Well, I'm on the road again this weekend, and this time it's personal. I'm off very early tomorrow morning to drive to a wedding in Rhode Island of two of my directees, and won't be back until late Sunday evening.
So I'm posting the 'TWIMH' post this evening. This week has been on many levels much the same as the past weeks, lots of guests here, lots of enthusiasm and energy and interest. Mark Schlingerman, the director of our lay men's department, acknowledged at the Saturday evening open forum seminar that this year's group of guests have been remarkable in their insightful questions and engagement in both matters of faith and matters of social relevance.
The theme this week has been 'What is Life? Giving and Receiving Love'. Remember that the over-riding theme of the summer program has been 'You Will Show Me the Path of Life, The Fullness of Joy in Your Presence'. Fr. Pelton gave, from all accounts, a beautiful talk on Wednesday evening, reading a chapter from his book Circling the Sun, speaking briefly on the theme and then entertaining questions for the last half hour of his time. As always... lots of questions.
What else? Early harvests are coming in - we are drowning in snow peas and zucchinis. Green beans are not too far behind. The first cut of hay is done, and it has been a great year for it--plentiful rains early on, lots of warmth in the growing time, and sunny days for the harvesting. Hard to ask for better than that.
Four of us priests went to the local shrine of St. Ann in nearby Cormac, which has an annual pilgrimage around the feast of Sts. Ann and Joachim each year, to help with confessions and concelebrate with the bishop at the Mass. It is always a great grace to hear confessions at these pilgrimage sites on their feast days, as there is a particular movement of the Spirit at work there--every priest reading this will know what I mean. People pour out their hearts when they go to confession while on pilgrimage, and are so open to the work of God.
Hard to know what else to say about this week's events. Every day seems to be so very packed with people, work, and happenings, and yet it's all either hidden works of God, not to be shared on social media even if we knew them, or very much the ordinary life of this little lay apostolate. It's also getting a bit late at night, so I'll sign off for now, and will be back blogging, God-willing Monday morning.