's called the Shape Shifter by Tony Hillerman. The story revolves around a Navaho retired detective who tries to solve a strange set of crimes. There are a number of insights into Native American culture. For example, ambition is not seen as a virtue among the Navaho's. One is supposed to fit in and help the tribe and family, not to stand out. This is well worth reading or listening to.

Today I head out to Albany to visit another provincial.

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Ellicott City - Chicago

2010-11-22T12:17:00.000-08:00

November 22, 2010

Peace and Good,

This week began with my meeting in Ellicott City with Fr. James McCurry. He is the provincial of St. Anthony Province, my home province. We spoke about the concerns of the province as we prepare for our union with Immaculate Conception Province. Both of these provinces are located on the east coast of the United States. St. Anthony was founded to serve the Polish Americans who had settled between Buffalo, Boston and Baltimore. We are now serving in two high schools (St. Francis in Athol Springs, NY and Archbishop Curley in Baltimore) and numerous parish both in that triangle described above and in Georgia and Florida. There are around 125 friars in the province.

At this past provincial chapter, St. Anthony also assumed responsibility for our friars in England and Ireland. This is a much smaller jurisdiction, and we are helping them until they can once more be a province.

Tuesday evening I travelled to our formation house in Forestville, MD to celebrate Mass and talk with those who are in initial formation. There are eleven of them from three different provinces.

Wednesday I drove is Mishawaka, IN to our novitiate. There I spoke with our novices (7 of them) and then Thursday drove to Chicago to visit the provincial of St. Bonaventure province. St. Bonaventure is a daughter of our province. There are around 50 friars in it. They have three large houses (Marytown, Chicago and Milwaukee) and several smaller parishes. Marytown was founded on the inspiration of St. Maximillian Kolbe. They have a beautiful chapel in which they have 24 hour a day Eucharistic adoration. It is also a retreat house, well used. Milwaukee is a beautiful, beautiful basilica as well as a formation house for four older vocations studying for the priesthood. Chicago is a formation house for a number of younger men who are postulants (checking out the community) or simply professed (having recently taken their vows).

I have finished a number of books. There is a Mountain of Crumbs by Elena Gorokhova. This is about growing up in the Soviet Union in the 50's and 60's. The title comes from a game that her grandmother played with her children during the famine caused by Stalin. She only had a slice of bread for each, so she would break it up into crumbs so that it would look like more. The book is well written and it gives you a sense both of what it was like and why people wanted to go elsewhere.

A second book is the Third Reich in Power by Richard Evans. This is the second of a trilogy on the Third Reich. It is incredibly thorough. This volume covers the years that run from the time that the Nazi's took power until the beginning of World War II. As I read it, I am constantly amazed as to how evil some people can become. It answers well the question as to why the Germans allowed it all to happen.

A third book is the Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg. This an extensive collection of legends (mostly written by the rabbis) about the early books of the Bible and the characters of those stories. Many of the stories seem strange and foreign to our ears, for they are a mixture of moralistic tales and science fiction. Yet, for me, as a Bible scholar, it was well worth reading.

Hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Shalom
fr. Jude

Rome - Baltimore - San Francisco - Baltimore

2010-11-14T15:31:00.001-08:00

November 14, 2010

Peace and Good,

As you can see by the title, this has been a week on the planes. I came back from Rome on Monday and Wednesday I flew out to California to visit with the provincial of St. Joseph Cupertino Province.

This is a rather small province, just over 50 members. It goes from Los Angeles to San Francisco and out to Reno. Their friars are most involved in parish ministry, although a number of them do have singular apostolates.

Fr. Chris Deitz is their provincial. He is beginning his third term. He resides at Arroyo Grande which is near Pismo Beach.

The province has taken on responsibility for our new mission in Vietnam. We have a number of friars who were born in Vietnam living in California, Australia and Japan. A few of them have founded a mission in Vietnam and Fr. Chris will be visiting them shortly to help them in their early growing pains. It appears as if there are many young men who would like to join out community there. One of the friars at the friary where I was staying, Castro Valley, will be heading out there for a three month trial in a couple of months. Having worked with the refounding of the province in Romania, I find this very exciting.

The travel back and forth has left me quite jet lagged. I am not all that good on that, and at times it takes me a week to adjust. I just do what I can and when I need a rest, I do that.

This has been a good week for articles for the Messenger Magazine and daily reflections for the internet site. I finished them up to Christmas eve. It is good to be so far ahead.

In terms of books, I listened to Justice Denied by J.A. Jance. He is quite popular lately. This book speaks of a series of murders by a vigilante. She has an informant in the DNA lab and gives her information about unsolved rapes, and she then dresses in a nuns habit and executes them. The action and the character development which quite good.

A second book is Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley. This is the story of two boys, one white and one black, who become brothers through a relationship of one's father and the other's mother. When the mother dies, it all falls apart. There are some masterful sections and incredible insights, but one thing really bothered me. Twice there are instances where people in the book have sex with underage children. In both cases, the development was unnecessary and I just don't know why the author would include it and glamorize it.

A third book was The Curve of the World by Marcus Stevens. This is about a jet that crash lands in the Congo during civil war. One man runs into the jungle to escape what he is sure will be a massacre. We hear of his struggle to survive, and also of his wife who travels there with her son who is blind to try to find him. I thought that this is one of the best books I have listened to in years. Many of the insights into intercultural situations rang true from what I have observed.

This week my trips will not be quite so far - Chicago, South Bend, Carey, Ohio and Buffalo.

Take care and
Shalom
fr. Jude

A Week of Meetings

2010-11-07T09:28:00.000-08:00

Rome

November 7, 2010

Peace and Good,

This has been an eventuful week. On Tuesday morning at Mass I was sworn in as Assistant General. My duties began shortly after Mass when we began a meeting of the General Definitory. The Minister General is the head of the order, and the rest of us who are assistant general are a type of cabinet who advise the general and who serve as liasons to the various sections of the globe where the order is established.

This first council meeting went for four and a half days, about seven to eight hours a day. In addition, there was often homework to do to prepare for the discussion the next day.

I was incredibly impressed at the fraternal caring of those at the meeting. There was no attempt to outshine the others or force one's opinions on the others. The primary question is how can we serve the order and the individual friars.

Being new, I often had to ask questions concerning various topics. The others were more than willing to bring me up to date. They were patient with my Italian, which is not horrible, but definitely rusty.

One of the major concerns for the order is how to keep updating the friars and help them to grow spiritually. That is so important because we can so easily get caught up with what we are doing that we forget who we are.

This coming year, I am already programmed to visit the US, Canada, England, Ireland, Poland, Spain, Kenya and Malta. Those are the required trips, others might pop up as time goes by.

I fly back to the States tomorrow for about a month to visit the various provincials throughout the States and Canada. Then back to Rome on the Feast of St. Nicholas.

In spite of the work, I'm still reading. It keeps me sane. I finished another biography by Jacob Abbott about Genghis Khan. This was not his best. So little is know about him that Abbott often resorted to side topics to fill out the book.

A second work was Empires before Alexander by Robert Dise. This was one of the Teaching Company courses. It was excellent. The author provides a great amount of information but he throws in a great dry sense of humor every once in a while. At one point he was talking about Israel and how, when the Israelites entered the promised land, they probably did not really conquer Jericho and make its walls come tumbling down because it had not been inhabited for hundreds of years before and after their conquest. His line was that you didn't need hundreds of soldiers with trumpets, a half dozen of them with kazoos would have done the trick.

A third work was the Children of the Frost by Jack London. These were stories from Alaska and the Yukon. Many of them spoke of the Inuit and other native American tribes. It was excellent, and as always, whenever I read something about a very different culture, it opens my horizons as to how people think. Of course, the only problem is that London is an outsider, but he seems to have been respectful to their culture.

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

At Home in Rome

2010-10-31T10:01:00.000-07:00

October 31, 2010

PEace and Good,

Well, I arrived in Rome on the 27th of October, just in time to celebrate my feast day in my new friary. I am living in the general curia near the Basilica of Santi'Apostoli - the Church of the Holy Apostles. The bodies of Ss Philip and James are the major relics in the Church, brought back by the crusaders (which is a nicer way than saying that they were robbed from the Eastern Church in some of the ugliness that characterized the crusades).

This Tuesday I will be attending my first definitory. This is a meeting of the council of Assistant Generals and the Minister General. We have three assistant generals for Europe, one for North America, one for Latin America, one for Africa nd one for Asia.

I have begun to explore Rome a bit already. Today I went to the Church of the Gesu. This is the headquarters of the Jesuits, and it is only a couple of blocks from where I live. The Church is a masterpiece of Baroque. That is not my favorite art style. I prefer the Gothic which is simple and clean. In the baroque, sometimes it seems as if the heavens are vomiting cute little angels all over the place.

The church was dedicated just after the Council of Trent, and it shows a few of the changes in theology effected at the council. There is no narthex or entranceway. One walks directly into the body of the church. The idea was that no one should be able to hide away in the entranceway of the church during Mass and chat away while Mass was going on. For a similar reason, there are no side aisles. The Church is one large open expanse. There are major relics there of St. Ignatius (his body), St. Francis Xavier (his arm - the rest of his body is in India where he was a missionary), the body of St. Joseph Pignatelli, and the arm of St.Andrew Bobola (I still don't understand why we Catholics cut the bodies up, I just don't find it respective to the remains.)

I live on the 4th floor of my buiilding (which in American buildings would be considered to be the 5th floor because here they count the first floor as the ground floor). There is a beautiful terrazza outside of my room which I can walk upon for my daily walk. (It beats the heck out of trying to dodge tourists in the streets.)
It's odd, one part of me feels everything is new and confusing, and the other feels as if I have always been here.)

I have finished a few books. The first was a CD of Deep Black, Dark Zone by Stephen Coontz. This is not really a recommended one. It was a cheap attempt at a spy novel about the bombing of the Chunnel (the train running under the English Channel) and the Eiffel Tower.

I finished Magic Terror by Peter Straub. This was a collection of truly disturbing short stories. Some of them were ghost stories, other murder stories. I did not so much enjoy as get through it.

I also finsihed a set of tapes called Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman. This was the story of a young American who went to China to teach English and studied martial arts with one of the best experts in the world. It was well written. I'm not sure at all that the experiences would be the same (although some of the beaucratic stories are still valid in many parts of the world, including Italy), but is was good. He even draws a connection between the discipline required to become a good caligrapher and doing martial arts which requires a thoughful and artistic stance.

I'll be here in Rome for the week and then back to the States next Mohday.

Take care and Shalom
fr. Jude

PS I am not that good of a speller, and unfortunately when I write this blog in Italy and try spell check, every English word comes up as misspelled. I'll do the best I can, but please forgive any mistakes.

Packing up

2010-10-25T06:51:00.000-07:00

October 25, 2010

Peace and Good,

This past week involved the end of one apostolate and the beginning of another. A week ago I finished my last weekend retreat at the Dominican Retreat House in McLean, VA. Then on Monday I flew out to Louisville to visit on of our American Provincials, fr. Jim Kent. He is the provincial of Our Lady of Consolation Province. This is one of five provinces in the US, one of two Midwestern provinces.

Geographically, it is extensive. It runs from Minnesota to New Mexico to Ohio. There are around 100 friars in it. fr. Jim filled me in on some of the projects of the province. They have spent an enormous amount of spiritual energy to renew their community life. This has been an ongoing project for the past ten years, and the friars feel that it has borne serious fruit in the quality of life together as friars.

They are also very mission oriented. They were one of two jurisdictions to found the province in Zambia where they still have four active friars. They still have a close bond with the friars there and have offered a number of forms of assistance over the years (e.g. with the guidance of a lay volunteer, they sponsored leadership training programs for the people in charge in the province and in various other associated activities).

They also founded a custody in Central America that especially serves the poor in Honduras and El Salvador.

They are not making an outreach to our relatively young province in India to help them develop their apostolates and assist them any way that they might.

I was incredibly impressed by the outreach to these needs. Most impressive was their outreach to India. We friars often assist jurisdictions that we have founded, but India was not founded by these friars. Yet, they have reached out to them.

The main apostolates for the province are parish ministry and retreat work. They have four retreat houses in Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana and New Mexico. They also have a number of friars in education, especially at the university level.

I came home in time for dental surgery. That evening I came down with the flu. Don't you love it. I'm just feeling better now just in time to pack.

People keep asking me whether I am excited about going over. I am not sure that I can use that word. I have absolutely no doubt that the Spirit is behind it, so there is a real feeling of trust. It will all be well.

I finished a few books. The first is actually two short essays on Rembrandt by Josef Israels and Mortimer Menpes. We know so little about this incredibly talented artist. His style went out of fashion even before his death. He lived a bit of an extravagant life style that bankrupted him. Yet, his works are incredible. His mixture of shadow and light take ones breath away.

I read a work on China and the Manchus by Herbert Allen Giles. The last dynasty that ruled Chine before it became a republic at the turn of the 20th century was actually a group of foreigners from the north. They ruled China for some 300 years, and this was an overview of their reign.

