A little update

It occurred to me this afternoon that I haven’t done a great deal of blogging since before Christmas, so I thought I might rectify the situation with a general update of sorts.

We’ll start back at Christmas.

The original plan was to return home on Christmas day after Mass but given the state of my arthritis I would not have been able to survive the three-and-a-half hour (in good traffic and driving somewhat close to the speed limit) drive home. I spent Christmas day in the rectory wrapped under an afghan a good friend made for me when I graduated from college reading a few good books. It was very nice.

I drove home the day after Christmas and spent the evening with my family. My nephew Matthew has grown quite a bit since last I saw him, which was back before July; I’m simply too far away to return home too often without neglected duties here at the parish. He is one 18 months old and knows three very important words: cookie, puppy and Elmo. I’d post pictures of him but I seem to have left my camera cable in my office and I don’t feel like venturing out in the fifteen degree temperatures (and zero wind chill, or so). He’s very cute now and has a hilarious laugh. I’m happy to say that my family is doing well.

The next day I had lunch with a group of friends that used to meet together on Tuesday nights for food and fun in my college days. We called ourselves – and sometimes still do – the Tuesday Night Supper Club. We try to get as many of us together as we can when I back in town: there are five or six couples and myself. Only six of us were able to get together last week, but it was good to see them. Hopefully the next time I’m back we can get more of us together.

That afternoon the priests of our Diocese joined the seminarians and the Bishop for Vespers and dinner in Springfield. This event is part of one of two annual gatherings that the seminarians have. The priests join them for dinner at Christmas and their parents join them for dinner in the summer. It is a good time for the priests to meet the seminarians and get to know them better, and also a good time for the priests to catch up with each other. After the dinner I returned to the parish.

Since returning, life has been relatively quiet around here, for which I am deeply grateful! Basically I’ve been celebrating Mass in the morning and, having no other pressing obligations, have pretty well been keeping low and hiding in my suite. It’s been very necessary and very restful.

Perhaps the greatest benefit has been the opportunity to rest and expend as little energy as possible so as to combat this cold I’ve had. It’s almost gone and by the time Monday arrives I expect it will be gone.

I’ve also been able to do quite a lot of reading, finishing one issue of First Things, two issues of Catholic Answers, two issues of The Rock, and the Pope’s The Blessing of Christmas (which if you haven’t read you should) . I also watched A Man for All Seasons and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

I’ve also taken the last few days to organize my suite and office again, which prior to Christmas looked rather like disaster areas (Christmas should always fall on a Wednesday, thereby giving priests both time to recover from the previous weekend and time to prepare for the coming weekend). I even cleaned out the closet in the hallway outside of my suite which seemingly hadn’t been thoroughly cleaned in some fifteen years, judging from a piece of mail I found.

In short, it’s been a very enjoyable few days, but normal priestly activities resume in the morning with first Friday Communion calls and classes start back up for me again on Monday.