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Good morning from the humid glory of Florida in July where I am enjoying working with a new group of Catechists of the Good Shepherd only a mile from the beach. Yes, it is very rough, but someone has to do it! We are on Day Three now and swimming in work more than waves, so I’ll be brief, but I wanted to share that last week I got wonderful news from the Catholic Media Association. Two pieces I wrote received awards at their 2022 awards ceremony.
I’ve enjoyed the gift of spending a good amount of time this past month at the Terra Sancta Retreat Center outside Rapid City, SD. If you ever get the chance to go there, you should. A wonderful, sacred setting in the Black Hills with marvelous hospitality and lots of space to roam. This time round there were no rattlesnake or mountain lion sightings as there have been in the past… but my friend Karen did get charged by a wild turkey.
Today marks the feast of St. Thomas More--one of the saints that I profile in Redeeming Administration—and, gosh, I’ve been thinking about him a lot lately.
How do you imagine the Holy Spirit? If you are anything like me, the picture that accompanies this posting is definitely NOT it. Dove. Fire. Wind. Breath. These I am all familiar with, but sister of “The Heat Miser” from my favorite Christmas cartoon?… That’s never been part of the litany.
If all goes well, by the time you read this, I will be home in bed after a long flight back from Munich to Atlanta. But that is not where I am right now. Right now I am on a train to Zurich and then onward to Germany in search of that tiny town of Oberammergau. Everything that has been said about Swiss trains is totally true. You can set your watch by them. They tell me that the German trains have lots of problems and sometimes are very late. I ask them what “late” means in Germany and they say.
If all goes well, by the time you read this, I will be in another country. No, I’m not fleeing the law or anything that exciting. Rather, my husband and I are attempting to finally do our 25th wedding anniversary trip. We’ve been trying for so long that we’ve now been married for 28 ½ years. But even as I have a hard time putting anything in print for fear of jinxing it, I do think that it will happen this time. We will be starting in Amsterdam and moving down the Rhine toward Oberammergau for the famed Passion Play.
After several weeks on the road, I was eager to get back to Atlanta and sleep in my own bed… but my husband had other plans. “I think you should go to St. Louis for Easter,” he said. “It’s been years now since you were able to be at the whole Triduum celebration at College Church. Years since you got to dye eggs and hunt them down on Easter morn. Years since you got ham and party potatoes and jelly beans.” All this was true. When there are just two adults in the household, you are not so likely to go on Easter egg hunts and buy candy for yourself. Now, mind you, sending me off to St.
Palm Sunday Mass this year at my parish had it all going on. Technical glitches so that you could only hear two of the three Passion readers. To my left, a duo of five year olds using their palm fronds to sword fight. To my right, a wailing infant. Me in the middle improvising the congregational responses within the Gospel as I had neglected to pick up the worship aid once I realized that Mass had started at 10:15, not 10:30. Oh, and did I mention that this was all taking place outside?
Those of you who know me well know that I avoid the cold as much as possible. But of late, I’ve not been particularly successful in keeping the chill from my bones. Good morning from Contoocook, New Hampshire where it is about 5 degrees. Okay, I may be exaggerating, but not by much. The picture above is from Park City, Utah where I was earlier this month. The wind off Lake Michigan in Chicago mid-month was also pretty bitter. And next week I’ll be in London, Ontario.
This past Sunday, we read (as we always do the Second Sunday of Lent) the perplexing story of the Transfiguration where Jesus and three of his friends ascend an unnamed mountain and find themselves immersed in divine cloud. It’s such a mysterious episode that each time it pops up in the lectionary I find myself wondering: What really is trying to be communicated here? What are we supposed to take from this? There are, of course, thousands of commentaries on this story.