Finally, I finished the River War by Winston Churchill. Yes, it is that Winston Churchill. He is actually a good author, although incredibly prejudiced against Africans, Indians, Irish, etc. This is an account of how Egypt and Britain reconquered the Sudan after a rebellion there led by a religious figure who claimed to be the Messiah (Mahdi).

I'll write you from Rome next week.
Shalom
fr. Jude

The Last Hurrah

2010-10-18T06:37:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2010

The Feast of St. Luke

Peace and Good,

This past week has been a whirlwind of getting ready to head over to Rome. There were dental appointments, packing, etc. All has come off quite well.

I have not yet taken my oath of office but already I have begun to assume some of the duties. I am a liaison between the General Offices of the order and the provincials. I am not quite sure what that will mean, but at the very least I will be translating communications to and from Italian into English for each side.

This past weekend I preached my last retreat before I begin those responsibilities. I was at the Dominican Retreat House in McLean, VA for a preached men's retreat. There was a group of around 40 men. It is interesting to notice the different dynamics between men and women on these retreats. Men especially want time to sit and ask questions about the faith and life, etc. Women tend to want more quiet time and one on one discussions. The retreat house in McLean is a wonderful place, and the sisters there make it so welcoming.

Today I fly out to Louisville to meet one of the provincials. Most of the others I will meet when I return from Rome in November, but this provincial will be out of the country. This is just a fact finding trip and to get to know him a bit better and he to get to know me.

I found out that many of my theology books will end up at our house of studies in Nairobi, Kenya. I am thrilled. They will be put to good use.

I finished a number of books and tapes. The first was a book on Mary Tudor by W. Llewelyn Williams. She is commonly known as "Bloody Mary" because of the many Protestants she put to death during her reign. Williams is more balanced that many other authors I have read on the topic. Mary comes across as trapped between divergent choices that led to disastrous results, rather than being a paranoid murderer.

The second work was the Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe. I have heard about this short story forever, but I had never read it. It is a wonderfully gothic tale of tragedy and doom.

The third book was by Carmen Callil and it was called Bad Faith: A forgotten history of fame, fatherland, and Vichy France. It is the story of how an anti-Semite among the French collaborated to deport so many Jews to their deaths during World War II. The Vichy period has always fascinated me because most French like to ignore it or downplay how much they collaborated with the German occupiers. The fact is that most people just did what they had to survive, a small minority actively fought the occupation, but about the same number actively collaborated with the occupiers.

A fourth work was the Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Again, I have always seen this title, but had never read the book. It was the source for the story portrayed in Apocalypse Now. It is the story of a trader in ivory who goes mad and becomes the god for a tribe in the backwoods of Congo during the 19th century. It is well written and fascinating. It always amazes me that Conrad was such a good author even though English was not his native language for he was Polish by nationality.

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Packing up

2010-10-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

October 11, 2010

Peace and Good,

This past week I have been home sorting through things and deciding what I will be taking to Rome. It is for three to nine years, so it is a pretty definitive move.

The greatest difficulty was sorting out books. I a scholar, a lover of books, and a person who has an uncanny ability to find inexpensive book stores. This means that I have many, many books. I am giving away most of them. Some will go to our novitiate library, some to the library of the house of studies for our men in Washington, some to a student from Africa who is doing Bible studies, and some will be send to Africa for a seminary library.

I will take most of my clothes, but leave some here in the States for when I make visits. In my job, I will be back at least a few times a year to meet with the provincials and for other events.

It is a good feeling to get rid of much of what I have. I really don't need most of it. Even with books, I will be next door to the school where I did my Bible studies (the Biblicum), and as an alumnus, I have library privileges.

This past weekend I preached a retreat for a group of Secular Franciscans in Priestfield, WV. The seculars and candidates were great. It was a privilege to spend time with them. Priestfield is also a wonderful retreat house. It is the best food I have ever had at a retreat house, and the staff goes out of their way to be helpful and friendly.

I finished a few books.

The first was Pyrrhus by Jack Abbott. This was a Greek king who lived shortly after Alexander the Great. He is famous for having won a Pyrrhic victory (which means that he won, but he lost so many of his own troops in the victory that it all but destroyed his army). He was an incredibly restless soul, running from one war to another and never settling down to enjoy the fruits of his efforts.

The second was a book called Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World War by Chris Bellamy. This was an incredibly complete overview of the invasion of the Soviet Union and its eventual victory over Nazi Germany.

The third was a book called Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk. Pamuk received the Noble Prize for Literature many years ago. This is the story of his youth in the city of his birth, and how he eventually came to write. One gets a very good sense of the spirit of the times and the turmoil of his own soul.

This week I am heading to Buffalo for a couple of days to visit family. This weekend I will be giving my last retreat for quite a while to a group of men at the Dominican Retreat House in McLean, Virginia.

Take care and
Shalom
fr. Jude

Getting Ready for the Move

2010-10-05T03:52:00.000-07:00

October 5, 2010

Peace and Good,

I hope that all is well with you. I was in Sacred Heart Parish in Kingston, Ontario this past week giving a parish mission. Kingston is an archdiocese but is not all that big. It is a very old diocese (either the oldest or second oldest English speaking diocese in Canada). The friars are stationed there.

The theme was the Gospel of Matthew. I based the evening talks (Sunday through Thursday) on that Gospel. Then, in the morning, we had sessions on the other Gospels.

One of the themes from the Gospel of Matthew is how St. Peter receives the keys of the kingdom. This is a theme which leads us to a consideration of the papacy. Last week, CNN was running an expose on what Pope Benedict knew about the abuse scandal. After the main talk, I invited those who wished to remain and discuss the abuse situation. I didn't want to impose that discussion on everyone, but I wanted to give everyone who wised an opportunity to talk about it. I think the discussion went very well. We didn't solve anything, but we were able to talk in a loving and pastoral way. Even though there was a lot of emotion expressed, there was a deep feeling that the Spirit was guiding our discussion.

On Friday I drove back to the States, stopping in two friaries on the way home. I stopped in the friary at Assumption Basilica in Syracuse for coffee with the friars. The friars there run an incredible apostolate (or rather multiple apostolates gathered in the one site). They are truly serving the poor in so many wonderful ways.

I then stopped for supper and an overnight at Mother Cabrini Parish in Shamokin, PA. This is a combined parish, and again, the friars have done a wonderful job of serving the people by binding the disparate groups into one parish family.

I am now in the process of packing and getting ready to go to Rome. I will be going over there on October 26th for a first visit (10 days). I will be back on November 8th. Then, in early December, I will be going over there for good.

I finished a number of works this week. The first is Unconscious Comedians by Honore de Balzac, a 19th century French author. It is about a country bumbkin who visits Paris for some business and runs into his cousin who introduces him to the corruption of the big city. It is a novella and quite good.

The second was Act of Treason by Vince Flynn. This was about a vice presidential candidate who had his wife killed in a supposed terrorist attack in order to win the election and get rid of her. This is a CIA, action packed story. It is not all that good, but rather OK.

A third is Deep Sleep by Greg Iles. A war photographer searches for the murderer of her twin sister in New Orleans. Her sister was the subject of a mass murderer painter who kills young women and then paints them. Some of the story is quite implausible, but overall it is a good read.

The fourth is Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey. This is a long series of vignettes on people living in Los Angeles. They go from a Hispanic young woman who worries about her looks to a gay male movie star who almost ruins his career by his heedless life style to a wino living on the beach to a young run away couple trying to survive. Like LA, the pace is fast, jumping from one topic to the next. It is really quite good.

Take care and
Shalom
fr. Jude

A funny thing happened on the way to the Forum

2010-09-25T12:11:00.000-07:00

September 25, 2010

Peace and Good,

My title signals something unusual that happened to me this week. I was preaching a mission at Sacred Heart Parish in Newburgh, NY (an Italian parish with about 2,000 families). On Tuesday I received a phone call from my Minister General (the big boss). He and the general counsel were meeting in Poland, and they had approved the suggestion of the English speaking provincials that I should be made an Assistant General of the order.

This had all started on September 1st when I received a call from my provincial, Fr. James. He was meeting with the other English speaking provincials in Montreal, and they had discussed the various candidates for this position. It was to fill out the six year term of Br. John Joseph Dolan, a very good and holy friar, who had passed away earlier this summer. There are another three years until the next general chapter. Fr. James asked me whether they might submit my name for this responsibility. I was all but speechless. I didn't expect it, I never even wanted it. I loved what I was doing, the preaching apostolate. But Fr. James said that he and the other provincials felt it was the call of the Holy Spirit. That was all I needed to hear. I had to say yes.

Right now I am preaching my last parish mission at St. John's parish in Kingston, Ontario. All the other missions on my schedule must now be cancelled. I feel bad about this, but when you're summoned to Rome, you don't say no.

My new responsibilities will be to participate in the general counsel, to be a liaison with the general government of the order for the English speaking jurisdictions, and whatever else the general assigns me. I will probably be travelling a little less, but the travel with be farther ranging.

For now, I will be keeping up this blog. We will see if that is possible in the future. I also intend to keep up the daily reflections, God willing.

I have finished a few works this week. One of them was an abridged book on tape called McNally's Dilemma by Lawrence Sanders. It takes place in Palm Beach, Florida, among the rich crowd that lives there. McNally is a type of detective who lived a devil make care life. It is just a loose, not too serious work.

A second work was Dracula by Bram Stoker. I have seen a million films about vampires. This is more or less the origin of all of them. It is really a masterpiece of Victorian horror. The book is so much better than any film I have ever seen. Much of the action is described in terms of diary entries of the main characters. If you have never read it, it is well worth reading.

The third book is Black Notice by Patricia Cornwall. I usually like her books about Kay Scarpetta, the medical examiner for the State of Virginia. This was not her best book. It is a little far fetched in spots, and it is a bit vindictive at times. She seems to like to portray women as scheming and jealous.

I won't give you my future calendar because, with my new assignment, that is changing by the day. I will be going over to Rome from October 26th to November 8th to begin to move in and for our first counsel meeting. Then I will come back to the States to finish off the arrangements. In early December, I will head over there for the next three years.

Please keep me in your prayers.

Shalom

fr. Jude

Sacred Heart Parish, Newburgh, NY

2010-09-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

September 19, 2010

Peace and Good,

Hope all is well! I finished up my mission in Iowa. Holy Rosary Cluster has five sites and one priest. A couple of the sites are relatively close, but a couple of them are over 20 miles from each other. It is a real challenge.

The people of Iowa are very much like all the people whom I have met in the mid-west. They are honest and friendly and straight forward. It was a pleasure working with them this past week. I had a morning and evening session at each of the sites, one of each of the Gospels and one on the Acts of the Apostles.

I flew back to Baltimore on Friday, and picked up the van and headed up 95. I drove as far as Trenton, NJ and stayed there for the night. Then I drove the rest of the way the next morning. The parish I am in now has about 2,000 families. It is called Sacred Heart, and it was originally an all Italian parish. They still have a Mass on Sunday morning with the readings and songs in Italian.

I finished a few works this week. One is a book by G.A. Henty called When London Burned. I had read a book by him earlier in the year about the battle of Agincourt. He wrote a large number of books about English history - historical fiction. He died around 1900, and his books are basically feel good stories of heroism. Once in a while it is good to read something simple like that.

The second book I finished was a biography of Kosciusko by Monica Gardner. K. was a Polish aristocrat who fought with the Americans during our revolution. When he returned to his native land, he fought the dismemberment of his own country by Russia, Prussia, and the Austrian empire (the partitions). He led a rebellion, and was eventually imprisoned by Catherine the Great. He was only liberated during the reign of her son.

The third book is actually a work in three volumes called Traditions of the North American Indians by James Athearn Jones. It was published in 1830, and purports to be a series of stories told by native Americans. I am not sure if all of the stories are authentic, but it was good reading and gave me a bit of insight into their culture.

My schedule for the next weeks is:

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

In the Heart of Iowa

2010-09-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

September 11, 2010

We pray today for those who died in 9/11, for their families and friends, and for those who caused those terrible events.

Peace and Good,

I spent the past week at home in Ellicott City catching up on a few things. I am home so rarely that my few days home are filled with doctor's and dentist appointments as well as meetings with either people for whom I am a spiritual director (which I love doing) or with others. I had to run up to Totowa, NJ, to pick up the freshly printed Lectors' Workbooks that I put together for this coming liturgical year. This week also included a meeting with my new provincial, Fr. James. The provincial is the boss for a group of friars in a geographic area (in our case Buffalo, Boston and Baltimore with friaries in the southeast). We both travel so much that this meeting had to be arranged a couple of months ago. Fr. James and I have lived together, so it is easy to discuss matters on many different levels.

Yesterday I flew out to a parish cluster in northern Iowa. This is a grouping of five different sites, each of which has a church. There is one priest who handles this arrangement very well. I heard yesterday that the average Sunday attendance at Mass is over 80% which is astounding. I will preach one night in each of the sites as well as having a morning session in four of them.

