Ellicott City, Md - Montreal

October 3, 2021 I returned home from Ocean City on Sunday, a week ago. This week I worked with one of the staff for the Companions of St. Anthony, Reilly, to tape a number of presentations (a Thanksgiving Day Triduum, short overviews of the readings for Advent, a number of Psalms). Yesterday I flew to Montreal. Travelling is tough these days, but this one was not too bad. The Canadian passport control has become much better and I sailed through it. They do have covid tests upon arrival for random travellers, but I was not chosen. This morning I had Mass in English at one of our parishes here. It was nice, and the pastor prepared a special lunch for me with his staff. Tomorrow we celebrate St. Francis Day, and then on Tuesday we begin the extraordinary chapter for the Canadian custody (whose mother province is the Polish province in Gdansk). The weather here is cool and cloudy, but not all that bad. I finished some reading: Agatha Christi by Hourly History This is a short biography of the famous British detective novelist (Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, etc.). What comes across is a quite traditional woman who started writing out of necessity (financial), and who developed it into an art form, or at least a home industry. She was twice married (her first husband having abandoned her, her second being a famous archaeologist). She never really treated her daughter with as much care and affection as she needed. Yet, she proved to be a remarkable author of works that entertained millions over the years (as well as being a playwright). The Dillinger Days by John Toland This is an account of the criminal career of John Dillinger and the other criminal gangs during the 20’s and 30’s. The book is well written, speaking of Dillinger’s decisions and motivations. He was not as bloodthirsty as others such as Pretty Boy Floyd (a clear psychopath), but he did use violence when he wanted to rob anyone or get away from pursuing foes. John Toland is a good author, having written a number of books on war events. A History of India by Michael Fisher This is a teaching company course on India (understood in the larger sense of the word, the entire Indian subcontinent). It deals with everything from the most ancient evidence of civilization to the modern problems in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The author is good at making difficult topics understandable. He gives both historic and cultural information, including the topic of the two major religions in India, Hindu and Islam, as well as other minority religions such as the Jains, Sikhs, Christians, Jews, etc. It is a course well worth investigating. Emperor Hirohito by Charles River Editors This is a short biography of the controversial emperor of Japan (controversial for his role in World War II). The author shows that Hirohito was neither a puppet of the military leaders, nor a vicious manipulator and autocrat. The truth is somewhere in the middle. After the Second World War he played a more symbolic role in governing, not unlike that of the Queen of Great Britain. Death at Sea by Andrea Camilleri This is a series of short stories concerning the investigations of a Sicilian police investigator. There is a pleasant tone in the book, informal and humorous. This is the first of Camilleri’s books that I have read (in English, translated from Italian). He deals with some of the uncomfortable topics of Sicilian life, such as the influence of the Mafia, the corrupt government practices, the role of the rich and the plight of the poor. The investigator comes across as human. Brother Odd by Dean Koontz This is one of the seven books that Koontz wrote on Odd Thomas, a fry cook from a desert town in California who is gifted/plagued by being able to see ghosts who appear to him to intervene on their behalf (to solve the case of their deaths, to help them let go and enter their eternal fate, etc.). In this volume, Odd travels to a Benedictine monastery to seek peace of mind after the traumatic events of his life. Instead, he must solve a very strange case there in order to save the lives of the Benedictine monks and sisters, and especially of the special needs children who are in their care. Italy and her Invaders by Stanley Leathes This is an academic paper (Cambridge University Press) on the invasions of Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries. It is all but unreadable for the amount of detail and the shifting alliances and fates of the various invaders, e.g. Spain, France, the Holy Roman Empire) plus of the Italian powers (Venice, the Papacy, Naples, Milan, Florence, etc.). Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Rome - Baltimore - Ocean City

