Rome - Louisville - Chicago

November 11, 2021 Peace and Good, I am on the move again, and will be in the States until December 10th, travelling here and there. International travel is getting marginally easier. One still has to have Covid tests and fill out form after form, but other than the mask wearing while one is in flight, it is really not all that bad. I was at a three day meeting of Our Lady of Consolation Province (Midwest and Southwest) at Mt. St. Francis, a site just outside of Louisville. The meeting went very well. The frias spoke of the present situation of the province and its dreams. Yesterday we drove to Chicago, about 5 hours of travel. I will be here next week to give a workshop to our postulants (postulancy is the year before novitiate). The weather here is changing, rain today and snow tomorrow. This is to be expected in Chicago at this time of year. I have been working on a new book in my mind. These days I hope to get an initial outline completed and we will see what comes of it. I finished some books: Samuel Adams: a Life by Ira Stoll This is a good portrait of the revolutionary Samuel Adams, and cousin of the second president John Adams. He was one of the most responsible for stirring up revolutionary spirit first in Massachusetts, and eventually throughout the colonies through his committees of correspondence which shared news about what was happening. Stoll is not afraid to show the flaws in Adams’ personality, the most troubling of all being his rabid anti-Catholicism. Adams served on countless commissions during the Second Continental Congress, and later helped write the Massachusetts’ Commonwealth Constitution and served as the second governor of the state. Lawrence Welk by Charles River Editors This is not exactly a scholarly production, but it is an interesting note on popular culture during the 50’s and 60’s. I remember how my parents turned on the Lawrence Welk show every Saturday evening. The book goes through Welk’s career, and the interesting note is how good a businessman he was, dying incredibly rich. The Seven Days: The Emergence of Robert E. Lee and the Dawn of a Legend by Clifford Dowdey This book deals with the beginning of Robert E. Lee’s career as the general in charge of the Army of Virginia which was protecting Richmond. The book is an honest evaluation of the characters and the successes and failures of all of the major characters in this drama. McClennan comes across as a great organizer but a terrible general. Lee is seen as something who is taking over a massive operation in mid-stream due to the injury of the commanding general Johnston. The surprise is the failure of Stonewall Jackson who had performed so brilliantly during the valley campaign, but who seemed out of sorts during this particular battle (possibly a victim of exhaustion). The book is well done. Van Gogh by Peter Russell This is one of the Delphi Masters of Art series. It deals with Van Gogh’s life, and his art. Then there is a massive appendix of his correspondence with his father, with his brother, and with others. The correspondence well shows the development of Van Gogh’s emotive difficulties that eventually led to his genius in art but also his collapse and probable suicide as a person. The Great Upheaval by Jay Winik This is a brilliant series of stories about three of the major players in the late 18th century and how revolution changed them. The author, whose works I have previously read, deals with the American, French and Russian revolutions. The Americans managed to find a balance between authority and change, the French failed terribly in this attempt due to a series of factors, and the Russians under Catherine the Great drifted from being the darling of the enlightenment to an autocratic empire. Winik is able to show how these three movements influenced each other for the positive and the negative. Nigeria and West Africa by Wendy McElroy This book gives a history of the area in Africa that eventually became Nigeria. It is not all that exhaustive, but it does give an outline to the history of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Nigeria. I would recommend it as a primer on the topic. The Forgotten Tudor Women by Sylvia Soberton This is an outline of the lives and careers of various women in the Tudor circles. The book deals with court politics and the explosive personalities of Henry VIII, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth. It is the kind of book that would be appreciated by Tudor fans, but for those who are not, it is filled with unfamiliar names and titles and is honestly not all that well written. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Canterbury - Whitstable - Canterbury - London - Baltimore

June 30, 2013 Peace and Good, This past week I was up on the coast of Southern England at a small retreat house giving a retreat to some of our friars from Canterbury. They are students who are preparing for the priesthood. The topic was the Letter to the Hebrews. This letter, written sometime around 70 A.D., speaks of Jesus as our High Priest and it offers many useful insights into ministry today. Even more than that, though, is the fact that it presents reality as existing on two different levels: that which we see everyday and the supernatural, eternal meaning of all of that which surrounds us. As friars, we are living for something more than the everyday, but often we can get caught up in it like everyone else and let it get us down. This was one of the themes that I emphasized at the General Chapter - that we have to look beyond what we can see to that which we believe. I finished on Friday and came to London yesterday. This afternoon I head to Baltimore and then I have to play it by ear. My travel agent made a reservation for me to fly to Los Angeles on Monday, but I realized last night that he never sent the actual ticket. I don't know if I will be flying out on Monday or not. That is OK, though, because if I don't, I can spend a week at Ellicott City and get caught up with writing and taping projects. Either way, it works out fine. I finished a few books: Restoration: Charles II and His Kingdoms, 1660-1685 by Tim Harris This is a book that speak about King Charles II of Great Britain. His father was killed and he was exiled to the continent while Cromwell ruled. When Cromwell died, Charles was invited back to be king. He was able to navigate through difficult times by currying public opinion, playing one side off against the other, telling his nobles just what they wanted to hear, and finding alternative sources of support. He was king during an era when kings on the continent tended to be absolute monarchs (e.g. King Louis XIV, the Sun King). He was an absolutist in his own way, especially in Scotland where he allowed a system of persecution against his religious opponents. His brother, James II who succeeded him, was not as successful in handling all the opposing tensions and was overthrown after a few years of reign. The book is incredibly well documented, too well. It reminds me of a doctoral thesis that made its way into print. In other words, it is not an enjoyable read, even if it is informative. Van Gogh’s Room at Arles by Stanley Elkin This is not exactly what the title says that it is. It is a series of short stories (actually long enough to be called novellas). The first one is about a professor whose wife has just left him and who must arrange for a party with his students that he doesn’t really want to have. The professor is caught in self-pity and makes a very unlikable character. A second story is told in the context of a young woman selling her story to the tabloids. She recounts her engagement to the heir to the throne of England. A third story is about a young man who received a grant to spend time in Arles, and is actually housed in Van Gogh’s room there. He has never travelled before, and all is new and threatening to him. He is a teacher at a community college in Indiana, while most of the other fellows staying at Arles are great figures of one or another field. In all three stories one gets a sense of people not quite fitting in and not knowing how to address it. The President is a Sick Man by Matthew Algeo This is the story of a secret operation that was performed on President Grover Cleveland on a boat in Long Island Sound to remove a cancerous tumor from his mouth. This was only a decade after President Grant had died of cancer of the throat. The country was going through its worst economic downturn up to the time of the Great Depression. Cleveland was worried if the public knew about his illness, there would be a panic. He had a reputation for being an honest man, and he used that reputation to hide his operation and, when a newspaper reporter ferreted out the truth, to deny it and allow the reputation of the reporter to be ruined. There are some books that are sweeping in character, dealing with many people and many different situations. This is not one of those books. It deals with one small (but important) situation and its aftermath, and in that it does a good job. Hope you have a great Fourth of July. Growing up in Buffalo, we used to say that it was one of the two seasons in Buffalo: winter and the Fourth of July. Shalom fr. Jude