I finished a few works this week. One was Sunday's at Tiffaany by James Patterson. This books can best be described as cute. It is definitely a feel good book and it is quite funny. It was a nice book to relax.

A second book was Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe: 1520-1536 by James Reston, Jr. This is a great history book about an incredibly traumatic period in European history. It concerns the moral decline in the papacy, the reformation of Martin Luther, the break of Henry VIII, the invasion of Europe by the Muslims, etc. If you like history, this is a great book. Not relaxing, but informative.

The third work was a rendition of the Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain. I obtained this from librivox.org. They have taped books which can be downloaded for free. This is a typical Twain story. It is told in four parts (almost like four movements of a symphony). He tells the story of how a perpetual gambler is cheated, then he gives the story in French, then he gives the English translation of the French translation (which is very funny), and finally he speaks of how he was told that the story was actually an ancient Greek story (which it turns out not to have been).

My coming schedule is:

09/18/10 - 09/23/10 - Sacred Heart, Newburgh, NY 12550 p.o.c. Sr. Mary McCarthy/Most Reverend Dominick J. Lagonegro (Parish Mission)

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

The Gospels and the psalms

2010-09-03T11:49:00.000-07:00

September 3, 2010

Peace and Good,

This past week I have been in Mishawaka, Indiana. This is where we have our interprovince novitiate. The Conventual Franciscans have five provinces in the United States, and we collaborate on some levels of our formation of the new friars coming into the order.

Remember a couple of months ago I preached a retreat to the new novices. This week I gave them and a group of five sisters from the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist a workshop on the four Gospels (for our Franciscan life is based upon those Gospels) and the Psalms (which we pray throughout the day in our recitation of the Divine Office. The psalms especially can be difficult to understand, for they were written between two and three thousand years ago, and their symbolism can be very foreign to us today. Yet, as a Church, we are praying these psalms throughout the world. There is not a minute throughout the day or night that someone is not praying for the Church and for us. That can be a real consolation, especially for those who are in difficulty and for some reason cannot seem to pray for themselves (e.g. when they are depressed).

Tomorrow I head back to Ellicott City. I have a couple of days off, and then a series of meetings with various people and various medical and dental appointments (have to get them in while I am home).

I have finished a few works. The first was a book on tape called Simple Genius by David Baldacci. I like his writing, but this probably is not his best work. It is a story of the murder of a genius at a research center which lie next door to a CIA training facility. Not a bad read, just not the best.

The second book was a taped version of the Matarese Countdown. This is by Robert Ludlum. Normally, I love his writing, but once again, this was not his best work. I just had the feeling that he "phoned it in," giving a substandard performance because he knew that he could sell books just by his name being on the cover.

A third book, a history, was excellent. It is called Operation Mincemeat by7 Ben Macintyre. It is the story of a hoax which the British Secret Service put over on the Nazi's during World War II. The allies were getting ready to invade Sicily, and everyone knew it. They were afraid that the opposition of the Italians and Germans would be too intense. Someone came up with the idea of dropping a dead body in the sea with false documents that implied that the allies intended to invade Greece and Sardinia instead. They dropped the body off of Spain, knowing that even though Spain was neutral, they were really secretly collaborating with the Nazi's. There is a nerve wracking section where the Spanish find the body, but refuse to turn the documents over to the Nazi's. The British don't know what to do, because the last thing that they could do is apply too much pressure or the Spanish and Germans might think that the documents are false. Fortunately, they eventually turn them over and the Germans fall for the trick.

The following is my schedule for the next few weeks:

09/11/10 - 09/16/10 - Holy Rosary Cluster, Elma, IA 50628 p.o.c. Fr. Ray Atwood (Parish Mission)

09/18/10 - 09/23/10 - Sacred Heart, Newburgh, NY 12550 p.o.c. Sr. Mary McCarthy/Most Reverend Dominick J. Lagonegro (Parish Mission)

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

God bless and Shalom,

fr. Jude

PS Please remember that we are seeking some money to print a translation of my articles as a book in India (in the native language of Kerala, the region where kthe friars are located). We need $3,000. If you can help in any way, please send your donation to Evangelization Office; 12290 Folly Quarter Rd; Ellicott City, MD 21042.

A bit of time off

2010-08-26T06:08:00.000-07:00

August 26, 2010

The 100th Birthday of Mother Theresa of Calcutta

Peace and Good,

This past week I was at a retreat house in Faulkner, Maryland (run by the Jesuits) giving a retreat to a group of Maronite seminarians. There were six of them. The Maronites are an Eastern Rite centered in Lebanon. They are of the Syrian tradition. In the East, there are two major tendencies. One is the Greek tradition such as the Byzantines and the Melkites. The other is the Syriac tradition. The Maronites were founded in Syria, and they migrated to Lebanon over the course of time. They now have two dioceses in the United States. It was interesting to compare the traditions in the East and the West. This is especially true when one considers the Gospel of John which was the major theme for the retreat of the week. As I would speak of the Gospel, the seminarians would speak of the Eastern Fathers and how they had said exactly the same thing. This makes sense, for the Gospel of John was written in this world. It is filled with a profound spirituality which is the characteristic of the Eastern Church. It really made me want to read more of those fathers.

I am taking a week off this week, staying at a condo that the friars have in Ocean City. I'm not too much of a sitting of the beach person. I do love to hear the waves. Ten minutes of them and I am totally calm. I am spending most of the week reading and cooking for myself.

I have finished a few works this week. One was a novel called The Surrendered by Chang-rae Lee. It is a very interesting work. It has stories about China and Korea during the Second World War and the Korean Conflict. It travels to the US as well as Italy. There is quite a bit of violence due to the wars. All of the characters are very flawed characters. They do the best they can, but their baggage is so great that the best they can do is not all that good. It was well worth reading.

A second work is called from Yao to Mao by Kenneth Hammond. This was a course from the Teaching Company that gives a very long study of the history of China from its earliest days until the present. It was very well done.

A third work was a book called The Perfect Heresy: The Revolutionary Life and Death of Medieval Cathars by Stephen O'Shea. This is the story of a heresy that surfaced around the time of St. Francis and St. Anthony of Padua. It was a dualistic heresy which spoke of the good and the bad and how they were totally opposed. The Catholic Church first fought against them with words, but then attacked them with a crusade. Some of the episodes were brutal. As the Catholics were invading one town, a soldier asked the monk leading them how they could distinguish who was Catholic and who was heretical. His answer was that they should kill them all and let God sort out the good from the bad.

Much of the warfare was not all that religious. It was the attempt of certain medieval lords and the king of France to conquer territory, using religion as a sanctimonious excuse. This is not to say that there were not real, honest attempts to bring people back to the faith (e.g. St. Anthony, St. Dominic). Overall, though, it is a sad story.

This is my schedule for the next few months:

08/28/10 - 09/03/10 - St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN 46544 p.o.c. Br. Paschal (Novitiate Talks)

09/11/10 - 09/16/10 - Holy Rosary Cluster, Elma, IA 50628 p.o.c. Fr. Ray Atwood (Parish Mission)

09/18/10 - 09/23/10 - Sacred Heart, Newburgh, NY 12550 p.o.c. Sr. Mary McCarthy/Most Reverend Dominick J. Lagonegro (Parish Mission)

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

God bless and Shalom,
fr. Jude

What an Event!

2010-08-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

August 18, 2010

Peace and Good,

What an incredible event the closing of the Our Lady of Consolation Novena was. I had been preaching this novena in honor of Our Lady in Carey, Ohio, since August 6th. On the evening of August 14th we had the closing of the novena and the opening of the celebration of the Solemnity of the Assumption. All that day people were arriving by car and bus. There were literally thousands of people there. Then, at nine in the evening, we had a procession to a local park (run by the shrine) where we celebrated Mass with the bishop of Toledo. There had to be four to five thousand people there, all with their candles, praying the rosary as we marched along. Throughout that day many of them had gone to confession. There were just so many good and holy things occurring in that day. Many of those who attended were from the Chaldean rite, a group of Iraqi Catholics who are in union with Rome.

While I was in Carey, I met a priest who had been reading my articles on scripture for decades. He had translated many of them and would like to publish them as a book. He lives in Kerala, India, and he translated them into Malayalan (I think that is the spelling), the language of that area. This is the most Christian area in all of India. The friars cannot afford the publishing cost, so he asked me to ask you if anyone would like to help them. It will cost about $3,000. Once they sell the books, it will be a fund to be able to publish other books and pamphlets in the future. If you could help, please contact us at our address of:

Evangelization Office
12290 Folly Quarter Road
Ellicott City, MD 21042

Thank you for considering this.

This week I am at the Jesuit Retreat House at Faulkner, Maryland, giving a retreat to the seminarians of the Maronite Rite (from Lebanon). There are six of them, and they are really a joy to work with. The theme of the retreat is the Gospel of John and how our priesthood should be a greater falling in love with our Lord.

I have finished a few books and courses.

The first is France since 1871 by John Merriman. It is a course from Openculture.com. Merriman is entertaining, but he has a fault of going off on a tangent and rarely getting back to the main theme. He also has a bit of an ax to grind with the Church, always citing the fact that he went to a Jesuit High School as his credential to be able to criticize it.

The second work was Bismark, the foundation of the German Empire by James Wycliffe Headlam. It is biography of Bismark. It is a bit too reverential to him, always excusing his lying, manipulations, etc.

The third work was the Great Upheaval. It speaks about the world toward the end of the 18th century. This was the time of the American and French Revolution and the reign of Catherine the Great of Russia. It is by John Wink, and is a well written book, worth the time to read.

Here are my assignments for the next couple of months:

08/28/10 - 09/03/10 - St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN 46544 p.o.c. Br. Paschal (Novitiate Talks)

09/11/10 - 09/16/10 - Holy Rosary Cluster, Elma, IA 50628 p.o.c. Fr. Ray Atwood (Parish Mission)

09/18/10 - 09/23/10 - Sacred Heart, Newburgh, NY 12550 p.o.c. Sr. Mary McCarthy/Most Reverend Dominick J. Lagonegro (Parish Mission)

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

A Novena for the Feast of the Assumption

2010-08-11T16:13:00.000-07:00

August 11, 2010

The Feast of St. Clare of Assisi

Peace and Good,

I am in day 6 of a novena to Our Lady of Consolation at the Shrine of that name in Carey, Ohio (about 60 miles south of Toledo). The shrine is run by the friars of one of the Mid Western provinces, named after Our Lady of Consolation. They have a tremendous turnout during the novena, especially from Chaldean people from the Detroit area. Chaldeans are one group of Eastern Rite Catholics from the Iraq area. I worked with many of them when I was a student in Rome. They had fled Saddam Hussein in the early 80's, and I worked with various groups to help get them resettled. It is good to see them again here.

I am working on various themes throughout these days. So far I have preached on the power of prayer, why pray for the intercession of the saints, Mary as a model of prayer, Mary as a model of service, the Immaculate Conception, and tonight I will speak about Mary as a model of faith and discernment.

The friars here have been most welcoming. It is great being a friar - I feel that I am home all throughout the world.

I have finished a few books this week. The first is actually a college course I picked up on freeculture.com on the Rise and Fall of the Second Reich by Margaret Andrew. This was about the rise of Bismark and the unification of the German state in the 1870's. The course was good, but I could not believe how Bismark lashed out against the Catholic Church so severely. Many sisters groups in the United States were founded in those days when he expelled them from Germany. He did say toward the end of his life that this was the greatest mistake he had every made. He wanted to unify Germany by making everyone belong to a state church (Lutheran), and he didn't like the fact that the Catholic Church answered to a power outside of Germany's borders (the pope in Rome).

A second book I finished was Queen's Consort: England's Medieval Queens by Lisa Hillen. This dealt with with queens of England from the time of William the conqueror until the days of Henry VIII. It was quite good and informative. For example, one of the queens (I can't remember which one now) inherited the toll on London Bridge but failed to improve it physically, which was why the children's song, "London Bridge is falling down" began.

A third book was a biography of John Newton by Jonathan Aitken. His name might not be familiar, but he is the author of Amazing Grace. He worked as a slave ship captain before he converted and became an Anglican minister. It is a good story of conversion and a truly holy man.

My schedule for the next weeks is as follows:

08/05/10 - 08/15/10 - Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Kerry, OH p.o.c. Br. Jeffrey Hines (Novena)

08/28/10 - 09/03/10 - St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN 46544 p.o.c. Br. Paschal (Novitiate Talks)

09/11/10 - 09/16/10 - Holy Rosary Cluster, Elma, IA 50628 p.o.c. Fr. Ray Atwood (Parish Mission)

09/18/10 - 09/23/10 - Sacred Heart, Newburgh, NY 12550 p.o.c. Sr. Mary McCarthy/Most Reverend Dominick J. Lagonegro (Parish Mission)

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

On the Road

2010-08-06T05:51:00.000-07:00

August 6, 2010

The Feast of the Transfiguration

Peace and Good,

I'm a little late this week getting the blog done, but a couple of things got in the way. First of all, there has been travel. I have driven over 1200 miles since this past Saturday. There was the travel from the Chautauqua Institute to Ellicott City, then I travelled up to Totowa, New Jersey and back to meet with my publisher, then from Ellicott City to Carey, Ohio, where I begin a Novena to our Lady for the Feast of the Assumption at the Shrine of Our Lady of Consolation.