September 19, 2021 Peace and Good, I flew in from Rome this past Sunday. Things are getting a bit easier, or maybe I am just getting used to the craziness of travel these days. On Monday evening our province began its extraordinary chapter at the Maratine Center in Baltimore. It was good to see all the friars who were present. We were talking about our pastoral plan for the next few years. Wednesday morning I had a bit of a shock. I got an email from Rome that our Minister General and three other friars tested positive for covid. I immediately left the chapter and had myself tested. By 11 that morning, I was shown to be negative. I had been tested before I left Rome, and I had not been in the presence of three of the four positive friars for at least five days before Wednesday, but it was still a shock. I am now in Ocean City at an appartment owned by the friars. I love listening to the waves. Just a couple of minutes of that and I feel all the tension melt off. The only downside is that these days there is a motorcycle rally in Ocean City until today. Their cycles are loud, loud, loud. I think they adjust them to be louder. They leave today, which will make the town much quieter. I finished some books: Mother Teresa: Come be my Light by Brian Kolodiejchuk This is a beautiful collection of letters and remanences of Mother Theresa of Calcutta. The major topic is the spiritual darkness from which she suffered for most of her life in the Missionaries of Charity. She came to understand that this was a sharing in the emptiness that Jesus suffered on the cross, as well as the emptiness that so many people experience in their own sufferings. He goal in life was to help respond to the thirst from which so many people suffer. Mary Todd Lincoln by Hourly History This is a short account of the story of the wife of Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln. A very ambitious woman who, unusually for her days, dabbled in politics, Mary Todd is presented as a grasper and someone who tried to live above her status. She eventually lost her senses, even being committed to a mental hospital by her son. She was not the nicest person, but she also lived a life that was filled with tragedy. Colombia and Panama by Joseph Stromberg This is part of a series on various countries of the world offered by Audible. This volume offers an overview of the states of Colombia and Panama from colonial days to the present. The presentation is not terribly academic, but it does give a good amount of useful information. After the Quake by Haruki Marakami This is a series of stories concerning people in Japan after the terrible earthquake in Kobe. It deals with situation in their own lives, but which have an impact on the people around them. The stories include good, heartwarming accounts, Buddhist philosophy stories, and even a bit of science fiction. The Fall of Troy by Peter Ackroyd This is a novel about a boisterous German archaeologist and his Greek wife who excavate the ruins of Troy. Herr Oberman has a tendency to look only for the treasures, and he effectively does great damage to anything else in his way. He is so obsessed with his theories that he is willing to harm anyone else who gets in the way. The Sicilian Vespers Wars by Charles River Editors This is the story of the rebellion of the people of Sicily against the occupying French authorities, and then of the series of wars that were fought with France, Spain, the Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy in regard to the crown of Naples and Sicily (at times united and at times treated individually). Saint Odd by Dean Koontz This is the last in the series of the Odd Thomas books. Odd is a fry cook in a desert town in California who can see and help ghosts. In this volume, he must sabotage a plot to destroy his home town by a band of Satanists who know of his power and want to create mayhem. Odd come across as an honest, kind and generous young man who only desires to be with his beloved Stormy who died in the first volume of the series. Evil Eye by Madhuri Shekar This is a fascinating story about a young Indian American woman who is looking for the perfect man. She is in constant contact with an over-protective mother in India. She suspects that the young man her daughter finds is dangerous, somehow associated with another man who was violent with her when she was a young woman. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

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

Atlanta

June 9, 2021 Peace and Good, I have been in the Atlanta area since the 1st. We have three friaries in this area, one of which I had never seen before. The first friary I visited was in Columbus Georgia. It is about 2 hours southwest of Atlanta, on the Alabama border. We actually have three parishes there. One is a small African American parish, one a small Hispanic parish, and one a large Anglo/Hispanic parish with a grammar school and high school. All three are being run very, very well by the friars. The large parish also has a huge outreach to the poor (food, clothes, rental and utilities assistance, etc.). I was very impressed. The second friary I visited was in Jonesboro, just south of the city. It is an Anglo/African/African-American/Hispanic parish. I celebrated a couple of Masses there, which was great doing a bit of pastoral work. This was the first Sunday that they were wide open after the pandemic, and it was obvious that many people were coming back. The third friary, where I am now, is on the northeast side of Atlanta, Holy Cross Parish. It is Anglo/Hispanic. There are about 2700 registered families, but many of the Hispanics are not registered for various reasons. Yesterday I spend the morning on a zoom assembly for the friars in Canada. They have formed a new jurisdiction, and they are trying to get off the ground. Last week, on the 4th, I had another zoom meeting with the provincials of our federation. The zoom process is great, but it really tires one out after a couple of hours. Tomorrow I fly to Louisville where I will be for five days, just being available if any of the friars want to stop by and chat. I finished some reading: The History of Bourbon by Ken Albala This is a course from the Teaching Company. They have now joined with Audible, and the Audible company offers a series of free courses each month. This was one of them. The author is an expert on food and drinks at one of the universities. He speaks about the history of the making of bourbon and its popularity (or fall in popularity) in various eras. Greg Hurwitz by Audible Interviews In these two interviews, Hurwitz speak about his series, the Orphan X books. Even is orphan x, an orphan who was trained to be a killer. He escapes his minders and tries to put his life together while he is trying to right wrongs in society. The minders (and he doesn’t know who is behind them) try to eliminate him. He has to rely on a series of experts in various techniques to remain alive. The Rise of Communism by Professor Vejas Liulevicius This is a 12 lecture series on the beginnings of communism from the Teaching Company. The professor is very, very prepared, and his method of instruction is very good. While each lesson is packed with details and quotations, it is never overwhelming. I would recommend this course and others by him to anyone. Deadly Outbreaks by Alexandra Levitt This is a book that covers a series of outbreaks of mysterious illnesses that had to be investigated by the CDC over the years. They include hantavirus in the Southwest, Legionnaires’ Disease, an outbreak of Salmonella, etc. It is well written, and it shows the great difficulties that can be faced in trying to track down information and identify a cause for the various outbreaks. Forever Odd by Dean Koontz This is the second in the series about Odd Thomas. He is a fry cook in a desert California town who can see and help ghosts. Each of the volumes is an adventure in which he must defeat some of the forces of evil that attack him or his town or his friends. In this volume, he must rescue one of his friends who suffers from brittle bone disease for a mad enchantress and her minions. The English Sweating Sickness by Charles River Editors This is an account of a disease the periodically attacked England (and very few other areas) during the Tudor period. Henry VIII was deathly afraid of it, and even Anne Boleyn suffered from it. The book cannot fully identify exactly what the disease was, but it gives good information on how people reacted to it. 1861: the Civil War Awakening by Adam Goodheart This is one of the better historic books that I have read in a long time. The author deals with the first year of the war, but he also gives a good treatment to many of the people involved in the action and sociological background to why things happened the way they did. Although I have read quite a bit on the Civil War, there were a number of things that I had never heard about before. The style is pleasant. I highly recommend this book. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

