Rome

September 6, 2021 Peace and Good, This past week we met in definitory. During the week, we end up discussing events and needs from all over the world. Sometimes it makes your head spin when you have talked about situations in North America, Africa and Asia, all within a couple of hours. I have been translating a big project, a manual called Franciscan Discipleship (64 pages) over these past couple of weeks. I should finish the first draft this week, which puts me a bit ahead of schedule. I will be attending another meeting all this week. It is for the new provincials and secretaries of the provinces who were elected in this past year. We will be conducting this at the Seraphicum, our house of theology at the edge of the city. The weather has been warm. The European Community has just downgraded the status of the US again, making it a bit more difficult to enter. I am heading to the States this Sunday which will not be a problem, but coming back might be a bit tricky. I finished some reading: Great Masters: Tchaikovsky: His Life and Music by Robert Greenberg This is a Teaching Company course on the life and music of the great 19th century Russian composer Tchaikovsky. His personal life was strange. He married one of his groupies, but all but had a nervous breakdown when he moved in with her because he was gay and could not live as a heterosexual. He was also a pedophile who was forced to commit suicide because he had an affair with the son of a high ranking member of the royalty. His music well illustrates his profound psychological turmoil, as Greenberg well illustrates. Peoples and Cultures of the World by Edward Fisher This is a series of lectures by an anthropologist who gives some insights into the organization of various cultures and their economic systems. The professor goes here and there, from the Amazon to Polynesia to the US. Some of the insights are very valuable, others less so. The Korean Woman by John Altman This is the story of a North Korean woman who has been trained by the secret services of that country to be a sleeper spy in the United States. At the same time, there is an American secret service agent who is trying to launch a group of missiles against North Korea to catch them unprepared (in spite of the logical consequences to the South). The story is well developed. Blood Territory by Mark Whittaker This is the story of an investigator who travels to the northern territory of Australia to try to determine who had murdered a young man there. The police had arrested one of his former best friends and imprisoned him. Yet, there are other suspects, including the police themselves for the man murdered had submitted a lawsuit against the police for beating him up. Accidental Presidents by Jared Cohen This is the story of the various vice presidents who had taken over the presidency when their predecessors died in office (whether by illness or assassination). Some of them proved to be quite successful, e.g. Harry Truman. Others were non-entities who had been chosen for their office for political reasons. Probably the most successful of all had been Theodore Roosevelt who became president when McKinley had been killed in Buffalo, NY. This is a good book in the tradition of David McCullough. Odd Thomas: You are Destined to be Together Forever by Dean Koontz This is a novella in the Odd Thomas tradition. He is a fry cook in a California village who can see ghosts who come to him so that he might intervene on their behalf. The writing is great, and the reader is even better. Odd comes across as a decent young man who is doing the best he can in bewildering circumstances. The Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton This is the book by Merton which has been compared with St. Augustine’s Confessions. It is the autobiographical story of how he went from a Bohemian family with no beliefs to a Trappist Monastery. It is written in Thomistic language so I found its terminology a bit dates, but overall it presents a good story of how Merton abandoned a meaningless life for something which responded to his deepest hunger. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Rome