The Chautauqua Institute was incredible. It is a cultural institute founded by the Methodists in the late 1800's (originally a tent meeting sort of gathering) on the shore of Lake Chautauqua in south-western New York State. During the season there are bout 12,000 people there. There are lectures, concerts, operas, plays (including plays in progress where one gets to give feedback to the author), etc. The Catholic House is right across a walkway from the outside concert hall, so one can sit on the porch and listen to the lectures or the concerts throughout the day. The Catholic House does have a number of rooms which they rent out. They choose the occupants with a lottery every November, and the price of the rooms is very reasonable (although there are other fees for participating in the activities of the Institute). The people are all relaxed. Everyone is walking or biking around the grounds. It reminds one of a small town in the old days.

A second reason why this blog is so late is that I had a tear duct infection which began ten days ago. At first, I thought it was just an allergy to something, but it got worse and worse until I had to go to the Emergency Room. They gave me antibiotic drops, and I didn't realize how badly I felt until I started to get better. It is incredible that such a small thing can throw one off so much.

I finished a few books/tapes this week. The first is the Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. This is a book about the beginning of World War I. I had read it a number of years ago, and it was worth rereading. Tuchman is a very good popular historian (although she does not like the Catholic Church).

The second book was A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. This is one of the classics I picked up on my Kindle Reader for free, and I had seen this title for years and wondered what it was about. It speaks exactly about what one would think, the chronicles that an author produces during a year of an attack of the bubonic plague upon London. One sees the reactions that one would expect from a tragedy of such incredible proportions unfolding in the midst of a major city. People flee, panic, try various good and not so good solutions, hunker down, are selfish, are selfless, etc. The plague only really dies out when the city of London suffers from the great fire which burns out the disease. It is good to read when one considers things like the Swine Flu and other new diseases that might hit our world without warning.

A third work was the CD's of a book called the Thirteenth Tale. It is set in England, and concerns a famous author who is dying and the woman whom she chooses to do her biography. The title comes from the fact that the author had written a book called the Thirteenth Tale, but the book only contained twelve tales. Everyone is wondering what the thirteenth tale might be. When one first starts it, it seems like a nice and proper English novel, but there are many wicked turns in the action. It is very well written and worth reading.

My schedule for the coming months is:

08/05/10 - 08/15/10 - Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Kerry, OH p.o.c. Br. Jeffrey Hines (Novena)

08/28/10 - 09/03/10 - St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN 46544 p.o.c. Br. Paschal (Novitiate Talks)

09/11/10 - 09/16/10 - Holy Rosary Cluster, Elma, IA 50628 p.o.c. Fr. Ray Atwood (Parish Mission)

09/18/10 - 09/23/10 - Sacred Heart, Newburgh, NY 12550 p.o.c. Sr. Mary McCarthy/Most Reverend Dominick J. Lagonegro (Parish Mission)

09/25/10 - 09/29/10 - St. John, the Apostle, Kingston, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. David Collins (Parish Mission)

10/02/10 - 10/06/10 - St. Raphael, Burlington, Ontario p.o.c. Fr. Maurice Richard (Parish Mission)

10/08/10 - 10/10/10 - Priestfield Retreat Center, Priestfield, WV p.o.c. Carolyn Protin (SFO Retreat)

10/14/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Evening for Married Couples)

10/15/10 - 10/17/10 - Dominican Retreat Center, McLean, VA 22101 p.o.c. Sr. Agnes (Men's Retreat)

10/22/10 - 10/26/10 - St. Julia Church, Siler City, NC 27344 p.o.c. Reverend James Fukes (Parish Mission)

11/06/10 - 11/11/10 - Sacred Heart, La Plata, MD 20646 p.o.c. Fr. Ron Potts (Parish Mission)

11/13/10 - 11/18/10 - St. Alphonsus, Wexford, PA 15090 p.o.c. Fr. Peter P. Murphy (Parish Mission)

A little bit of heaven: the Chautauqua Institute

2010-07-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

July 25, 2010

Peace and Good,

Today is the 29th anniversary of my ordination to the priesthood. I am celebrating at the Chautauqua Institute where I am one of two Catholic Chaplains for the week. The Institute was founded in the 19th century as sort of a religious-cultural summer camp. It has evolved into a major nine week cultural-educational institute which several thousand people attend. They have major speakers and presentations along with many, many lectures and exhibits, operas, concerts, etc. throughout the season. As chaplain, I am asked to celebrate Mass daily and be available for confessions, etc, as well as give a lecture during the week. My theme will be on the psalms.

This past week I gave a retreat to our incoming novices (nine of them) at Carey, Ohio. They are a very good group of young men, very enthused, very sincere. I spoke of various Biblical figures and what they have to teach us about vocation. It might be a book in the making.

Carey, Ohio is a Shrine to our Lady of Consolation. I will be back there next week to preach a novena in preparation for the Feast of the Assumption. I was very impressed with the set up. It has much to offer in terms of facilities and devotion.

I have finished a couple of books. One was called the Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak. This is a Turkish author, and the story is of the intersection of two largely female run families, one Turkish and the other Armenian. It has a couple of rough sections, but it is very well written and gave me tons of insight into the Turkish - Armenian situation (which is tense to say the least).

The second book was a biography about Thomas Edison by Frank Dyer and Thomas Martin. These were two colleagues of Edison, and the biography is fawning and at times overly technical. I was hoping for some insights into the person, but did not find them in this work. Yet, Edison was incredible, working on advancements in telegraph technology, on advancing the work of Bell on the telephone, the phonograph, the electric incandescent light, and the motion picture projector. Any one of those inventions would make a person famous, he did it all, in addition to working on various industrial projects (e.g. Portland Cement).

My schedule for the next weeks is:

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chautauqua Community, Chautauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conference

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Wisdom has bi\uilt herself a House

2010-07-20T09:59:00.000-07:00

July 20, 2010

Peace and Good,

I am doing well. This past week I preached a retreat to the Sisters of Christian Charity in Menden, New Jersey. Their convent is beautiful, on 106 acres of rolling hillside with many Canadian Geese and Deer wandering around the property.

I preached on the book of Wisdom: Sirach, Wisdom, Proverbs, Job, Quoheleth, Song of Songs and Psalms. They present the idea that God reveals through the everyday events of our lives. While it was incredibly hot in the New York area, the convent is nicely cooled. The siters were a joy, the oldest being 96 years old and the youngest in their 20's.

I had a nicely soundproof room where I was able to tape a large number of daily reflections for the internet. It is always difficult to find a place that is quiet enough to do that. You often don't notice until you notice the birds, airplanes, telephones, etc.

I flew back to Mishawaka on Sunday night and picked up my van and drove to Carey, Ohio. This is a Shrine church dedicated to Our Lady of Consolation. I will be back here in a couple of weeks to preach a novena before the feast of the Assumption. I am giving a retreat to the incoming novices in our community (there are nine of them). I am preaching on the vocation stories of various Biblical figures.

I finished a couple of books. The first was a biography of Margaret of Anjou, a French princess who married the English king during an especially chaotic period of their history. The book was by Jacob Abbott. I have already read one book by him, and a number of others are on the list.

The other book is The Czar's Spy by William Le Queux. The book started out good, but ended up sounding like the plot for a mystery dinner theater. It was written in 1905 and it really shows it.

My schedule for the next weeks is:

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conference

God bless and

Shalom,

fr. Jude

Preaching in New Jersey

2010-07-11T07:34:00.000-07:00

July 11, 2010

Peace and Good,

This past week I preached a retreat to the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration in Mishawaka, Indiana. There were also seven Carmelite sisters who joined us for the retreat. The theme was the Gospel of John, and how each of us is called to become the Beloved Disciple. There is a tremendous amount of symbolism in that Gospel, and I love unpacking it for others and applying it to our lives.

I was impressed with the devotion and simple joy of the sisters. It is wonderful that their community is getting a steady number of vocations. There is something very good happening among them.

The convent is right across the street from our novitiate. I was able to have supper a couple of times with our friars, and they always make one feel right at home. I will be back in that area next week to give a retreat to the incoming novices.

I flew yesterday to Newark, New Jersey to give a retreat to the Sisters of Christian Charity in Menden, New Jersey. I had given a retreat to another community of the same sisters in Danville, PA, either last year or the year before. The theme will be upon the books of Wisdom in the Old Testament.

I am still feeling a bit of my trip to Africa (my stomach, etc. are not quite right yet. There is such a different style of food and there are different microbes there that it usually takes me a couple of weeks to get everything back to normal. I try to offer up the discomfort for those who are suffering much more than I am.

I finished a couple of books this week. There was One Night in Boston by Allie Boniface. It is literally the story of a one day critical period in the life of a woman and the man whom she loves. It was one of the free books I obtained on my Kindle (many, many of the old books and some new ones are regularly offered for free). They do this to interest readers in the other works of the author. It was fairly good, but she tried to pack too much into that one night and at times it came across as forced.

A second book was Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Again, this was a free book on Kindle, and it is one of the classics that I have always wanted to read. It is enormously long, about 1,000 pages. Some critics of Tolstoy say that he is like God in the fact that he creates entire universes with all of the characters and all of the action that he lays out. This book is well worth reading, but it really requires a tremendous commitment. The premise of the book is that Anna, a basically good woman, leaves her husband and child for a flashy lover. That relationship eventually fails, largely because she is looking for a happiness that will never be there. She ends up killing herself. This tragic story is contrasted with another marriage which is slow to develop, but takes on the marks of domestic happiness. It is as if Tolstoy is laying out the options of life. The false path of selfishness and excitement rarely leads to true joy, but the quiet path of being true to oneself and those around one, even if that path is sometimes rocky, leads to self-discovery and peace.

My schedule for these weeks is:

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conference

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

I'm Back

2010-07-05T04:15:00.000-07:00

July 5, 2010

Peace and Good,

I hope that you enjoyed our holiday weekend. All is well with me.I arrived home in the States on Thursday. The trip to Ghana was great. Last Sunday I celebrated Mass in one of the local parishes. This was the first time I have celebrated a three hour Mass. They had asked that the homily be a bit longer, so I preached a 20 minuted homily. It was then translated into the local language. Every verse in every song was sung. Then, at the offertory procession, everyone dances up to place their offerings in the collection box, and since there were two collections that Sunday, this happened twice. There was a prayerful spirit all throughout the Mass.

The retreat with the seminarians went very well. It is always great to share ideas with men from all over a region, knowing that some of what one said will continue on after one has left the scene.

I found out that I was known even in northern Ghana. I was introduced to one pastor as Fr. Jude. He said, "The Father Jude Winkler?" It turns out that the friars in Ghana have been printing my articles in their magazine for years, and many of the people have read them.

I got to stand over an 8 foot crocodile. There are two ponds in Northern Ghana with the crocodiles in a place called Paga. The guides feed them live chickens for the tourists. The odd thing about the animals is that small children are swimming in the same pond where there are more than two hundred of them, and the crocodiles never harm the children.

I found a site where locals teach people the crafts of pottery and painting in the African style. They even have a few cottages where one can stay if anyone is interested. So often when one travels to a country in Africa, one gets to see the big city and maybe a game pack. This is right in the middle of where people live normal lives farming.

I finished a few books in these weeks. The first is a History of China by Wolfram Everhard. This overview of some 4,000 years of Chinese history was good. It is an incredibly volatile history, and reading about helps one understand why the present government reacts to things the way that they do. An example is the Falun Gong movement. They cracked down on them, even though they only claim to be a spiritual movement connected with types of exercises. Yet, this is exactly what various movements have done in the past which tried to overthrow the government.

The second book was the Arrow of Gold by Joseph Conrad. Conrad is Polish, but he is buried in Canterbury. It is incredible that he wrote in English, not his mother tongue. This is the story of a young man who is infatuated with a mysterious woman (rich, from a humble background, who is supporting a group of rebels in Spain). It waw very good. This is the first of Corad that I have read.

Finally, there was Julian, Woman of our Day by Robert Llewelyn. She is a mystic from the 15th century A.D. Her famous saying is that all will be well. She emphasized the incredible Mercy of God, and how God can cause good to come from everything, even from our sins. I had avoided Julian in the past because she was the latest thing. I always shy away from something that has gotten too much positive press. Now I want to read more about her.

My schedule for the coming weeks is:

July 4 - 10, 2010: St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN - Retreat for Sisters

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conferences

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Writing from Africa

2010-06-24T06:27:00.000-07:00

June 24, 2010

Peace and Good,

I am writing this blog in an internet site in Tamale, Ghana, West Africa. I am here to give a retreat to a group of seminarians (about 50 of them) in the major seminary studying for several dioceses in Northern Ghana and also Burkino Faso, to the north of Ghana.

