Sydney (Springvale and Dingley) - Melbourne (Kellyville)

October 27, 2013 Peace and Good, I am drawing my canonical visitation of the Australian Delegation to a close. I have met with all of the friars who are now stationed in Australia. I will meet with a few along the road (Chicago, Rome and we will have to see about Brussels). It has been a good visit. This is one of the better parts of my job - to spend time talking with friars to see how things are going, to offer a piece of advice, to encourage them in the good work that they are doing. One of the things that we especially need to do for the Australian friars is to bring a few friars over here from other jurisdictions. This will help with man power issues but also give a little more of a mix to group of friars serving here. It is always good to have variety and different points of view. That is difficult to obtain here because the numbers of low and they are so far from the other jurisdictions. A number of friars from Australia have also been visiting (for shorter and longer periods of time) other jurisdictions. I see real signs of hope. I am especially impressed by the work being done at the Shrine of the Holy Innocents here in Kellyville. It is only open a few months, and already there are a good group of people coming to daily Mass and devotions. The center is starting to be used for spiritual events such as day retreats. I think that this will become a real gem over time. Tomorrow I head out to Chicago. This is my feast day, and because I will be crossing the International Date Line, I will get to celebrate it twice. Of course, celebrating it in an airplane is not exactly my idea of a big party, but you've got to take what you can get. I finished some reading: Lives Like Loaded Guns: Emily Dickinson and Her Family’s Feuds by Lyndall Gordon This is both the story of Emily Dickinson, the hermit of Amherst and the famous poet of the 19th century, and also of the fight for the rights to her works after her death. She published hardly anything while she lived, but she left hundreds of poems and letters when she died. Her life seems to have been colored by the epilepsy that she probably suffered. She formed a tight bond with her brother Austen’s wife Susan. She then stood up for Susan’s rights when he entered into a torrid love affair with a Mabel Todd, a married woman (whose husband also participated in numerous affairs). After Dickinson’s death, Mabel Todd became the copyist and editor of editions of Dickinson’s poetry which slowly became more and more popular. Austen’s other sister Lavinia fought Mabel in court for the rights to some land which had been signed over to her (possibly as payment for the work done on Dickinson’s poetry). Even though most of the story takes place in the Victorian era, it reads like a messy soap opera. The Naked Gardener by LB Gschwandthner This was one of those books that I picked up on sale from Amazon. How could you not be interested in it given its unusual title? It is a book about a woman who lives with a man in a committed relationship. She is an artist, he a professor. They winter in Virginia and summer on an old farm in New Hampshire. The book explores questions of commitment, of expectations, of fears, of relationship (especially with other women), of responsibility to the past while not allowing oneself to be imprisoned in it. The title comes from the fact that the woman actually gardens naked (in a garden which is far from peeping eyes). It is a symbol of her quest for freedom, but by the end of the book she realizes that total freedom exacts a price. Overall, it is well written. Reflections on the Psalms by C.S. Lewis This is exactly what this book is. It is not an ordered, comprehensive presentation on the psalms. Rather, it is a series of thoughts on various difficult aspects of the psalms, such as the cursing psalms or the self-righteous attitude found in other psalms. I especially appreciated his chapter on praise in the psalms, a topic about which I have been reflecting for some time. As with other Lewis writings, he is often quite original and at the very least he makes one think. The Franciscan Tradition (Spirituality in History) by Regis Armstrong This is an anthology of writings produced by members of the First, Second and Third Orders of St. Francis from the time of the founding of the orders up until the recent times. Each of the sections gives a short biography of the person involved and some background information about the times in which that person wrote. There are also the rules for each of the three orders (including that for the religious communities which follow the Third Order, for while most third orders are only lay people, the Franciscan Third Order actually has two branches: lay people and female and male religious communites). The selections and overview is well presented. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Hermosa Beach (Los Angeles) - Dingley (Melbourne, Australia)

