June 24, 2013
Dear Friends,
We keep getting forecasts of rain. We even get congratulations on same. The only thing we don’t get is rain. I spent a week in Kentucky for a meeting, and the air was so humid you could wring it out. We do have a bit of humidity—monsoons are upon us—but it never coalesces into water.
The meeting I attended, for directors of the Junior Professed, was exceptionally good, and we expect great things for our formation program. The new Regional Secretary of Formation is very well qualified and creative. The participants were open and inventive. Fr Carlos of the host house, Gethsemani, couldn’t have done more for us. It is always a privilege to participate in another monastery’s choir. We use the same Office they do—or rather, we have adopted their Office, so it was familiar. The choir seats are measured to the masculine, so pipsqueaks like me found their feet swinging.
I was overpowered by the amount of green—grass, trees, bushes—all over the place. Imagine, green. I love our western landscape, but green is also nice.
Wrentham’s Consecration crosses were made by Brother Rene from the former choir stalls of Gethsemani, and its black granite altar came from their crypt. The altar of our Virginia house also came from Gethsemani, which no longer needed so many once they adopted concelebration, but is colored. Our own altar of mesquite wood came from a local lumber yard, and was finished to perfection by Esther.
This morning was special, since it is the Solemnity of St John the Baptist. St John is the saint of Midsummer. You know—He must increase and I must decrease. So St John is patron of the summer solstice, and the winter solstice presides over Christmas. He is also a patron of the interior life, because of leaping in his mother’s
Womb at the coming of Christ.
Fr Robert is coming at the end of the month, so since we are priestless until then, Vicki invited our parish’s administrator to come for Mass and a festive breakfast. It happened to be the anniversary of his Ordination. He has had so many careers, including marriage, father-and grandfatherhood, airforce, his own business, and probably things I have forgotten. We had a great time.
And we are having what the media calls a super moon. I THOUGHT the moon was
unusually bright these last few nights. The shadows are as black as if it were
daylight.
Unfortunately, such a moon kills the light of the stars, so our normal sparkle gets
Dimmed. But one cannot have everything.