A little update

Soccer practice has been going well thus far. The team is energetic and they're practicing well. It seems to me that they will play well together, overall.

The majority of our games this season are away and travelling with the team is always a great deal of fun. I'm looking forward to the conversations that we'll have, both at the bench and on the bus. I'm not so much there to coach as I am for moral support, sort of an unofficial mascot, if you will. I know that, and they know that.

One of our soccer players, Craig, who blogs at Argyle socs n' mocs, shared a few reflections on the benefits of playing soccer.

Today they had an easy practice painting the goal posts, benches and fields. When it was announced at the end of practice yesterday that we'd be painting the field, not a few of us were a little concerned. We've made several 10' x 10' boxes for practice and these boxes have not been very straight at all. It seems that most of us aren't really capable of walking in a straight line, myself included. Happily, though, the lines today turned out mostly straight.

At Mass this morning I preached the homily given last year on this day by Pope Benedict XVI. As I read through it looking for ideas for my own homily I really liked what he said and decided it would be just as easy to preach as it was than to rework it. It worked rather well.

Aside from soccer practice, it's been a quiet day. I've been rather tired all day today, probably because the weather seems to be up to something. I've heard it's supposed to storm, but we'll see what happens.

I've spent a good part of the day simply resting - always a good thing to do on a holyday - and reading. Right now I'm working my way through Leper Priest of Molokai: The Father Damien Story. The book is authored by a professor of medicine and, despite a few inaccuracies (minor theological ones, mostly) it is a gripping tale. I don't really want to put it down.

Nevertheless I have put it down a few times, but only to work on Sunday's homily. The Gospel passage is one of the more difficult ones to preach on, so I've gotten to work early and, by the grace of God, I think it's nearly finished.

Let each of us continue to rejoice in this festal day as we celebrated the Assumption of our Blessed Mother!