London - Baltimore - Los Angeles

July 8, 2013 Peace and Good, I have been in California this week for a meeting of the friars of St. Joseph Cupertino Province. They have their provincial chapter in about a year, and this was a preliminary meeting to start surfacing topics that should be examined throughout this year and at the coming chapter. My arrival was a bit difficult. Last Saturday in Canterbury I noticed that it seemed as if my travel agent had made a reservation for my trip from Baltimore to Los Angeles, but he had never bought a ticket. There was no way to communicate with him over the weekend, so I e mailed him in Rome hoping that he would see the e mail first thing Monday morning and get back to me immediately. With the difference in time which is six hours, I was sure I would hear from him by 4 in the morning on Monday. Sure enough, he had forgotten. So I immediately checked out Southwest and was able to get a ticket which actually was a shorter flight (since it was a direct). It was important for me to be at the meetings this week. The provincial of the province has been ill for a while, and my presence signified our concern for the province. Also, whenever I am at one of these meetings, I am able to answer questions about what is going on in the order all throughout the world. It helps the friars not become too provincial minded. I celebrated one of the weekend masses and mass this morning in the parish where I am staying. It is great to be able to be with the people on occasions like this because so much of what I do is with the friars exclusively. Tomorrow I head out for Chicago for a couple of short meetings and a couple of celebrations at which I must be present. I booked in a couple of extra days here in Los Angeles and in Chicago to unwind a bit. I got to visit my brother and sister in law and niece on Saturday in Fullerton, about an hour from where I am staying. I finished some books: White Eagle, Red Star by Norman Davies This is one of a series of books that Norman Davies has written about Poland. This volume deals with the period right after World War I when Poland regained its independence. Shortly after that, a war broke out between Poland and the Soviet Union. It began over ownership of some of the borderlands between the two countries. Those areas had a very mixed population, and at one time in history they had belonged to Poland (before the partitions under Catherine the Great). Poland attacked first, and when the Soviets counterattacked, they pushed the Polish forces back all the way to the outskirts of Warsaw. There was a battle there called the “miracle on the Vistula” in which the Poles were completely triumphant, both for themselves and Western Europe (for the Soviets might very well have pushed on into Germany and beyond if they had defeated Poland). The book is good, but not an especially easy read. It is more technical history than a novel. Odd Hours: An Odd Thomas Novel by Dean Koontz Odd Thomas is an interesting character invented by Dean Koontz. He can see ghosts and help them to go to the other side. He has a type of psychic magnetism in which, if he thinks of someone, is eventually drawn to that person. He is an innocent in a difficult and sometimes evil world. In fact, his adventures are part of the battle between good and evil. In this story, Odd comes to a seaside California town where there is a plot of import nuclear weapons which will be used for terrorist events in several US cities. He foils the plot with the help of Annamaria, a young pregnant woman who has psychic powers as well. There is a goodness to this character. His goal in life is to do what is expected of him so that he might spend eternity in heaven with his beloved Stormy who died in a shooting in a mall. I never read one of these volumes with feeling moved by the whole set up. I strongly recommend this series to anyone who is interested. The Queen’s Fool by Philippa Gregory Gregory has written a series of books that are placed in the Tudor era of England. This one is about a young Jewish girl who fled Spain with her father when her mother was burned at the stake during the Inquisition. They are printers, and they pretend to be Christians. The girl, Hanna, has the gift of seeing the future, although not often. She is placed as a holy fool in the court of the King (Edward VI) and the queen (Queen Mary) while she is also a confidant of Princess Elizabeth. The portrayal of the royal characters is quite good. She is honest both about their strengths and flaws. The portrait of Hanna is interesting as she learns about love and forgiveness. I enjoyed the book. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Rome - Chicago