It is aways a privilege for me to be able to share my insights with priests and seminarians. When I do it in foreign countries, I sometimes worry that they will not understand what I am trying to say because of our different cultures. That does not seem to be happening here. The young men are enthused about their faith and most generous in their service.

I have always loved the people of Ghana. I find them to be the most gentle and courteous people I have ever met. Whether that lasts when the US plays Ghana this Saturday night in the World Cup we'll have to see.

It is hot, hot, hot! I am taking all the precautions against heat stroke and malaria which is endemic in this area. Keep me in your prayers.

I have finished a couple of books in this time. The first is entitled At Agincourt by G.A. Henty. He wrote a series of stories around the turn of the century. They are based in historic situations. I was surprised how good a read it was. Agincourt was a great victory of the English over the French in the 15th century (the days of Henry V). Most of the story is an adventure story that leads up to the battle.

The second book is Through Russia by Maksim Gorky. Gorky was a Russian author who wrote at the end of the 19h century into the 20th century. In his latter days, he became a stooge of the Soviet government. This was written much earlier, and it presents a number of scenes from Russian life at the beginning of the 20th century. It is incredibly good. You feel like you're entering their lives and struggles. This is the first thing I have ever read by Gorky, but I will certainly read more.

My schedule for the next months is:

June 19 - 30, 2010: St. Victor's Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana - seminarian retreat

July 4 - 10, 2010: St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN - Retreat for Sisters

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conferences

Take care and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Provincial Chapter

2010-06-17T12:43:00.000-07:00

June 17, 2010

Peace and Good,

I arrived back in the States safe and sound. The trip was non eventful, but as always, long.

When I got back, I rested for a couple of days at my home friary in Ellicott City. It was very, very good to be home, even if only for a couple of days. I always suffer from horrible jet lag, and this was no exception. Today I am only now feeling OK. Saturday and Sunday my mind was so foggy that I just couldn't think. That was a little bit of a problem, because this week Tuesday at our Provincial Chapter, I had been asked to preach at a Votive Mass in honor of St. Anthony, the patron saint of our province. I decided that the Holy Spirit had to guide me in this. By Monday evening, I was back enough that I was able to put my ideas together. Then on Tuesday afternoon I gave the homily in front of the friars (around 200 of them). It is always toughest to preach before ones own. It went quite well, and the friars were appreciative. It was one of those moments when one feels the Holy Spirit working overtime.

This was also very good to remind me of what the Spirit has called me to do. At times I wonder why I was not asked to be one of the men leading the province, but I realize that this is just my own ego at work. God has other uses for me. I have to surrender to that call and respond with as much generosity as I can.

It has been wonderful to spend a week with the friars of our two provinces (the two eastern provinces which we have now agrees to unite in a few years time). During the chapter, we also decided to take spiritual responsibility for the friars in England and Ireland. They have gone through a several bad years, and their numbers are way down. Our new provincial was in charge of their jurisdiction for the past few years, and our Minister General (the big boss in Rome) asked our province to join with them so that we could help them get back on their feet. We voted overwhelmingly to do that.

I have finished a couple of books. One was a CD book called Echo Park by Michael Connelly. It was a detective novel, and it was quite a good story.

The second was a book called More Blood, More Sweat, and Another Cup of Tea by Tom Reynolds. It was the blogs of a London emergency vehicle worker. It was insightful, funny, tragic, etc. This is certainly a book I would recommend.

Please keep me in your prayers as I travel to Ghana this Saturday to give a retreat to some seminarians. I really don't know if I will have access to the internet there, so if you don't hear from me before June 30th, it doesn't mean that anything is wrong.

My coming schedule is:

June 19 - 30, 2010: St. Victor's Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana - seminarian retreat

July 4 - 10, 2010: St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN - Retreat for Sisters

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conferences

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Finishing up in England

2010-06-09T01:53:00.000-07:00

June 9, 2010

Peace and Good,

Well, just a couple more days in England, and then it is back to the States. I will only be there for a week, though, because then I fly out to Ghana, West Africa, to give a retreat to a group of seminarians.

These weeks in England have been great for writings projects. I finished 24 articles for the Messenger of St. Anthony in Padua, Italy. I have been writing for that magazine since 1982, an article a month. This puts me two years in advance.

I have also finished a children's book on St. Joseph. This coming year is the 100th anniversary of Catholic Book Publishing Company, and St. Joseph is their patron saint. This book will be the 100th book in the children's series that Fr. Lovasik started and I have carried through.

My courses are almost completed. I have one more class this afternoon, and then I have to correct a couple of papers before I leave.

I have finished a couple of books. The first is Infidels: A history of the Conflict between Christians and Islam. I'm trying to read more about Islam so that I might understand what is going on a little better. The first part of the book of Spain and the expulsion of the Moors and the Jews was excellent. The rest of the book was a bit of a disappointment. It was almost as if the author had tacked together a few articles and called it a book.

The other book was a Confessors Handbook by Kurt Stasiak, OSB. It is always good to read a spiritual reading book like that, especially when so much of my ministry involves confession.

My coming schedule is as follows:

until June 11: Canterbury, England - teaching

June 13 - 18, 2010: Provinicial Chapter, Buffalo, NY

June 19 - 30, 2010: St. Victor's Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana - seminarian retreat

July 4 - 10, 2010: St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN - Retreat for Sisters

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conferences

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Finishing Up the Trinity Term

2010-06-02T02:13:00.000-07:00

June 2, 2010

Peace and Good,

All goes well in not so sunny old England. We're still having cool weather, although they promise us that it will warm up in these days.

I have finished all of my extra adult ed classes. I am in the process of drawing to a close with my other three courses. I will absolutely finish next Thursday, and then Friday Fr. David Blowey (who is stationed here and is from St. Anthony Province) and I will fly back to Baltimore.

I got to visit London this past week. I love walking through the streets of London. It is a great city. Our friary in near Waterloo station, which means that it is within walking distance from most of the important sites in the city.

I visited what I think is the best book store that I have ever seen: Foyle's. Whereas other stores might have one or two books on a particular topic, Foyle's has a dozen. The only problem is that books (and everything else) are so expensive over here. I got out of the store after having bought only one book: a book on the Medieval age and how the Book of the Apocalypse influenced it.

I finished two books. The first is a biography of Cavour by Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Ceraresco. Cavour is one of the Italian patriots who was responsible for the Italian unification in 1870. He is an interesting character. He was the ultimate opportunist. He had his ideals, but he would wait for the proper moment to spring into action.

The other book was the 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad by Harrison Salisbury. This account was excellent. It speaks of the siege of Leningrad by the Nazis during the Second World War. It lasted almost three years. For good parts of that time, a city of more than two million people was completely cut off from any assistance from the outside.

As if this brutality were not enough, he also speaks of the brutality of the Soviet system which persecuted people even during this horific time (and after sent most of the heroes of the seige to prison or to be executed).

The following is my schedule for the next few months:

until June 11: Canterbury, England - teaching

June 13 - 18, 2010: Provinicial Chapter, Buffalo, NY

June 19 - 30, 2010: St. Victor's Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana - seminarian retreat

July 4 - 10, 2010: St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN - Retreat for Sisters

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conferences

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

It was warm for a minute

2010-05-26T06:33:00.000-07:00

May 26, 2010

Peace and Good,

I am still in Canterbury. This week I completed one of my courses on the Resurrection Narratives (the stories of the resurrection of Jesus in the four Gospels and 1 Cor 15). I am still teaching the other three plus a once weekly adult ed session.

The weather actually turned quite warm for two days this past week, but as I am sure you can guess from the title of this entry, it is cold again.

A group of people asked me to do a day of reecollection on the Holy Spirit as a preparation for the feast of the Pentecost. There were 28 participants, and I think it went quite well. I spoke especially of how difficult it is to get an accurate picture of the Holy Spirit, but that is OK, because the Spirit is so much more than we can picture or define. I also spoke of discerning what the Spirit wants of us, and also of the gifts of the Spirit and how we are to use them.

Please keep our friars in Kingston, Jamaica in your prayers. Things are always very violent there, and it seems as if the country is finally trying to address (which in the short run means extreme violence). The friars are outside of the city, but there is always a certain amount of danger in situations like this.

We have fixed the glitches with the daily reflections and I hope it will smooth sailing from no on. The next part of the project that I am going to address is to work on getting more spiritual reading reviews. The purpose is to give the friars a chance to give their recommendations on spiritual reading to whomever might read this site.

I finished two works this week. The first is called the Last Empress by Anchee Min. It is about the last empress dowager in the Chinese empire. It takes the story from her point of view. From the western point of view, she is always seen as a dragon lady. Yet, from the inside you see the tensions with which she was contending (family, national, international). It is easy reading and quite a good book to get an insight into that era of Chinese history (from 1860 - 1905).

The second work is a series of courses from the teaching company on the Greek and Persian Wars by John Hale. This covered the period from around 500 B.C. until the death of Alexander the Great. For history buffs, this was pure gold. The teacher has an excelent, exciting presentation style. I was quite impressed.

My schedule is as follows:

until June 11: Canterbury, England - teaching

June 13 - 18, 2010: Provinicial Chapter, Buffalo, NY

June 19 - 30, 2010: St. Victor's Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana - seminarian retreat

July 4 - 10, 2010: St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN - Retreat for Sisters

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conferences

Shalom,

fr. Jude

Still in Canterbury

2010-05-19T01:54:00.001-07:00

May 19, 2010

Peace and Good,

I am still in Canterbury. I am teaching four courses here, one of which I will finish next week. The other courses will run until I return to the States for the second session of our Provincial Chapter on June 11th.

The weather is slowly improving. It has gotten to 20 centigrade (I think that is around 70 farenheit). The countryside is magnificent. Everything is so green. Now, the cost for that is frequent rain, but there is always a price to pay.

I have added a few adult ed classes on scripture study for those who wish to attend. The first class last night was on the book of revelation. It was a two hour class, and we had about 25 attend. I was very pleased.

I have to apologize. We have had a technical glitch in our podcasts of scripture reflections. I hope that it will be fixed today.

Great Britian has a coalition government. It actually seems quite peaceful here. I am sure it is only a honeymoon, but it is good to hear it after weeks of election polemics.

I have finished two books this week. The first was a history of Julius Caesar by Jacob Abbott. He is an author from the turn of the century (C. 1900) who wrote a series of reflections on historic figures. It is not the most insightful book, but it gives the basic details. I always find that whenever I read history, I pick up something for by understanding of Scripture.

The second was a biography of Erasmus by Johan Huizinga. First of all, I was thrilled to read something by this author. I had read a book of his, The waning of the Middle Ages, when I was in the seminary in a course taught by Fr. Roger Haas. That was the first course that I realized how much our views of history can be influenced by the point of view of the author. Furthermore, Erasmus was a central figure in the development of the Renaissance. He studied and published critical editions of many Greek and Latin manuscripts, including a critical edition of the Greek New Testament. Many of his ideas were considered to be controversial, and some consider his a forerunner of the Protestant reformation (although he remained a Catholic until the day he died). The book was well done. Especially appreciated were a series of his letters which were included with the text, including a long description of St. Thomas More. The irony behind this book is that I picked it up at a store called Ollies, which is like Big Lots. Who else but I would have bought a book like this at Ollies?

This is my coming schedule:

until June 11: Canterbury, England - teaching

June 13 - 18, 2010: Provinicial Chapter, Buffalo, NY

June 19 - 30, 2010: St. Victor's Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana - seminarian retreat

July 4 - 10, 2010: St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN - Retreat for Sisters

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conferences

Shalom

fr. Jude

Not Merry Old England - Cold, cold England

2010-05-12T01:39:00.000-07:00

May 12, 2010

Peace and Good,

I am still in Canterbury teaching my courses. I have students from great Britain, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Cameroon,and Nigeria. It is always a challenge/blessing to teach such a diverse group. It makes you take stock of what is universal belief and what is culturally determined. So much of what we think is right and wrong is simply the way that we are used to doing it.

I will be giving a few adult ed classes as well over these coming weeks. People are so hungry for scripture that wherever I go, they ask for additional instruction.

One sister asked me to look over a short book that she has written. Again, it is privilege to help someone who is just starting out to write. I have been so blessed in that apostolate that I feel a strong obligation to help anyone who is starting out.

The weather is cold, cold, cold. We have gotten close to freezing a couple of night this week. It is supposed to warm up a bit at the end of the week.

I met a class mate of mine from Rome (back in the early 80's) who now lives in Canterbury. We did Bible studies together at the Biblicum (which, if you have ever been to Rome, is a few blocks from the Trevi Fountain). It was great to see him again after all these years.

I finished one book: England under the Tudors by Arthur Innes. I have always been fascinated by that era of history: Henry VII, his son Henry VIII, and then three of his children: Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth. These were not always the nicest of people, but they reigned in England at a crucial time when England was transformed from a backwater second class power to the ruler of the seas. Henry VIII comes across as talented, crafty, cruel, even paranoid and autocratic. Elizabeth is seen as great, and yet indecisive and devious.