October 20, 2013 Peace and Good, Well, I finally made it to the next part of my journey. I had to cancel the India part of the journey because of visa problems. I had a panic moment at the airport on Thursday evening when I tried to check in. They had difficulties finding permission for me to fly to Australia. It took them over 40 minutes to process my ticket. It might have to do with the fact that I had originally arranged for the e visa for the next day (because that is when I would have been flying in from India) or it might have been that I was flying into Australia on United but flying out on Quantas and they did not see a round trip ticket. Whatever it was, the agent at United was great and kept at it until she firmed up the travel arrangements. The trip was uneventful but very long. It was about 14 hours to Sydney, a 2 hour layover, and then another hour flight to Melbourne. I was fortunate because the entertainment system on the overseas flight did not work, so I was compensated with extra frequent flyer miles. I usually don't use the entertainment system anyway because I am either reading off my Kindle or listening to books on tape on my MP3 player. I will be here in Australia for about a week doing a canonical visitation. Every several years, one of us has to visit each jurisdiction to see how things are going. We visit each site and speak with each friars. This is not too difficult here because there are only four friaries and about 15 friars. The weather is nice. It is Spring here now. The only difficulty is terrible fires on the outskirts of the cities. Over 200 houses were burned to the ground yesterday. I finished an enormous number of articles for the two magazines for which I write this past week. I am pretty well set until July with one and until the end of next year with the other. That gives me quite a bit of breathing room. I have finished some books: Hitler’s Spy Chief: the Wilhelm Canaris Mystery by Richard Bassett Canaris was the head of military intelligence in Nazi Germany. In certain ways, he was a brilliant spy master. But in other ways, he would be considered a traitor in most countries, for he actively revealed secrets to the British to a lesser degree to the Americans so that the Nazi’s would not win the war. This was eventually discovered and he was arrested after the plot against Hitler and executed toward the end of the war. He was a gentleman who tried to live according to his conscience. He collected information about the atrocities that were being committed in the east (Poland and Russia) in the hope that the Nazi leaders would be called to account at the end of the war. The biography is good and informative, well written. Mystics and Saints of Islam by Claud Field This is an account of Muslim mystics throughout the ages. It gives a short biography and some of the teachings of those mystics who proposed a direct way of coming to know God. We hear of how some of them were accused of heresy and even executed for this. We hear of the Sufi tradition of mysticism which strongly emphasized emotion and asceticism as opposed to observance of the law and study of the Koran. At the end there are a series of appendices concerning Christian teachings to be found in the Koran and the teachings of the mystics. Overall, it is a good book, even if the scholarship is quite dated for it was written in 1910. Book of the Dead by Patricia Cornwell I have read a number of the Kay Scarpetta series written by Cornwell. She has drifted more and more from a presentation of forensic science to the very dysfunctional relationships of the investigators. Her portrayal is, honestly, getting annoying. Kay Scarpetta is opposed by some female figure who wickedly attacks her. Her adopted daughter gets more and more obsessive. Kay’s relationship with the man she supposedly loves, Benton who works for the FBI, is strange. Her side kick investigator, Marino, becomes more and more bruttish. I have got to admit that I am going to try to avoid her books for a while. A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940 by William Trotter Shortly after he cooperated with Hitler to invade Poland, Stalin demanded territorial concessions from Finland (so that he might have more defensible borders around the city of Leningrad. The Finns refused. So the Soviets invaded. Even though Finland is a small country with a population of only four million, it all but fought the Soviets to a standstill. The poor performance of the Soviets was one of the factors that led to Hitler’s decision to invade the Soviet Union the next year. It is the story of incredible bravery in the face of insurmountable odds. The book is well written and not overly technical. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

Oceanside - San Francisco - Hermosa Beach

October 14, 2013 Peace and Good, Well, it has been a relatively stable couple of weeks since I last wrote the blog. The first week I was giving a retreat to the friars of the California province at a Benedictine Monastery in Oceanside, California. That is just above San Diego. The topic of the retreat was themes from the Sacred Scriptures that deal with Franciscan Spirituality. It was a very good week, and we had some good discussions. This is all in preparation for the Provincial Chapter that the friars will be celebrating this coming May. On Friday of the first week, I flew up to San Francisco to try to get a visa for my trip to India. I was to give a retreat to the friars of the province there. It is relatively complicated to get a visa for India. I could not get it in Rome because I do not have a residence visa there. In the States, they have divided up the country to zones and you can only apply for a visa from the zone where you are living, which would be in Washington DC for me. The problem was that it takes 