World Day of the Poor

Today Pope Leo revealed the theme for the 10th World Day of the Poor to be observed November 15, 2026. He started with the opening line of Psalm 14: “The Lord is the refuge of the poor,” noting that those words were written in a dramatic period of Israel’s history when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. They “felt deprived of God’s presence and experienced unprecedented material and moral misery.” Pope Leo then suggested the poor in our time experience the same feelings.

St. Augustine Church

Today I biked to St. Augustine Church in downtown Louisville to check out the parking area to find a place where I can lock up my e-bike. Next Sunday I will have mass here, filling in for the pastor who will be away filling in for another priest.
I had mass at St. Augustine before but it was fifty-plus years ago when our Catholic Deaf Office used a classroom in this St. Augustine School for our ministry office after the school had been closed.

Modern Poverty

Fratelli Tutti #21

21. Some economic rules have proved effective for growth, but not for integral human development. Wealth has increased, but together with inequality, with the result that “new forms of poverty are emerging”. The claim that the modern world has reduced poverty is made by measuring poverty with criteria from the past that do not correspond to present-day realities. In other times, for example, lack of access to electric energy was not considered a sign of poverty, nor was it a source of hardship. Poverty must always be understood and gauged in the context of the actual opportunities available in each concrete historical period. ~ Pope Francis

Relief….

For almost a month now my computer has been acting erratically, becoming increasingly unusable. Particularly hard hit was my e-mail and I haven’t been able to respond to messages coming in. I have tried all sorts of troubleshooting, watched repair videos, done re-installs–everything. And still things got worse.

Then an hour ago the PC itself decided it had had enough. I got a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death) and an announcement that the system was collecting information about the error(s) and would reboot. No asking if that is what I wanted, just telling me it was in the process of shutting down.

And then when it rebooted, the major difficulties had disappeared and things were back to a normal I had previously known. Deo Gratias!

[For those of you waiting for replies, I hope they will now be quickly forthcoming!]

Biking Together

The Charlie Dittmeier (my father) sons and daughters love to get together and last night’s gathering was about more than food. A bunch of us are cyclists and Mary (L) and her husband Mike had a chance to show off their wheels to all of us. Mary’s bike (pink?, lavender?) is the same model as mine. The black cycle is one of Mike’s. He rides about 200 miles a week now that he is retired, including three or four 50+ mile rides. He also did the Triple Bypass in Colorado last year–three 10,000+ foot peaks in one day in a 120-mile race!

St. Meinrad Assembly

Thursday

Today was an abbreviated day: a session with the archbishop, a closing liturgy, and then lunch and departure.

The Monte Casino chapel about a mile from the archabbey. It’s used for seasonal celebrations and for events with visiting church groups.
At each gathering with the priests, Archbishop Shelton always has an open session in which anyone can ask anything or comment on current issues. The archbishop is a good listener and promises an answer soon if he can’t provide one off the top of his head.
Karen Shadle is head of the Office of Worship for the archdiocese and she attended the assembly to provide really wonderful music each day, in addition to liturgical materials prepared in advance. For each of the liturgies she was assisted by a choir of seminarians.
On flat land near the highway, the archabbey has created a solar farm more than an acre in size.

St. Meinrad Assembly

Tuesday
Morning prayer
David Shellenberger giving a wonderful presentation on priests’ physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health.
Discussing the Shellenberger talk during the break.

At the liturgy before lunch, Archbishop Shelton offered the sacrament of the sick to those who sought healing.
For the afternoon session, Fr. Eugene Hensell, OSB, a noted scripture scholar from St. Meinrad, spoke about the different pictures of St. Paul that appear in his writings.