My schedule for the next months is:

until June 11: Canterbury, England - teaching

June 13 - 18, 2010: Provinicial Chapter, Buffalo, NY

June 19 - 30, 2010: St. Victor's Major Seminary, Tamale, Ghana - seminarian retreat

July 4 - 10, 2010: St. Francis Convent, Mishawaka, IN - Retreat for Sisters

July 11 - 18, 2010: Quellen Spiritual Center, Mendham, NJ - Retreat for Sisters

July 19 - 23, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novice Retreat

July 24 - 31, 2010: Chatauqua Community, Chatauqua, NY - Priest in Residence

August 5 - 15, 2010: Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Carey, OH - Parish Novena

August 16 - 20, 2010: Maronite Seminary, Washington, D.C. - Seminarian Retreat

August 21 - 27, 2010: Ocean City, MD - vacation

August 28 - September 3, 2010: St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN - Novitiate Conferences

Take care and Shalom

fr. Jude

Merry Old England

2010-05-05T01:53:00.000-07:00

May 5, 2010

Peace and Good,

I finally made it to Canterbury. Our Franciscan Institute is situated about a 20 minute walk outside of the old city walls. Canterbury is a beautiful tourist town. I went down there last Friday and it was packed with students from France and Germany on their Spring break. It almost has the spirit of Assisi in terms of taking one back to earlier times.

I was originally to teach two courses this term. (They divide the school year into three ten week terms, this term being called Trinity Term because Trinity Sunday falls in it.) The courses were an introduction to the New Testament and the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and Acts. Just before arriving, I got some bad news. One of the OFM friars, Shamus, had a mile heart attack and I was asked if I could cover another two courses: Introduction to the Old Testament (Mostly for adult ed learners) and a seminar on the Resurrection Narratives (the stories of what happened when Jesus rose from the dead in the Gospels and First Corinthians). I teach Monday to Thursday, which gives me a good weekend to work on writing projects and to visit the sites.

Please keep Fr. Shamus in your prayers. His heart attack has turned out to be quite a bit more serious than they first thought.

The weather is just what I remembered it to be when I was here two years ago: cool and cloudy, almost gloomy. It should clear up in a couple of weeks.

The big excitement here is a general election in Great Britain tomorrow. There are three major parties, and it is possible that none of them will win an outright majority, which would mean a coalition government.

I finished one book: the second volume of the Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman. This volume went from his conquest of Atlanta (during the Civil War), he burning of a fifty to hundred mile swath to the Sea, and then the end of the war and the aftermath. Most of it is good reading, but he gets very defensive about two issues. The first is his march to the sea. He destroyed everything in his sight. His theory was that war is hell, and it would end sooner if people felt the consequences of their choices. Yet, he struggles to build a defense for actions that today we would consider war crimes. The other section in which he becomes defensive is his treatment by the Secretary of War at the end of the war. The Secretary of War released some information to the press that put Sherman in highly unfavorable light. He is very, very touchy about that, and he probably had a right to be.

My future schedule is:

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)

Keep well and Shalom,

fr. Jude

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2010-04-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

April 27, 2010

Peace and Good,

Well, if all goes well, I will finally be leaving for London tonight. Actually, these days home at Ellicott City have been great. I have been out on the road almost continuously since January, and this gave me a chance to be with my own community for a little more than a week.

I also got caught up on daily reflections. I am now finished through the end of June. That means I can turn to some of my writing projects and get some work done on them.

I will be teaching two courses at Canterbury. One is an intro to the New Testament, and the other an overview of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) and the Acts of the Apostles.

I finished one book this week: The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity: 1812-1822 by Harold Nicolson. This was a period of history that I always wanted to know about. I remember answering a question on my Regents Exam in High School about the Congress of Vienna. It occurred when Napoleon was defeated, and it was highly reactionary. The ogre/genius at the congress was the Austrian Foreign Minister named Metternich. He restored monarchies in all those countries that had become republics, forbade the formation of an independent Poland, etc. The book gives a good overview of the period, but it was heavy reading.

My schedule for the next months is:

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

A Funny Thing Happened to me on the Way to Canterbury

2010-04-22T08:26:00.000-07:00

April 22, 22010

Peace and Good,

Last week I was in Buffalo for our Provincial Chapter. A chapter is a gathering of the friars every four years to take stock of where we are and where we would like to go. We gathered along with the friars of the other eastern province because we had to make an important decision, whether the two provinces would join. My province is St. Anthony's Province and it was founded to serve Polish immigrants. The other province is Immaculate Conception Province and they served the Irish, Germans, and Slovaks. We overlap on the east coast. We voted overwhelmingly to unite in 2014. It is a good thing. It will bring up the numbers up to over 200, and it will give us the opportunity to look at our religious lives and ask whether they need some adjustment.

I was very impressed at the spirit of the friars. This was a difficult decision, and we tried to do it in a spirit of prayer and response to the promptings of the Spirit. Once could sense an openness on the part of the friars. That is what our lives are supposed to be all about. St. Francis even wanted to declare the Holy Spirit the Minister General of our order, because the Spirit should be the guide of all of our actions (ministerial, personal, spiritual, etc.)

This week, I was supposed to be in Canterbury beginning my courses, and then came the volcano. I am finally booked to fly out next Tuesday, God willing. It actually worked out well for me, for I have been on the road extensively this past Spring, as you have read. This gave me nine days at home.

I finished one CD series: The Catholic Church: A History by William Cook. This was a course from the teaching company, 36 lectures. Cook was excellent, honest and fair in his presentation of the history of the Church. It was not that there was so much new that I learned, but it is always good to go over it once in a while to review the details.

My coming schedule is:

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

Easter Week with the Psalms

2010-04-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

April 14, 2010

Peace and Good,

This past week I was in Hamburg, New York, my home town. I was giving a retreat to a group of Franciscan Sisters of St. Joseph, the group of sisters who taught me when I was in grammar school. What a privilege to return a little to the sisters who gave me so much while I was growing up. In fact, one of the sisters on the retreat was Sister Vincentia, my 5th and 6th grade teacher who was largely responsible for my vocation.

I had the privilege of studying sacred scripture when I was in Rome for my theology studies. One of the courses that I took was on the psalms. We as religious pray them every day, but so few of us had the opportunity to study their symbolism and meaning. I was able to share some of that with the sisters.

This week I am in Buffalo (just up the road) for our provincial chapter. This is a meeting of the friars which we have every four years to decide what we will be doing for the next several years.

I'll be flying to England this Saturday for a seven week stay in Canterbury to teach a couple of courses at the Franciscan Institute there. I am not sure how soon I will have access to the internet, so if this blog is not done every week, don't worry about me.

I finished one book this week: The Cardinal's Hat by Mary Hollingsworth. It was a very interesting book about a Renaissance Cardinal. He was the grandson of Pope Alexander VI and the son of Lucretia Borgia (not exactly the most righteous family). He was part of the nobility from a city in northern Italy called Ferrara. His brother was the count, and he was the bishop of Milan (and eventually Lyon). Most of the book deals with his account books (what his life style cost, how he bribed people to become a cardinal, etc.). It is not an edifying account. This cardinal was a generation right before the Church started its Trent reforms and the popes and cardinals became more dedicated to their religious duties.

My schedule for the next few months is:

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 Winkler

Holy Week at Home

2010-04-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

April 8, 2010

Peace and Good,

I was home all of Holy Week, and that was a real joy considering how much I have been travelling this past few months. Even there, though, I did have a few assignments.

Monday of Holy Week I gave a talk at Walter Reed Medical Center. The theme of the talk was our Lenten Practices: Conversion and Prayer. I am always pleased when I talk there. There is a small to medium size group in the chapel, and then it is televised throughout the center.

Tuesday evening I gave a talk to the Knights of Columbus in the local parish. The topic was the Passion Narratives in the Gospels. What a perfect time to give that talk. It was like an extended way of the cross.

From Thursday evening until Sunday noon, I was giving a Triduum retreat at Mariottsville Retreat Center which is not all that far away from our friary (so I was able to sleep at home each evening). There were about 20 on the retreat, and then we had the sisters who live there (The Sisters of Bon Secours) and outsiders joining us for the Triduum services.

I finished two books. I listened to HMS Surprise by Patrick O'Brien. This is a book in the Horatio Hornblower spirit. It was entertaining because it presents an archaic way of thinking. It is set during the Napoleonic Wars, concerning a captain and a ship's doctor who do great deeds of bravery.

I also finished the novella When Night Falls by Margaret Daley. This is a detective novel with a Christian background. Instead of ending up in bed every five minutes, the heroes pray and speak of their faith. The idea is great, the execution a bit heavy handed, but it was worth reading.

My schedule for the next couple of months is:

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

P.S. A belated Happy Easter!

Port St. Lucie, FL

2010-03-29T12:21:00.000-07:00

March 29, 2010

Peace and Good,

Last week saw me preaching in one of the friars' parishes in Port St. Lucie, Florida. It was great to see how loved the friars are there. We have a good, warm team of men who have done great things with the people there.

I drove down (two day ride). I love driving, both because the time in the van gives me a bit of time to myself, and I can listen to books on tape of the way there and back.

I was very impressed by the confessions on Saturday afternoon (three friars, or in this case four of us, from 2:30 until Mass time at 4:00). To me, that is a sign of a good parish, people regularly going to confession. They also piled in when I offered it every afternoon of the mission as well as Thursday when we had two penance services with multiple confessors.

One other thing that truly impressed me is that all Masses, services, talks, etc. are streaming onto the internet site for the parish. This was set up a few years ago, and it makes services available to the sick, funerals and weddings available to distant relatives, talks available to all. The initial set up is a bit expensive, but the monthly fee is about $150, which is really not all that bad. What a service to the parish and the larger Church.

I finished two books. One was a free book that I read for fun. You might notice that most of the books that I read are history or some other deeper topic. Once in a while I just read something to relax. This was one of those free books on my Kindle (e book). It is Already Dead by Charlie Huston. It has everything: vampires, zombies, New York gangs, etc. It was quite well written.

The other book was a CD set: The Messenger by Daniel Silva. Once again, it had everything: terrorist plots, the Mossad, the Vatican, art lovers, etc. It was once of those books that you listen to while you drive, and you find yourself sorry to have arrived at your destination.

I would like to ask a prayer for one of our friars who passed away recently: Fr. Bernard Prczywozny (sp?). He was one of my professors, and he was a gifted teacher. Yet, these last few years were not kind to him, and he suffered from dementia of some form. It was so sad to see him incoherent when he was so brilliant.

The following is my schedule for the next few months:

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)

Historic Southern Maryland

2010-03-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

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

Back to the Snow

2010-03-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

March 15, 2010

Peace and Good,

After getting back from San Diego, I drove up to Erie, PA. All of the Baltimore snow had melted in the week while I was out in San Diego, but there was still a lot of snow on the ground when I arrived in Erie.

This was my second time at Our Lady of Mercy Parish which is on the east side of Erie in Harborcreek, PA. This time the theme was the Holy Spirit. Sunday I spoke of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, Monday the Holy Spirit in the Gospels, Tuesday the Holy Spirit in the Letters of Paul, and Wednesday the Holy Spirit building up the Church (for this was the tenth anniversary of the new parish church building).

The community is very warm and there is a family atmosphere that impressed me. The music is very well done and really adds to the liturgy. The snow even melted as it was time to leave and drive back to Baltimore.

One of the evenings one of the parishioners challenged me a little. I had given a couple of examples about teenagers, using my usual sense of humor. He asked whether it might be a bit of age-ism. At first I thought that it wasn't because I make jibes at every age, trying to get us to laugh at ourselves. But then I prayed more upon it and, as always, there might have been a little truth in what that person said. It is so easy to speak about others by objectifying them, making them an object of humor instead of respect. I apologize to whomever I might have done that in the past.

One of the things on TV really upset me this week. Glen Beck spoke about checking out whether one's church preaches social justice and, if it did, leaving that church. Social justice has been our Catholic teaching for the past 130 years. It is what Jesus spoke about when he told the stories of the poor Lazarus, the sheep and the goats, etc. This is one instance where we have to challenge ourselves in our political position and ask whether politics or our faith is more important. (Obviously, this is just as true for the opposite end of the political spectrum which rejects the values of life and proposes moral teachings that are unacceptable.) Somehow, we have to ratchet back a bit the polemics in our political dialog and find common ground, otherwise we will tear each other apart.

I finished listening to two CD sets and reading one book this week. The first CD set was a course of 12 lessons from the Teaching Company on the Late Middle Ages by Philip Daileador. I love history, so it was a great presentation for me. This was a period of great changes in the world and the Church. Listening to presentations like this always give me more raw material to make part of the picture.