5 to 6 days plus shipped days, and I did not have that time. There was an urgent request desk in San Francisco, and I arranged an appointment to request a visa there. When I got there, they told me that I could not get a visa there because it was not my zone. This meant I could not fly out to India on Monday of this past week as I had planned. They do not issue visas at the airport when you arrive, and they would just have shipped me back to the States. So I got in contact with my travel agent and with the friars in India to cancel that part of the trip. I will fly out this Thursday to go to Australia to pick up the trip where I would have gone after my India part. I have been staying in our friary in Hermosa Beach (Los Angeles) and have been resting and working on some writing projects. I didn’t realize how much I needed this time off. You run and run, and you don’t realize how run down you are getting. This has been a very good time to recharge the batteries. Furthermore, the writing juices have been flowing, so I have been able to finish a whole bunch of articles for the Messenger Magazine and I am way ahead. I finished some books these weeks: Short Stories by Joshua Scribner This is a series of short stories. Fright Reaction is about a man camping in the woods who is saved from an invasion of space aliens. All that Remains is about a young woman who remembers what a professor told his class about the brain and how the back of the brain is the most primitive part. This saves her life when she must kill her zombie boyfriend. Coryanna is the story of a nurse in a unit which cares for new born children. She sees a ghost which inhabits her. She finds out the ghost is of a child who died many years before and this ghost becomes the child to which she then gives birth. The last of the stories is called the Conductor. It is about two men who are put to the test (by whom is never revealed). They must figure out how to escape from an electrified stockade which is surrounded by carnivorous cows within a certain amount of time. Scribner has a way of providing a very clear setting within a very short format. His writings are always entertaining (if you appreciate the science fiction genre). The Third Policeman by Flann O’Brien This is a very odd, very Irish story about a young man who lost a leg during the World War and returns to Ireland. He and an accomplice kill a man for his money. From there, the story becomes very complicated. It involves a police sergeant who has a theory that bicycles can become part person and the person part bicycle because they rub off on each other. The man in question is led to a room underground where one does not grow any older. One of the policemen invents various machines to change sound waves into light and heat waves. The man is accused of murder, and an army of one legged men come to rescue him. None of it makes any sense, but yet there was something enjoyable about listening to the account. Augustus: Son of Rome by Richard Foreman This is a fictional account of the end of the reign of Julius Caesar and the very beginning of that of Augustus Caesar. We hear of those who influenced and protected the young man who would come to rule over the Roman Empire (and in fact, invented the Roman Empire). We hear of the plot against Julius, and how some of the same plotters tried to kill Augustus before he arrived in Rome. The account is rather well written, giving one a sense of the personalities of those involved. A spy at the heart of the third Reich: the extraordinary story of Fritz Kolbe, America’s most import spy in world war II by Lucas Delattre This is the story of a man who worked in the Foreign Ministry in Nazi Germany during the war. He hated the Nazi’s, never joining the party even when it would have helped his career. He smuggled numerous secret documents to Bern, Switzerland where he handed them over to Avery Dulles, the head of the OSS (the predecessor of the CIA) office there. At first they thought he was a plant, for he seemed to be too good to be true. Dulles slowly came to trust him implicitly, and his information proved to be most valuable in the war effort. He suffered after the war for the work he did for the Americans, but he seems to have been a good spirited man even when things did not go that well. His failure was to the son whom he left in South Africa with a German family and whom he very rarely contacted as he was growing up. Mystical Tradition: Judaism by Luke Timothy Johnson This is the first of three sets of lectures from the Teaching Company about the mystical tradition in Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This one deals with mystical texts in the Old Testament and the development of a mystical tradition among Jews throughout the centuries. We see a devotion to the study of the Torah and the Talmud (the Jewish legal tradition). We see the development of the more esoteric teachings of the Kabbalah tradition (which has recently become very popular again). We also see the development of the Hasidic tradition in Eastern Europe. Dr. Johnson gives a good overview of the different movements in Judaism, including various figures who claimed to be Messiahs and who caused great pain among Jews of their days. Like all of the lecture series of the Teaching Company, this series is informative and quite well planned. Have a good week. Shalom Fr. Jude

Copertino - Rome - Los Angeles