May 27, 2021 Peace and Good, I am still in Rome. We finished our General Definitory meeting this past Saturday. I did take a three day trip to Assisi to meet with some of the friars there. Going to Assisi is always like going home for a Franciscan. I spoke with all of the U.S. friars while I was there, along with the new Custos of Assisi (a man by the name of fr. Marco Moroni). The trains going to and coming from Assisi were all but empty. Going around Rome, I keep getting the sense that Italy is a few week behind the U.S. in its recovery. There is still a rule that only those over 50 can receive the vaccine. Furthermore, they are running into problems because instead of having to wait three weeks for the second dose, one has to wait six weeks (which is about the time when most Italians want to go on vacation). The weather here has been nice. It is not yet hot, but the rains have more or less ended. Next Tuesday I head to the States. I will start out in Atlanta, visiting three friaries in that area. Then I will go to Louisville, Baltimore, Buffalo and finally El Paso. I will head back to Rome at the end of the month of June. I hope by that time things have gotten better here. There was something in the news that the barriers for tourists in the EU were going to be relaxed for those vaccinated. I finished some books: Roman Arches by Charles River Editors This is a short treatment of the topic of the various arches that the Romans built throughout the empire. Unfortunately the author goes into great detail about individual arches which leaves the reader overwhelmed with detail. Probably the most useful thing in the story is the fact that while arches began as a sign of the triumph of a general into a sign of the power of the empire and the emperor. The Rise and the Fall of Alexandria by Howard Reid and Justin Pollard This is a masterful history of the great city of Alexandria from its founding by Alexandria to its downfall many centuries later. It especially deals with the importance of the library and associated centers of learning which created an intellectual flowering in the ancient world. I would highly recommend this particular volume. Sulla: the Controversial Life and Legacy of the Roman Dictator by Charles River Editors Sulla is famous as being the lst century BC dictator who established prescriptions, list of people who could be killed at will and the person doing the killing would receive a reward. This short treatment gives a more complete picture of Sulla and the reason why he began such a violent purge. It doesn’t quite wash his hands of the guilt, but it does put things in context. The Woman who would be King by Kara Cooney This is the story of Hatshepsut, the daughter of a Pharaoh of Egypt during the 18th dynasty. When her husband, who was also her brother, died, she became the regent for a young boy who was also Pharaoh. Over time, she accumulated more and more power and eventually had herself proclaimed co-Pharaoh. She even had statues with clearly masculine features carved to commemorate her reign. Her co-reign seems to have been peaceful, but many years after she died, her co-ruler had most of her monuments destroyed (probably because of something that was going on in that time and not because she was a woman). The Muralist by B.A. Shapiro This is a novel about a Jewish painter who is sponsored for an abstract mural by the WPA and through the intervention of Eleanor Roosevelt. She is also trying to save most of her family in Nazi occupied France and the Netherlands. The second level of the story is that of a great niece who is trying to find out more about her great aunt who at a certain time disappeared and was never heard from again. It is a well-organized, well written story. The Great Barrier Reef by Charles River Editors This is a quick study of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of eastern Australia. It deals with its discovery by European explorers, its significance, and the danger it faces with pollution and other forms of destruction. Stephen Fry by Audible Interviews This is an interview that speaks about Stephen Fry’s new show, Stephen Fry’s Victorian Secrets. While the Victorian period presents itself as a cultured and moral era, there was a lot of hypocrisy just under the surface. His views on morality are very libertarian, but his observations nevertheless have something to offer. The Chrysler Building by Charles River Editors This is an account of the construction of the Chrysler art deco building in New York. Unlike buildings like the Sears building in Chicago, this one was built not for the car company but from the wealth of the founder of that company. It was part of an effort to build the highest building in the world, which this was for a few months until the Empire State Building topped it. Dutch Painting in the Golden Age by OpenLearn This course deals with the height of Dutch Art in the 17th and 18th century. There is a big debate whether the artists were attempting to produce realistic art which mirrored what they actually saw, or whether there were hidden, often spiritual, lessons hidden in the choice of objects and their location in the paintings. While the symbolic interpretation has something to offer, one has to wonder how much, at times, the critic is reading into the object that might not be there. Keep safe. fr. Jude