The second series of CD's was Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis. Kiedis is the lead singer for the Red Hot Chilly Peppers, a rock group. Their music is very original, and I like them as a group. This was Kiedis' autobiography. Talk about sex, drugs, and rock and roll. He was on drugs from his earliest days, led there by the example of the dissolute life style of his father (a wantabe actor). The way he treats women and the way he talks about sex is really sad. He is a user of people. But when he speaks about drugs and how he all but destroyed his life is a true life lesson. HE spoke of how one cannot force another to give up the drugs. The best way to draw others to sobriety is by living one's own conversion. As I listened to his presentation, I realized that this is true of religion also. One cannot force conversion, one can only invite others, and the best invitation is a life of authentic holiness.

The book I finished was the first volume of the Memoirs of General William T. Sherman. It is similar to the memoirs of Grant that I read a few months ago, but it does have its own spin. The only problem with the presentation is that Sherman fills it out with letters and reports and telegrams that he had in his archives, thus sometimes treating the same incident several times. I believe there are three volumes to this memoir. The first one went from his birth to just before he enters Georgia in the Spring of 1864 (remember, this is when he made his famous march to the Sea, burning everything from Atlanta to Savanna).

Hope Lent is going well.

Shalom

fr. Jude

Here is my coming schedule:

03/19/10 - 03/25/10 - St. Lucie, Port St. Lucie, FL 34983 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Szanyi (Parish Mission)

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)

07/19/10 - 07/23/10 - St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN 46546 p.o.c. Br. Paschal (Novice Retreat)

07/24/10 - 07/31/10 - Catholic Community of Chataqua, Chataqua, NY 14722 p.o.c. Ellie Lesser (Priest-in-Residence)

08/05/10 - 08/15/10 - Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Kerry, OH p.o.c. Br. Jeffrey Hines (Novena)

Last week on the West Coast

2010-03-09T07:35:00.000-08:00

March 9, 2010

Peace and Good,

I passed the past week giving a parish mission in St. Thomas More Parish in Oceanside, CA. This is a medium side parish which is preparing to build a Church. They are now using a room that is a gym/auditorium but they have decorated it quite well. It makes a great worship space.

The theme of the mission was Gospel life. The four evening talks were on the Gospels, with the last evening a presentation on Luke as part of the parish penitential service. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning I spoke about the heroes of the faith: St. Paul, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and St. Peter. There was a great turnout for all of the talks.

They have a great practice there. I like to notice the different things that they do in various parishes to share the ideas with others. I noticed that in the prayer of the faithful they remembered the thirty day and one year reminders of the death of parishioners. It was such a nice thing to do - to remind the community that the deceased are still one with us.

I finished one short book, a novella, this week. It was a free offering from my kindle, sort of an advertisement for the author's works. His free book was The Hunters by Jason Pinter. It was a good read, a detective/journalist book. His writing is good enough to make we want to read other works written by him.

Here is my calendar for the next several months:

03/13/10 - 03/17/10 - St. Joseph, Pomfret, MD 20675 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Smith/Ron Weaver (Parish Mission)

03/19/10 - 03/25/10 - St. Lucie, Port St. Lucie, FL 34983 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Szanyi (Parish Mission)

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)

07/19/10 - 07/23/10 - St. Francis of Assisi Friary, Mishawaka, IN 46546 p.o.c. Br. Paschal (Novice Retreat)

07/24/10 - 07/31/10 - Catholic Community of Chataqua, Chataqua, NY 14722 p.o.c. Ellie Lesser (Priest-in-Residence)

08/05/10 - 08/15/10 - Our Lady of Consolation Shrine, Kerry, OH p.o.c. Br. Jeffrey Hines (Novena)

God bless and

Shalom

fr. Jude

Back to California

2010-03-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

March 1, 2010

Peace and Good,

Well, it's back to California for the last time this season. The rest of my Spring will be on the east coast and then in England and Ghana.

I was in a parish in Southern Maryland this past week: St. Aloysius. They are celebrating their 300th anniversary as a parish. Isn't that incredible. They date back all the way back to colonial times. Many of the parishes in that part of Maryland were founded and staffed by the Jesuits for many, many years. Their work there is truly appreciated.

Southern Maryland is so different from the area around the friary in Ellicott City. There it is more northern, transplants from various eastern states who moved there for work. Southern Maryland there is more tradition, an older feel. The accent is noticeably southern.

The theme of the mission was the Eucharist as a way of looking at the 300th anniversary to celebrate the past, take stock of the present, and prepare for the future. There was a good turn out, and the weather cooperated this past week (which is good considering the winter they have been getting there this winter). I enjoyed my stay there, and the people and staff were most welcoming. The parish is in Leonardtown, and given that it is so far out of the city, there is quite a bit there to see and visit. Some great restaurants, and a great used book shop, etc.

Friday morning I was supposed to fly back to the west coast, but my flight was cancelled the night before because of an impending storm (Southwest gave be great warning so I could rebook my ticket from home and not show up at the airport and find out in the morning). I ended up taking the late afternoon flight, so I got in later on Friday and have been fighting jet lag ever since (with as much as I travel, I am still subject to terrible jet lag).

I have finished three books this week. The first was a biography of Catherine the Great of Russia by Henri Troyat. You might remember that I read a biography of Tolstoy by the same author. I very much like his style. Catherine was an interesting character. A reformer in so many ways, but also an autocrat and at times a tyrant. She wasn't even Russian, for she had married into the royal family. She was a German princess, but she worked to become truly Russian.

A second book was a biography of Pope John XXIII by Thomas Cahill, the author of How the Irish saved Civilization. I love John XXIII, but the biography was a bit painful. Cahill has such an ax to grind against the Church that he spends the first third of the book just outlining what he considers to be mostly bad popes. You want to say to him give it a break, just tell the story of this extraordinary character. What he does tell of him only make one want to know more about him.

The third book was one I read on my kindle: The Sea Wolf by Jack London. I had never read any of his works. This is a story of a dandy in San Francisco who, by accident, ends up on a ship that hunts seals. The captain is an interesting figure. In some ways, he is a great thinker, but in other ways he is a brutal animal. It asks the age old question of how one opposes bullies and evil people. There is a bit of a love story at the end, after the man finds himself and learns how to survive the ravages of nature and the danger of the captain. It was a good read.

You might have noticed that the web site has been remodeled. Congrats to Joe Hamilton, the head of our development office. He did a great job. My calendar will be on the web calendar in the future.

Here are my next sites:

03/06/10 - 03/10/10 - Our Lady of Mercy, Harborcreek, PA 16421 p.o.c. Rev. Gerald Ritchie/Donna Clark (Parish Mission)

03/13/10 - 03/17/10 - St. Joseph, Pomfret, MD 20675 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Smith/Ron Weaver (Parish Mission)

03/19/10 - 03/25/10 - St. Lucie, Port St. Lucie, FL 34983 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Szanyi (Parish Mission)

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)

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Back to the Cold Weather

2010-02-22T07:27:00.000-08:00

February 15, 2010

Peace and Good,

I am writing this in Southern Maryland where there is still snow on the ground (although it is melting fast).

Last week I was in El Cajon, California. The area has a remarkable number of appartments and trailor parks, so there is quite a high population density. The parish's name is Holy Trinity. It has a mix of Anglo, Hispanic, and Chaldean (Eastern Rite Catholics from Iraq).

I had worked with Chaldeans while I was in Rome. There were 2,000 of them there and they had fled persecution under Saddam Hussein. The United Nations High Commisioner for refugees in Rome was an Iraqi Muslim, so they were not categorized as refugees. They could not work, and at that particular moment, the United States had made it difficult for them to enter (because we were backing Iraq in their war against Iran). I worked with the Caritas International and the World Council of Churches to get them assistance and resettled. They were people who had suffered for the faith over centuries. There is a large population of them in California now, and more a coming in as they fear what will happen when the Americans pull out of Iraq.

Something comical happened to me on Ash Wednesday evening. I was doing my daily walk in the parking lot around 9 P.M. A car pulls up and a lady asks for ashes. I told her that everything was locked up. She signaled to me to give her some of the ashes on my forehead. I bent down, and she took some and put them on her own forehead. First time that has ever happened to me. I am sure that there is a homily in it somewhere (e.g. sharing what you have, doing penance along with others?).

My mission went until Thursday and then I flew back to Baltimore. Talk about a quick turnover. I arrived in my room around 9 P.M. and was getting in the car to drive 2 hours to the next site by 6:30 A.M.

I finished one book: Mornings in Florence by John Ruskin. He is a 19th century art critic. He has very strong opinions, but some incredibly beautiful insights. I really appreciate people who can look at a piece of a sculpture or a frescoe and speak of this and that so that they allow you to go beyond what is in front of your eyes. Florence is such a beautiful city, and this relatively short book presents itself as a walking tour of some of the sites for a six day period.

I forgot to tell you a story from the parish I visited the week before last. There is a Vietnamese priest there named Fr. Joe and he spoke to me of how he fled Vietnam when the Communists were taking over. He was walking a beach near his home with another priest (not dressed as a priest). The communists were only a short distance away. He did not have the money to seek a passage on one of the fishing boats that were going to take refugees out to the American boats. He starting speaking with the owner of a boat, and the owner just happened to say that when his father had fled from the Communists in North Vietnam in 54, he had a priest on board and everything had gone well. (He, himself, was not a Catholic.) He said he wished he had a priest to take on his boat now. Fr. Joe identified himself as a priest, showing him the official card identifying him as such. The man then asked Fr. Joe if he knew another priest because his brother was also taking out a boat. Fr. Joe said that the man he was walking with was another priest. Remember, there is no such thing as coincidence. Coincidence is God's way of acting anonymously.

Here is my coming schedule:

02/27/10 - 03/04/10 - St. Thomas More, Oceanside, CA 92056 p.o.c. Kathleen Bell (Parish Mission)

03/06/10 - 03/10/10 - Our Lady of Mercy, Harborcreek, PA 16421 p.o.c. Rev. Gerald Ritchie/Donna Clark (Parish Mission)

03/13/10 - 03/17/10 - St. Joseph, Pomfret, MD 20675 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Smith/Ron Weaver (Parish Mission)

03/19/10 - 03/25/10 - St. Lucie, Port St. Lucie, FL 34983 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Szanyi (Parish Mission)

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)

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Better here than there

2010-02-15T10:52:00.000-08:00

February 15, 2010

Peace and Good,

I'm still in San Diego, on the third week of a three week stint. This past week I have been listening to the weather channel almost non-stop and calling the friars to see how they were doing in Ellicott City. Their snow reminds me of the snows that I experienced growing up in Buffalo. In fact, the weather channel was using the comparison that there was more snow in Baltimore than in Buffalo. Incredible.

This past week I was at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Lakeside. This is on the east side of San Diego County, and it is a rural area with a lot of horse farms. Something about the area and the lake reminded me of Reno. (I often have these feeling as I am travelling from place to place.)

The theme of the mission was basic conversion, making Christ the center of our lives. Monday was spent talking about our addictions (attitudes, activities, possessions) that get us into trouble because they become too important for us. Tuesday was on the dignity to which Christ calls us, for we are given the responsibility to help transform the world in his image through our prayer and also we are called to serve the broken to show his love to them. Wednesday (which was the healing service), I talked about suffering. Thursday the theme was the sacraments of Reconciliation and the Eucharist. There was a good crowd both in the morning and the evening.

I finished a series of CD's from the teaching company called the Classics of Russian Literature by Irwin Weil. This was 36 half-hour lectures. I have been listening to them as I take my daily walk (c. 45 minutes). The series was very good, and it introduced me to a whole different world of thought. I am in to Russian literature and history lately, and this gave me a great overview.

I also finished a book entitles The Activist: John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, and the Myth of Juridical Review by Lawrence Goldstone. We all know that the Supreme Court can declare a law unconstitutional. Yet, that power can not be found in the actual constitution. It comes from a decision made by the Supreme Court in its early years. The author explains how the decision came about in a difficult period of politics in America (the Federalists had been defeated and the Jeffersonians had taken power, the first transfer of power to another political party in America). We speak of activist judges, etc., yet even one of the most literal interpreters of the constitution, Judge Scalia, recognizes that the Supreme Court needed this power. It is a good study, although occasionally it gets a bit heavy with legal terms.

Here is my coming schedule:

02/20/10 - 02/25/10 - St. Aloysius, Leonardtown, MD 20650 p.o.c. Fr. John T. Drakes (Parish Mission)

02/27/10 - 03/04/10 - St. Thomas More, Oceanside, CA 92056 p.o.c. Kathleen Bell (Parish Mission)

03/06/10 - 03/10/10 - Our Lady of Mercy, Harborcreek, PA 16421 p.o.c. Rev. Gerald Ritchie/Donna Clark (Parish Mission)

03/13/10 - 03/17/10 - St. Joseph, Pomfret, MD 20675 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Smith/Ron Weaver (Parish Mission)

03/19/10 - 03/25/10 - St. Lucie, Port St. Lucie, FL 34983 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Szanyi (Parish Mission)

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 Chapter)

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

God bless and
Shalom
fr. Jude

St. Gregory the Great: Award Winning Church

2010-02-08T11:21:00.000-08:00

February 8, 2010

Peace and Good,

I am now in California. The first parish on this three week series in San Diego was St. Gregory the Great. It is an incredibly beautiful Church. It was awards for the magnificence of its church architecture. From the outside, it has a copper dome that reminds one of an Orthodox Church. The inside is filled with columns and lines that almost overwhelm one.