September 30, 2013 The Feast of St. Jerome Peace and Good, The feast of St. Jerome is a special day for those of us who study Sacred Scripture. He is the man in the 4th and 5th centuries AD who translated the Bible from its original languages into Latin (for that was the language used by many of the Christians at that time). He so loved Sacred Scripture that he found a rabbi in the Holy Land who would teach him Hebrew. Now there is one other attribute of Jerome. He was a grumpy old man. If one reads his various letter, one can be shocked at how nasty he is in his attacks of others, including St. Augustine. It always reminds me that saints are not necessarily perfect. They had talents and used them, and ultimately they did the best they could with what they had. We finished off our definitory in Copertino on Thursday evening and drove back to Rome on Friday. Then on Saturday we had a one day meeting there to close off some issues that needed closure. Sunday I flew out to Los Angeles to give a retreat to the friars of St. Joseph Cupertino Province out here. I will start the retreat this evening. Hopefully, I will not fall asleep on them. There is a nine hour time difference between here and Rome. I just heard this morning that the canonization of Popes John XXIII and John Paul II will occur on the same day this coming year: Divine Mercy Sunday, which is the Sunday after Easter. Rome will be packed, packed, packed. I finished some books: Old Town by Lin Zhe and George Fowler This is the story of a family in China over the period of the early 20th century to the present day. We hear about their struggles for survival, especially during the Second World War and the days of the Cultural Revolution in Communist China. The grandfather and grandmother are Christians, and we hear how they first welcome the communists to get rid of the corrupt government governing China and because they would help the poor. Only slowly do they realize how difficult it would be for Christians to practice their faith under the communists. We hear of the relationships in the family that color the entire life of this couple. The narrator is one of their granddaughters, and we hear from her the emptiness of life without faith. The book is well written. It is quite long, but well worth the effort to get a glimpse into life in China. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 by David M Kennedy This is an enormous project to give a detailed history of the years of the depression and the entire World War II. Kennedy gives a good, thorough account. There were some fascinating details, especially about the depression, that I had never heard. I had always understood that Herbert Hoover did hardly anything, but when one understands what was going on and what the theories were that tried to explain the depression, one can see that he did his best. Unfortunately, the situation was so disastrous that this was just not enough. We see FDR foundering to find a response to the situation. He came up with some quick fixes, but these did not really end the depression. In fact, the only thing that ended the depression was the industrial upturn when World War II began. What FDR did give was some guarantees for the normal person, including Federal Insurance for bank accounts, unemployment insurance, laws against child labor, farm subsidies, etc. In some ways, the depression was needed for the country to experiment with new techniques of manipulating the economy. The book is very good, but also very long. Decision at Sea: Five Naval Battles that Shaped American History by Edward Rutherfurd This is an account of five pivotal naval battles fought by the United States throughout its history. They are the battle on Lake Erie during the War of 1812, the battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac during the Civil war, the battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish American War, the Battle of Midway during the Second World War and the battle during the Iran-Iraq War in the Persian Gulf to keep shipping open. Each of the wars represented a technological advance over the other, but each was also marked by tremendous courage and even luck. This is a good overview of the theme. The House of Pride, and Other Tales of Hawaii by Jack London These are stories about the period of Hawaii’s history right after it was annexed by the United States. A good number of the stories involve the plague of leprosy and the fate of the lepers, being sent to Molokai for the rest of their lives. We hear about the right Americans, descendants of both the Protestant missionaries (who then became fabulously wealthy) and of the traders. We hear of the Hawaii’s who were made second and third class citizens in their own homeland. London gives a good sense of the racial tensions of the islands in those years, and some of the racial blending. The stories are well written, and often convey the hypocrisy of the Americans and the tragedy of some of the injustices done to the natives. The book is well worth reading. I hope you have a good week. A number of people have asked for my prayers in these weeks (I can't publish the needs). Could you please join me in praying for them and their needs. Shalom fr. Jude

Rome - Copertino - Bari