September 17, 2012 Peace and Good, I have been in Rome all throughout this past week for a workshop for the new provincials and new secretaries of the various jurisdictions of our order. This is always a great event because we get to see how international our order is. There were representatives from Italy, Romania, Argentina, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, India, Korea, Japan and Indonesia. These are all first term provincials, and the workshop was instituted to help them fulfill their responsibilities. I have already had contacts with some of them and I was able to get together with a few of them to deal with situations in their provinces. One of the nice elements of this was that we had supper at our house in the Vatican. Our friars are the confessors on one side of the Basilica of St. Peter’s and they live just inside the gate on the left side of the Basilica, just beyond the Swiss guard are standing. We ate supper out on the terrazzo overlooking the gardens of the Vatican. When we friars pass through the gates, we are actually saluted by the Swiss guard. On Friday I flew out to Chicago for our meetings the next couple of weeks. I was lucky to make my connection in London because there was only about 2 ¼ hour turnover, and the plane was 1 ½ hour late leaving Rome. Fortunately, there were no problems in getting through security (which there sometimes are). The rest of the general curia arrived yesterday in Chicago. I had come a couple of days early to get the arrangements ready for the rest of them. This morning we began a series of meetings that will continue all through this week and into next week. I have finished a few books: Forever Odd by Dean Koontz This has to be one of my favorite characters: Odd Thomas. This is his actual name, either because of a mistake made by a clerk when he was born or the malicious intent of a deeply disturbed mother. Odd is a fast fry cook in a diner who also sees ghosts and becomes involved in their travails. One of these ghosts, by the way, is Elvis. In this volume he seeks to save Danny, a young man subject to brittle bone disease, who has been kidnapped by a maniac. Odd is different, but incredibly respectful to elders, humble, gentle, and kind. Toward the end of the book he reflects upon why there is so much pain and evil in the universe and how this all can be healed. I heartily recommend the whole series. Bonnie Prince Charlie: a Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden by G.A. Henty This is another of Henty’s historical novels that are intended to show heroism for the young men of Britain during the period in which they were written. This one takes place in Scotland during the last moments of the Scottish independence movement during the 18th century and in France where many of the exiled Scots fought in the army of the king of France. There are the usual twists and turns. The author manages to show the heroism of the Stuart backers without rejecting one’s duty to be faithful to the Hanoverian (George I, II and III) dynasty. He also brings across the tragedy of Scotland’s attachment to a lost cause and the consequences of such horrendous decisions. The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution by Thomas Slaughter During the presidency of George Washington, there was a bit of a rebellion of westerners (which at that time meant western Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc.) against the federal government. The cause was an excise tax imposed upon whiskey. It was difficult to transport grain over the mountains to the east, and life on the western frontier was rough. Therefore, farmers would make whiskey out of their excess grain. When the federal government imposed a tax upon that whiskey, many farmers in western Pennsylvania rose in arms. This book explains why there were already tensions between the eastern establishment and western settlers. The westerners were barely surviving. They felt that the government was not helping them establish a transport system (e.g. open passage on the Mississippi). Now, it was taking what little currency they had (for much of the business of the frontier was done with barter). Furthermore, there was agitation by the Spanish and English in the hope of cutting off a bit of the land between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi. The rebellion itself was crushed quickly. Washington assigned control of a militia army to Richard Henry Lee (of the Robert E Lee family), and by the time that the army arrived in Western Pennsylvania, it was all over. Many farmers and agitators were arrested, but very few were charged. Only two of those charged were convicted, and they were pardoned by Washington. The tensions between the big eastern establishment and the small farmers and businessmen continued to fester, coming to the fore with the election of Jefferson, and even more Jackson. I hope you have a good week. Shalom Fr. Jude