The missions was on the Gospel of Luke. I covered many of the major themes in the Gospel including compassion, prayer, discernment, forgiveness of sins, the Blessed Virgin Mary, etc.

On Saturday morning I had a session with the ministers in the parish. There was a tremendous turn out and I spoke on the psalms as forms of prayer for people involved in the ministry.

Once again, confessions were great. We had a healing service on Wednesday night that was well attended. I perform a semi-charismatic anointing. The people are seated, which means that no one is slain in the Spirit. I do this because I always found it distracting when people would fall down (both for me and for the people being anointed). People would begin to measure the value of the service by how many people fell, and if someone didn't fall, that person often felt cheated. This way it is quiet and peaceful.

I finished three books this week. The first was the House of the Seven Gables by Nathanael Hawthorne. Year ago, when I was a seminarian, we visited Salem and we saw a house that would have been similar to that which Hawthonre writes about. (It wasn't the exact house, for he, himself, writes that his idea was more of an amalgam than an actual house). I always wanted to read the story, but never got to it. I found Hawthonre's descriptions incredible. He can go on for pages speaking about the simplest thing. The book is about a family curse that carries down generations, and is only healed with love. I would recommend the book.

The second book was Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World by Margaret Macmillan. It was about the break in the cold war front between China and the United States. The book was well written and gave all the necessary information to see all sides of the picture. The only difficulty is that it occasionally did not speak enough of the fact that Mao did evil, evil things. If you haven't done it yet and you have the stomach for it, it is worth reading an objective biography of him. Yet, the book gives great insights to both Nixon and Kissinger.

The third book was the Balkan Wars 1912-1913 by Jacob Gould Schurman. This is an obscure period, but these two war actually set up much of the difficulty that led to the First World War. The book was not especially well written, but it was informative.

This is my schedule for the next couple of months:

02/13/10 - 02/18/10 - Holy Trinity, El Cajon, CA 92019 p.o.c. Reverend Brian Hayes/Connie (Parish Mission)

02/20/10 - 02/25/10 - St. Aloysius, Leonardtown, MD 20650 p.o.c. Fr. John T. Drakes (Parish Mission)

02/27/10 - 03/04/10 - St. Thomas More, Oceanside, CA 92056 p.o.c. Kathleen Bell (Parish Mission)

03/06/10 - 03/10/10 - Our Lady of Mercy, Harborcreek, PA 16421 p.o.c. Rev. Gerald Ritchie/Donna Clark (Parish Mission)

03/13/10 - 03/17/10 - St. Joseph, Pomfret, MD 20675 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Smith/Ron Weaver (Parish Mission)

03/19/10 - 03/25/10 - St. Lucie, Port St. Lucie, FL 34983 p.o.c. Fr. Mark Szanyi (Parish Mission)

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.

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

Out to the West Coast

2010-02-02T07:03:00.000-08:00

February 2, 2010

Feast of the Presentation: Candlemass Day

Peace and Good,

My mission in Plantation, Florida, went well. This was a large parish just to the north of Fort Lauderdale. The church is currently undergoing a massive renovation. The previous church had burned down, and they had built a replacement in a hurry a number of years ago. The present pastor decided that this was the time to renovate it so that it might better serve the needs of this large, diverse community.

These weeks, the confessions have been great. There have been a number of the "big fish," those who had not been to confession for a long, long time. It is such a blessing to be available for that.

The theme was "making Christ the center of our lives." I spoke of how our brokenness and sinfulness get in the way of following Christ. I also spoke of the incredible dignity to which God has called us, especially as we see in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

This week I am in San Diego, specifically Scripts Ranch.

I have not finished any books this week. Next week I should have a few completed. (I'm always reading several at a time, reading at least 10 pages in each every day.)

Lately, I have been reflecting about why some news programs are so difficult for me to watch. One of the things that I have noticed is that some of the reporters love to yell at the listener, as if that will make what they say more credible. It bothers me both because I do not appreciate being "talked down to," and also the aspects of demagoguery that seem to be involved. This complaint hits both sides of the political spectrum. I have to keep praying on it so that I can find more peace in this turbulent environment.

Here is my schedule for the next weeks.

02/06/10 - 02/11/10: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Lakeside, CA - Parish Mission

02/13/10 - 02/18/10: Holy Trinity Catholic Church, El Cajon, CA - Parish Mission

02/20/10 - 02/25/10: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Leonardtown, MD - Parish Mission

02/27/10 - 03/04/10: St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Oceanside, CA - Parish Mission

03/06/10 - 03/10/10: Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church, Harborcreek, PA - Parish Mission

03/13/10 - 03/17/10: St. Joseph Catholic Church, Pomfret, MD - Parish Mission

03/20/10 - 03/25/10: St. Lucie Catholic Church, Port St. Lucie, FL - Parish Mission

03/29/10: Walter Reed Army Medical Center - Noon Mass & Talk

03/30/10: St. Louis Catholic Church, Clarksville, MD - Knights of Columbus Talk "The Passion Narratives"

God bless and

Shalom

fr. Jude

West Florida to the East Coast

2010-01-25T08:36:00.000-08:00

January 25, 2010

The Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul

Peace and Good,

I had a mission this past week in St. Joan of Arc Parish in Spring Hill, Florida (about 45 miles north of Tampa). It is a medium sized parish and most of the parishioners are retired. The mission centered on the Gospel of Luke. We had an excellent turn out all week, and the confessions were especially moving.

Most of my extra work these past couple of weeks has been catching up on the daily reflections. I have finished up to the end of February, so I can go back to a couple of my writing projects.

I finished two books in this period. One was a biography of Leo Tolstoy by Henri Troyat. The biography was very, very long (as fits Tolstoy whose novels go on forever). They say that he was almost like God, because he created and peopled an entire world in each of the books that he had written. Troyat is a French scholar, and the book was extremely well done. The only problem is that it does not especially make you like Tolstoy. He had wonderful ideas of pacifism and non-exploitation of the poor, but he was also incredibly judgmental. He and his wife had a very stormy relationship. He died, in fact, when he was running away from home. In his younger years, he made all sorts of resolutions and didn't keep a one of them. They say that in his books his characters show the various dimensions of ideas and show the positive and negative throughout their lives. His characters are very similar to what he is.

The second book that I finished was a biography of Alexander II of Russia by Edvard Radzinsky. Right now I'm on a bit of a Russian kick. This was the czar who liberated the serfs (who were often treated as little better than slaves). He was assassinated by anarchists who prefigured the characters of the Russian revolution. Again, the book was very, very well written, presenting and insight both into Alexander and into the minds of the revolutionaries.

Here is a copy of my calendar for the next couple of months:

01/30/10 - 02/04/10: St. Gregory, the Great Catholic Church, San Diego, CA - Parish Mission

02/06/10 - 02/11/10: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Lakeside, CA - Parish Mission

02/13/10 - 02/18/10: Holy Trinity Catholic Church, El Cajon, CA - Parish Mission

02/20/10 - 02/25/10: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Leonardtown, MD - Parish Mission

02/27/10 - 03/04/10: St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Oceanside, CA - Parish Mission

03/06/10 - 03/10/10: Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church, Harborcreek, PA - Parish Mission

03/13/10 - 03/17/10: St. Joseph Catholic Church, Pomfret, MD - Parish Mission

03/20/10 - 03/25/10: St. Lucie Catholic Church, Port St. Lucie, FL - Parish Mission

03/29/10: Walter Reed Army Medical Center - Noon Mass & Talk

03/30/10: St. Louis Catholic Church, Clarksville, MD - Knights of Columbus Talk "The Passion Narratives"

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

From the fridge to the fire

2010-01-17T12:46:00.000-08:00

January 17, 2010

Peace and Good,

Well, the retreat in Little Falls Minnesota with the Franciscan Sisters went well. There were over 50 of them (both sisters and some of their associates). The theme of the retreat was the Gospel of Luke, which provides ample material for a retreat or a parish mission.

I was impressed with the spirit of the sisters. There is a real sense of Franciscan hospitality in their mother house.

During the retreat I saw the terrible news about Haiti. That country is so poor and poorly run on a good day, and now this devastation. I was impressed with the coverage on CNN. Long before the other networks even reported it, Wolf Blitzer was covering it full time. He must have realized what a true disaster it would be.

At the end of the retreat I was asked to celebrate the funeral mass of one of the sisters, Sr. Seraphine. From what the sisters said, she had a great sense of humor and was a bit of a trickster. She was in her early 90's when she passed away.

I travelled home on Thursday night and flew out again on Friday morning, this time to St. Joan of Arc Parish in Spring Hill, Florida. The people here were complaining about how it got down to 19 last week, and I spoke to them of the fact that it got down to -19 in Little Falls (although, ironically, it was probably more difficult here than there because in Minnesota they build houses to withstand the cold but down here there is so little insulation). The theme this week, as well, will be the Gospel of Luke.

I finished a paperback that I picked up at the airport a while ago: Dark Harbor by Stuart Woods. It was a murder mystery, but not all that good. The characters weren't really developed nor was there that sense of mystery and surprise that I like in a book.

I also finished another book on my kindle: Dante and His Times by Arthur John Butler. This was one of the free books. I'm glad I didn't have to pay for it. It was OK at best. Yet, every time I read one of these books, I learn just a little bit more about the topic, so I guess it was not a waste of time.

My future schedule is as follows:

01/16/10 - 01/20/10: St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, Spring, Hill, FL - Parish Mission

01/23/10 - 01/28/10: St. Gregory Catholic Church, Plantation, FL - Parish Mission

01/30/10 - 02/04/10: St. Gregory, the Great Catholic Church, San Diego, CA - Parish Mission

02/06/10 - 02/11/10: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Lakeside, CA - Parish Mission

02/13/10 - 02/18/10: Holy Trinity Catholic Church, El Cajon, CA - Parish Mission

02/20/10 - 02/25/10: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Leonardtown, MD - Parish Mission

02/27/10 - 03/04/10: St. Thomas More Catholic Church, Oceanside, CA - Parish Mission

God bless and
Shalom

fr. Jude

From warm to cold

2010-01-10T15:04:00.000-08:00

January 10, 2010

The Baptism of Our Lord

Peace and Good,

This past week I was out in California giving a retreat to the seminarians at St. Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park (San Francisco). They are a good group of men. There were 56 of them from many different lands and backgrounds. They come from many of the different dioceses on the West Coast.

The theme of the retreat was the priesthood (this being the year of the priest). They especially seemed to enjoy the pastoral content - experiences that I have had in my priesthood.

Being in California, I received a jolt one morning when we had a c 4.0 earthquake (enough to feel it but not to knock anything over). This was only a couple of days before they had the much greater earthquake in northern California.

Thursday I flew to Chicago where I over-nighted, and then the next morning on to Minneapolis. You should have seen the looks on people's faces when I went through the airport with my sandals and no socks.

This week I am giving a retreat on the Gospel of Luke to a group of the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, MN. In California it was in the 50's and 60's, the other morning they reported that it was -19 during the night not to far from here.

I finished two books. One was for my spiritual reading: Saint Ignatius by Christoper Hollis. This book is quite old (I picked it up at a parish where they were throwing it out). It is written by an Englishman and shows a lot of 1920's English humor. It wasn't as detailed as I would have hoped, but it did give me a basic background on the conversion and life of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

The second book was Flannery: A life of Flannery O'Connor by Brad Gooch. This was an excellent book. Flannery was a Catholic fiction writer in the south after the war. She died of Lupus in the early 60's. She wrote mostly fiction, and much of it has a gothic overtone. Yet, she was very feisty, always ready with a retort to what she considered to be inane or hypocritical. She was a fervent Catholic (having her St. Thomas Aquinas right by her bedside). I want to read more about her and also read some of her stories. She fascinates me. I use one of her quotes in my homilies, "For those who are in love with God, they slowly realize that life is part of a divine conspiracy."

Here is my coming calendar:

01/08/10 - 01/14/10: Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls, Little Falls, MN - Sisters' Retreat

01/16/10 - 01/20/10: St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church, Spring, Hill, FL - Parish Mission

01/23/10 - 01/28/10: St. Gregory Catholic Church, Plantation, FL - Parish Mission

01/30/10 - 02/04/10: St. Gregory, the Great Catholic Church, San Diego, CA - Parish Mission

02/06/10 - 02/11/10: Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Lakeside, CA - Parish Mission

02/13/10 - 02/18/10: Holy Trinity Catholic Church, El Cajon, CA - Parish Mission

02/20/10 - 02/25/10: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Leonardtown, MD - Parish Mission

(Sometimes it makes me tired just thinking about it!)

God bless and

Shalom

fr. Jude