September 23, 2013 Peace and Good, This week has been a bit unusual. I arrived back from the States on Sunday evening. Monday I was able to recover a bit from tremendous jet lag. Then on Tuesday we had the funeral of one of our friars in Rome. Matteo Luo was around 85 years old. (Although his Passport gave that age, he was probably at least a few years older. One of our Chinese friars said that he was older than his aunt who was 85.) He had come to Rome to study to be a Franciscan priest, and was forbidden from returning to China by the communists. In fact, he only returned after some twenty years, and after that he was banned again from returning. He belonged to my province in the States, even though he only visited once. He was given the choice of joining any province he wanted, and he chose us. All these years, he has been begging for assistance for the return of the friars in China. When he died, he had collected a very good sum and that will be used for our new mission there. He also attracted a number of vocations for this cause. Right after the funeral, we drove down to Copertino. This was the birth place of St. Joseph of Cupertino. (The spelling difference is the difference between the Italian and the Latin/English spelling.) St. Joseph was a Conventual friar who is famous for two things: he was not all that bright (which is why he is the patron saint of students taking exams) and he was a mystic who became so enraptured with God's love that he floated into the air. He is thus the patron saint of those who fly, including astronauts. We had out retreat down here preached by a seminary professor on St. Joseph Cupertino and his mysticism. We also attended the official opening of the 350th anniversary of his death. The procession alone lasted about an hour an a half. During it, I noticed some of the vendors at the side of the street. One of them was selling T shirts that spoke of Duff Beer and had the image of Homer Simpson. I couldn't believe it. There were thousands of people along the route. This town is far south in Italy, in what they call the heel of the boot which is Italy. On Sunday, we visited our friars in Bari, about an hour and a half away. One runs a beautiful center for children from difficult families (both residential and day care). The courts assign these children to the center for care. It is run by a friar and his lay workers. They are all helped by a group of married couples. It was great. We then went to the Basilica of St. Nicholas of Bari. This is the St. Nicholas who has gone down in history as Santa Claus. He died in Asia Minor, but his body was brought to Italy during the crusades. We will be down here all week until Friday. Then it is back to Rome for a meeting on Saturday, and then a flight out to Los Angeles on Sunday. These are the books I finished this week: Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clark This is the story of the rise and fall of Prussia, a section of Germany which gave it its best (efficiency, an honest civil service, etc.) as well as its worse (militarism, dictatorship, etc.). It goes for the origin of this region in Germany all the way until it was officially dismantled after World War II. We see great characters such as Frederick the Great and Bismark, and tyrants such as the Nazi’s and others. It is really only the kind of book that someone who really, really likes history would enjoy. Fortunately, I do really, really like history.` Farewell: The Greatest Spy Story of the Twentieth Century by Eric Reaynaud This is the story of a Soviet KGB agent who became a traitor to his country and gave many, many secret documents to the French. This was right before the period when Ronald Reagan was president, and his revelations might have actually had an effect in how the Cold War ended. His documents showed the amount of information that was being stolen from the West by Eastern spies and double agents. The French, Americans and others were able to stop the loss of those documents, and they were then able to force the Soviets to try to keep up with their technological developments on their own, which bankrupted the system. The Soviet KGB agent did this as an act of revenge against the system of favoritism toward the children of the high bosses and petty corruption that he found in the KGB. He is not exactly that nice of a figure. He and his wife both had lovers. He tried to kill his lover and did kill an on-looker. It was only after that crime that he was caught and eventually executed. The book is good, but a little repetitive at times. It also makes conclusions that the stated evidence does not really warrant. Yet, it was a good read. The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 by Evan Thomas At the end of the 19th century, the United States went through a period of expansion which involved the conquest of Cuba, the Philippines and other Spanish colonies. This movement was pushed by three men in particular: Theodore Roosevelt who as assistant secretary of the navy and then as the Colonel in charge of the Rough Riders in Cuba pushed a manly approach to war, Henry Cabot Lodge, a senator for Massachusetts who would eventually scuttle the US participation in the League of Nations and William Randolph Hearst, the owner of a much-racking newspaper in New York which pushed for US involvement in Cuba by publicizing true and not so true accounts of Spanish repression there. Many in the States questioned this move for it seemed to betray our protection of democracy throughout the world and also