Ho Chi Mihn City - Hanoi - Van Mon - Hanoi - Melbourne

April 14, 2013 Peace and Good, I hope you are all well. This has been quite some week. I travelled from Ho Chi Mihn City (Saigon) to Hanoi and from there to our leprosy clinic in Van Mon. The north is quite a bit cooler than the south. While it was hovering around 100 degrees in Saigon, it was probably in the 70's in Hanoi. Yet, it is very, very humid up there. There was mold on all the buildings. Our leprosy clinic is about three hours from Hanoi by taxi. The friars knew a taxi driver (a brother of one of the friars) who arranged the trip. We have one friar there right now. This is not ideal for Franciscans. We live in community. But the mission is very young, and we are just getting things set up. In Hanoi, we met fr. Benedict Baek, the Assistant General for Asia. Together we travelled to the clinic. Right now, there are a few activities already going on. The sisters and friar working there bring food to the poor, older lepers. The friar, James, teaches English to the children of the lepers (so that they can find better jobs in the future). And there is Eastern medicine, especially acupuncture practiced there. Because the leprosy causes great pain in the joints, the acupuncture relieves a lot of the symptoms. We met with the director and the assistant director of the leprosy village and charted plans for the future. We hope to accept some handicapped children shortly to care for them. The families are too poor to do this, and they do not have the skills needed to help the children progress. From Hanoi, I flew to Bangkok, then Sydney, Australia, and finally to Melcbourne. I have been there since visiting the friars of the Australian delegation. There are around 15 of them, and we are trying to plan for the future. They have had some rought times in the recent past, but we are trying to figure out how to turn things around. I have already talked with the friars in the Melbourne area (two friaries) and I will be flying up to the Sydney area on Tuesday to meet with the friars there (another two friaries). There are no magic plans, but maybe we can make small adjustments that could help. I have finished a few books: Marius’ Mules: The Invasion of Gaul by S.J.A. Turney From the title of this book, I thought it was going to be a cute story of some Roman army officer. It turned out to be much better than that. It is the story of the beginning of the invasion of Gaul (France) under Julius Caesar. It is told from the point of the view of the army. One often hears about Caesar’s conquests, but a book like this makes the whole story much more real. It is filled with tons of good information on how wars were fought in those days, including a full description of much of the savagery of war fought man to man. It gives a good indication of the strategy and deviousness of Caesar. I really enjoyed reading this book, although it is probably too graphic for many readers. The Vikings by Robert Ferguson This is an overview of the history of the Vikings. It speaks of where they came from, where they went, how they developed their reputation for ferocity, etc. It is interesting to at times see the other side of the story. Ferguson claims that much of the destruction done to Christian shrines and churches was due to a type of revenge for the destruction that had already been done to pagan shrines throughout Germany and southern Scandinavia. He speaks about where information comes from (for it is not abundant). An interesting fact is that the division of time into the stone age, the bronze age and the iron age comes from a museum director who had boxes filled with artifacts of the Vikings and he did not have an idea of their antiquity or use. He first divided this material into three portions: stone, bronze and iron. Only after he had divided these materials did he realize that these divisions more or less represented the ages at which the materials were produced. This is a good book, but filled with too much detail for a casual reader. Incredible Victory: The Battle of Midway by Walter Lord In June of 1942, The US was still reeling from the loses it had suffered at Pearl Harbor and in the first months of 1942. We had one advantage, however, in that we had broken the codes for the Japanese navy and we knew that a big attack was coming at Midway Island. The odds were against us. The Japanese had a much larger force and their fliers had much more practice than our fliers did. Yet, by the end of the battle we had sunk four of the Japanese aircraft carriers while we had lost only one. This was the turning point in the war. After this defeat, the Japanese were never able to attack in order to expand their empire again. This was actually the beginning of the end. The book is well written with enough detail to know what is going on, and enough personal material about those involved to humanize what was going on. Lord does not tell the story only from one side. He tells what both the Americans and Japanese were doing and thinking. It is really a well written book. Hope you have a good week. I will be in Australia all this week, and then next week head up to Manila to give some conferences to the men in formation. God bless and Shalom fr. Jude

Rome - Chicago - Rome

May 20, 2012 Peace and Good, This past week I had a quick trip to Chicago and back. We had an extraordinary chapter of St. Bonaventure Province in Chicago. Every four years we have an ordinary chapter. That is a gathering of the friars to elect the new provincial and his team for the four year period. In between these chapters, we can also have an extraordinary chapter for matters of importance. In this case, the province in Chicago was being asked to take responsibility for the jurisdiction in Australia. There are 15 friars there, and they were directly under the authority of the Minister General in Rome. The difficulty was that the general and his staff (including myself) did not have the time to properly accompany those friars. We have found that provinces do a much better job of being there to help these smaller jurisdictions to get their act together. For the past year, we have been talking about this transfer of responsibility, and this past Tuesday the friars in Chicago voted overwhelmingly to take upon themselves this call. There are only two small steps remaining in this transfer, and it should be done by the middle of June. I came back to Rome on Thursday, and the past couple days have been slow, trying to get over the jet lag. Today, my sister-in-law Mary is arriving in Rome with a few of her friends, and I will be hosting them a bit as they see Rome. This is one of the few opportunities that I have to explore this city – when I have guests come in from out of town. The earthquake you heard about in Italy did not really affect Rome. It was much farther north. I have finished a few books: Kidnapped by Robert Lewis Stevenson This is one of those books which I know I should have read long before this, but now is my chance to catch up on some of those “must reads.” I remember there was even a Walt Disney version of this story, but I never got to see it. The book is quite good, blending adventure with self-discovery. There is, of course, a happy ending, but there are so many twists and turns in arriving at it that it comes across as not being too serendipity. The story is one of a young man who is cheated out of an inheritance and kidnapped out to sea, but who finds an unusual friend among a highland Scott and who travels with him to come home again. The Gospel of Mark, The Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture by Mary Healy This is part of a new set of commentaries on Sacred Scripture. At this point, I only found two of the Gospels, this and Matthew which I read last year. Healy has some very good insights upon the Gospel. The commentary is solid, and there were some discoveries that I have been wondering about for quite some time. I was pleased reading this commentary, and I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to know more about the Gospel of Mark. Victory by Joseph Conrad Conrad is a remarkable author. This not my favorite of his stories, but it was still a far shot better than many other authors. It takes place in the south Pacific, with a band of strange and even dangerous characters. There is a taciturn Swede, a devoted poor English woman whom the Swede rescues from the advances for a lecherous German, two Englishmen who are card sharks among other felonious conduct, and an ape like Columbian. The victory is not anything of which one would expect. The speeches are a bit too long and tedious, but the story is still strong and surprising. Have a good week. Shalom Fr. Jude