make us too much the imperialistic powers of Europe. This became especially true in the Philippines where our army savagely attacked a local independence movement (which in its turn used savage tactics against our soldiers). The book is good, and provides a good insight into the personalities of those involved in these machinations. The Messiah of Morris Avenue by Tony Hendra This is the story of how Jesus comes back to an America that was taken over by fundamentalist Christians. He comes back as Jose, a Hispanic American who tries to correct some of the misunderstandings about the Christian message. The story is really quite good. At times, it goes a little over the top in trying to attacking institutional religion. Part of it was certainly borrowed from Dostoevsky’s scene of the Grand Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov. Jose is put to death for preaching peace and refusing to kill. I do have to admit that the story was good to read. It led to some good meditations on who Jesus is and what he wants of us. I hope you have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude

London - Crew - London - Ellicott City - Chicopee - Ellicott City - Rome

September 16, 2013 Peace and Good, This has been a most interesting week. The first part of it was attending the first chapter of the new custody of Great Britain and Ireland. This meeting went very well. The friar who was suggested as a possible custos (the equivalent of a provincial) was elected on the first ballot. On Thursday, fr. James McCurry and I had to fly back to the States so that we might attend the funeral of fr. Marion Tolczyk, one of our former provincials. He was the provincial who sent me over to Rome for my studies. He had also been the head of the Rosary Hour in Athol Springs, NY. While he was in the responsibility, he helped out our friars in Poland during the difficult years of Solidarity and the government crackdown. We flew to Baltimore on Thursday and then flew up on Southwest to Hartford the next morning. The funeral was in Chicopee, MA. Then, we both flew back to Baltimore that same evening. On Saturday evening, I flew back to Rome. Needless to say, my body has no idea of what time it is. My mind has very little idea of where I am at this point. Tomorrow we have another funeral, of fr. Matteo Leu, a Chinese friar who studied in Rome and then could not go back to China because of the Communists. He served the mission office here in Rome all his life. Yet, through a quirk in our legislation, he was a member of my province. Right after the funeral, the whole General Definitory will head down to Cupertino in southern Italy for our retreat and then for a definitory meeting next week. I finished some books: Marius’ Mules II: The Belgae by S.J.A. Turney This is the second book in this series that I have read. It is the story of Julius’ Caesar’s army fighting in Gaul (France) and now among the Belgae (Belgiums). The hero of the story is a gruff Roman legate named Fronto. We hear about the battles, even the massacres. Caesar comes across as a politician who will do almost anything to accrue power and prestige. The author gives a good sense of how battles were fought. He also gives a good sense of how one culture can destroy another, all in the so-called purpose of bringing civilization to the barbarians. The writing is good, but because it deals with battles, a bit gory. The Good Pope: The Making of a Saint and the Remaking of the Church – The Story of John XXIII by Greg Tobin Given that Pope John XXIII will be canonized shortly (I heard the rumor in Rome that it will be December 8th), I thought it was a good idea to read a biography about his life. Tobin’s book is highly favorable. It portrays a man who is highly intelligent but yet shows the simplicity of a farmer. He serves as a bishop’s secretary, and a seminary professor, and especially as a Papal Nuncio in Bulgaria, then Turkey and Greece and finally in France before he is appointed to be the Patriarch of Venice and then unexpectedly elected as pope. He was elected to serve a short term, name a number of cardinals (because the College of Cardinals number was quite low at that point), and then to die. He surprised everyone when he called the Second Vatican Council. He died just after the beginning of the council, but his decisions in its early months shaped the course of later decisions made under Paul VI. His nickname in Italy was “Il Papa Buono,” which means the Good Pope. By the way, the Italians have given Pope Francis that same nickname, which for Italians is just about the highest honor one could ever pay to a Holy Father. The Aleppo Codex: A True Story of Obsession, Faith, and the Pursuit of an Ancient Bible by Matti Friedman This is the story of a codex of the Bible that dated to the early Middle Ages and was one of the most accurate manuscripts that existed. During the War of Independence of Israel, there was a riot in Aleppo where the manuscript was kept. It disappeared for a number of years. When it was found again and brought to Israel (which was controversial because the Israeli government claimed it as its own instead of refugees from Aleppo), parts of it were missing. This book is an attempt to investigate the manuscript’s journey and to posit who might have taken the pages that disappeared. It is quite good, although the author does try to establish more suspense than the story deserves. The Copper Sign by Katia Fox This is the story of a young woman in the 12th century in England and France. She grows up helping her father who is a blacksmith, and she learns from him and other smiths how to make swords (although this is unthinkable for a woman to do in these times). In the meantime, she is persecuted by her mother, by her half-brother who is a knight, and by any number of people and situations along the way. She gathers around herself a group of people who were lost and down on their luck, and she builds a small community for them. She eventually fulfills her dream of making a sword for the king (almost by accident), and she becomes famous throughout the land. She is not a perfect person. She is driven in her goals, often forgetting and taking for granted the people around her. She is not all that nice to some people, although those relationships are slowly healed throughout the course of the book. Overall, it was a fairly good read. I hope you have a good week. Shalom Fr. Jude

South Bend - Chicago - London

September 9, 2013 Peace and Good, Well, I am on the other side of the Atlantic. I flew from South Bend (our novitiate is just outside of that city) to Chicago and then on to London on Saturday. It was a good flight, although as always it was long and tedious. I am here for a chapter of the new custody of Great Britain and Ireland which will take place about a three hour ride from here in a town called Crew, just outside of Manchester. We will be meeting to plan the future for the 25 friars who are part of this jurisdiction. The jurisdiction here was doing poorly for many years and it was demoted from being a province to being a delegation, but now they are moving up a notch to become a custody. This means that they have much more autonomy, making most of their decisions locally. I found out Saturday that one of the former provincials of St. Anthony Province passed away, so instead of lying back to Rome from here, on Thursday I have to fly back to the States for the funeral, and then back to Rome on Saturday night. To say the least, this is not ideal, given that jet lag really does a job on me. The good thing is that I will be flying back to go on retreat, so I will be able to rest up a bit. This past week my kindle book reader died. I bought a new one, a kindle fire which is the next level up. It is great, much easier to read than the old one. Furthermore, I was able to retrieve most of the books I had bought on the old kindle for a record of them was in the cloud. I am not really sure what that is, but it seems to be some type of super computer that stores all of these details. (Talk about Big Brother from Orwell.) I finished some books: Wild Blue: the men and boys who flew the B 24’s over Germany by Stephen Ambrose This is the story of the training and missions of the young men who joined the Army Air Corp (there was no Air Force until later) to fly the bombers over Germany. Specifically, Ambrose, who writes tons of books about the armed forces, speaks of George McGovern and his crew. This is the same McGovern who later ran for the presidency in opposition to the Vietnam War. Ambrose presents McGovern as a genuinely good young man who leads his crew into danger but watches out for them and proves to be a natural leader. His particular air wing flew out of Italy, and hit targets in Southern Germany, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. McGovern’s favorite missions were just after the war when he flew some of the surplus food that the army had to starving civilians. War can often brutalize people, but McGovern proved to be too decent to allow that to happen to himself and his crew. Late Antiquity: Crisis and Transformation by Professor Thomas F.X. Noble This is a Teaching Company course (36 lectures) on the period of history in Europe and Western Asia that ran from the time of Diocletian (the end of the 3rd century AD) up to the period after the reign of Charlemagne (c. 800 AD). While many history books judge this period to be the beginning of the Dark Ages, Noble shows it as a time of transition. It is a period that leads to the beginning of the formation of countries in Western Europe and the rise of three empires (that of Charlemagne, that of the Byzantine Empire, and that of the Islamic Caliphate). Many scholars discount anything written during this period as being a poor copy of classical literature, Noble again speaks of the greatness of some of the authors, especially figures such as St. Ambrose and St. Augustine. He covers economic, social, demographic, political, etc. considerations. It was really worth listening to this course. The Road by Cormac McCarthy This is easily one of the saddest books that I have ever read. It is about a father and a son who are wandering along on a road after a nuclear disaster which has left the land under perpetual nuclear winter (the dust from the explosions and fires have blocked out the sun). Many of the people they meet along the way are ready to murder one for some food or clothes. The man’s wife and boy’s mother had committed suicide because she just couldn’t go on to see their deaths. The boy has an innocence and goodness that has been worn out of the heart of the man. Although this book is very good, I would not recommend it to anyone unless that person is ready for a very depressing read. Have a good week. Shalom fr. Jude